LAVALLEY LUDLOW BUILDING SPLY

Overall, LaValley's was not terrible, but they certainly were not great, either. Their costs are quite high, but there are not very many options in this region to supply total building materials. I believe they estimated low in the beginning, to get us hooked, but took every opportunity to increase the final contract price after blueprints were done (about 15% to 20%), using weak rationale for the cost increases. LaValley's accounting system is confusing to the customer, between contracted "package items", "allowance items" identified in the contract, and non-package additional items (identified as "extras". The customer must be very alert to every line item. Also, they played an "allowance game", where they charged $500+ more for oak flooring than the allowance in the contract, for no apparent reason. We, the customers, had changed nothing which affected the amount, quality, etc. of the flooring. When we challenged this, after attempting to explain it away, they relented and provided some additional materials for a subsequent improvement project at no additional charge as an "offset". Sometimes, phone calls and emails to the project manager would go unanswered for days - a good guy, who appears to be grossly overloaded. Sometimes, our carpenter would have to call the general manager of the operation toy get responsiveness for materials needed at the job site. Several delivery errors also occurred, where our materials were delivered elsewhere, or materials due to another job were delivered to our property, or materials were delivered without pre-arrangement when someone should be here to receive the delivery and ensure the materials could get under cover. They always corrected the errors, but all of this caused added delays and frustrations. Although our circumstances prevented us from shopping around for some big ticket items (like kitchen & bath cabinets) we found their prices to be double the going prices for certain items (toilets, sink, plumbing fixtures, tile labor, etc.) Speaking of kitchen cabinets, the kitchen design was not well coordinated with the house structure design. Thankfully, due to our vigilance and hands-on verification on site after rough framing, we caught a few major problems with the kitchen design just in time to get the design changed before the cabinets were built. We had to propose a re-design solution ourselves, at the last minute. Regarding quality, LaValley's highly recommended Andersen 400 series windows, but I would rate the windows as mediocre, after living in the new house four months. The removable interior grilles, in particular, are flimsy, do not fit well, and break easily ! Also, the inside pane of the glass on the Andersens is a lot colder than it should be when the outdoor temperature is less than 15 degrees Farenheit. LaValley's also highly recommended Hardi-Plank cement board clapboard siding material as a permanent, maintenance free exterior. We have since learned from multiple sources in the building industry that Hardi-Plank has many issues, most notably deterioration from moisture. Thankfully, we opted for a high quality rigid molded polyethylene siding material (by CertainTeed), but this cost us almost $8,000 more than the siding allowance (for Hardi-Plank) in the LaValley's contract. There were numerous other "glitches", too many to write, all were addressed one way or another, but the customer and builder have to stay right on top of LaValley's. In the end, we got the house built without major flaws (except the windows), but it could have been a whole lot smoother. So, I rate LaValley's a "C", and my primary suggestions to LaValley's to improve would be: 1. hire at least one more capable project manager, 2. ensure detailed coordination of kitchen design with house design, 3. improve the training and/or the hiring standards for delivery people, 4. work to be more cost competitive, 5. simplify the accounting system presentation to the customer, and 6. don't low-ball early estimates based on cheapest possible approaches, hiking actual costs later when the customer is committed.