Able Remodeling, Inc.

It went very well, they were very professional and on time.

I would definitely hire Able Remodeling in the future. Chris Smith the owner was absolutely professional throughout the process. He guided me to make decisions that were cost effective. His lead carpenter, Gabriel Brennan, did 90 % of the work from start to finish and he was fabulous! Punctual, knowledgeable, very tidy, and again offered wonderful suggestions. They put me on the schedule and followed through without a hitch.

They did a fabulous job and they are just wonderful people to work with.

Chris Smith was very professional in meeting with us to review our needs in a home we moved into 6 years ago. We needed to add a bathroom to our upstairs area with shower. We wanted to bump out a wall to enlarge our kitchen and create an eating area. We spend most of our time in this room now . We wanted to change the layout of the kitchen and have new cabinets, sink and appliances installed. We wanted to enlarge our garage and add another door and opener to be able to drive through.
Able worked with their design team and presented a three phase plan that would minimize disruption to our lifestyle and all within our budget. After we signed a contract with Able, the project was handled by their project manager and lead carpenter. Everone was very professional, courteous and very accomodating to make sure we were comfortable with their presence in our home.
Throughout the project they kept a clean work area. Dust was at a minimum with their dust control practices. In all, having our home remodeled was a very plesent experiences and we made some new friends along the way. We highly recomend their services and will be using them for another project we are beginning to think about, sometime in the near future.

We had to put new doors in because of ta leak. We needed an out swing door. We picked up doors. The door we ordered didn't seem like it was going to fit. Asked about retro fitting?.. They said they would make it fit. They seemed like they knew what they were doing. They didn't need measuring specifications. They put the door in. They didn't insulate. They put some weird trim on to cover up hole. They didn't caulk. We had a wind problem with door afterwards. Now we have cold wind blowing into the house. We wanted this door/area to be weather proof. They tried to charge me with errors they made for coming back. There are gaps in wood. They took away wood. All kinds of problems, and now we can't open the door.

Wife and I had wanted to Remodel/Finish our basement. We were given Able Remodel and Chris Smith's name from a neighbor and interviewed several other contractors. In today's economy we really tried to keep our money and quot;in townand quot; (use a local contractor). If you read the ABLE website you'll see where it says and quot;we will work 40 hours per week until your job is doneand quot; - we liked that. The estimate they gave was clear and orderly. His price was middle of the road.

Met Chris and we liked him on a personal level. Discussed this with our neighbors who used him who mentioned after the initial bid from Chris we likely will not ever see him until job is done. He's more the salesman for Able remodel. He turns the actual job over to another and quot;lead carpenterand quot;/ Foreman type. Neighbors recommended a lead carpenter named and quot;Vernand quot;. We asked for him, Chris told us we'd have someone else who and quot;taught Vern all he knewand quot;. His name was Gabriel Brennan. We asked to meet himand we did.

Rather than go into a blow by blow of events, suffice it to say it became obvious we were not getting a 40 hour week on our project. Gabriel would promise us he would be there the next day at 9am. Rarely showed up before 10. After a while we knew the pattern - If he was not at our home by 10 he would be there at 1. If not by 1 then he would not come at all. I bet he was running 2 jobs - probably a side job too. That's no big deal to us but **JUST LET US KNOW**. It was funny the excuses we'd hear each day. Even neighbors who used ABLE in the past commented to us that this carpenter was barely showing up. Able has good subcontractors.

After 10 weeks of this it was NOT funny. The 6 week project took over 12 weeks. I constantly needed to call to see if they were there, what were they doing, did they do what the contract said. It was miserable. I realized I could have hired my own sub contractors to do this. The worst part came on the last day. Before the final walk through. When we had the bathroom put in they had to cut the concrete and put the plumbing in. The plan was to have this concrete patched. Well it was never done. We had asked Gabriel if this was done weeks ago and his reply to my wife and I was and quot;Of course it wasand quot;. It wasn't. That was the last straw.

I pointed what had been happening out to Chris in an email...His response via email was to accuse us of causing the problem (how?). Said we embarassed him in front of the city inspector by pointing this out and that Gabriel was a loyal worker of his (yes but this does not make him a steady worker ). I told him he can say what he wants but in the end they did not do something they said they'd do in the signed contract (breech of contract). In the end we got what we wanted but it took lots of checking and rechecking to get there!

*Note: the work Able does comes with a 1 year warranty. About a month after they were done we encountered something to be remedied under warranty. Chris' answer was for us to fix it ourselves and send him the bill.

We interviewed many local contractors. They were all about the same price and all had good reviews. My wife who essentially likes everyone does not want to use this company again.For our future work we'll use someone else- there are lots of good people out there.