Before we started our addition, we had heard that adding on to your home is a "nightmare", but this exceeds anything I could have ever imagined.
Over the course of the project, we dealt with a contractor who was not only extremely unprofessional, but also abandoned the job leaving us with $40,000 - $50,000 worth of structural issues on an $85,000 project (addition, renovation and roof reconfiguration).
Following is a list of the major issues that we had during the construction project:
• Foundation collapse, which we tried to talk about BEFORE it happened, but the contractor would not listen.
• Excessive water damage in all rooms of the house because we went a week without shingles on the new roof. The contractor filed a claim with his insurance company and received a check to repair the damage, but never did.
• Excessive heat loss during the coldest part of the winter because we went 5 weeks without walls in between the exising house and the un-insulated addition, resulting in running out of oil and incurring extra oil bills.
• Frozen pipes in the existing house because we had to shut the heating zone down.
• Brand new deck boards ruined during removal and now need to be replaced.
• Siding & trim work not done correctly – needs to be completely re-done.
• Complete disregard for our personal possessions (ex. Existing basement & personal possessions covered in sawdust, spilled coffee on new rugs and not cleaned up leaving an untreated stain, drop ceiling in existing basement taken down and ruined. Broken tiles never replaced).
• The way that the contractor spoke to us (ex. When discussing money, stating that we were “sticking it up his ass” or that this job was “the job from hell”)
• Dumpster removal – not removing full dumpster for months, leaving nowhere for construction debris to go, but piled up inside the addition and in the front yard.
• Plasterers smoking IN the addition/house while no one was home. We are not smokers nor do we allow people to smoke in our home.
• New hallway wall – not plumb.
• Plumbing in the attic run over the joists even though he knew that we wanted to finish the upstairs. Now, the plumbing upstairs will need to be moved out of the way before we can proceed with our plans for the second floor.
• Broken cellar window during siding, never fixed.
• Working half days for the majority of the project
• Demanding payment in full multiple times before the project was complete.
• Contractor fell from our living room ceiling and broke his ribs. When he fell, our living room ceiling was completely exposed to the attic space which was un-insulated. The temperatures dropped to 25 degrees that night. Mike spent the rest of the night re-installing the ceiling joists and getting the blue board and insulation in place. The contractor called the following day with a plan for someone else to come over the following day to re-install the ceiling joists & strapping, but still no insulation & drywall. We would have again been in a situation where we were losing heat rapidly had we waited for the contractor to resolve the issue. The fall rendered him unable to work for weeks.
• On May 24, 2011, we received a bill from him in the amount of $3,960.00 for “overages”. None of the overages were ever previously discussed nor agreed upon in mutually agreed upon change orders.
His last day on the job was April 27, 2011.
We were at the end of the project and the contractor refused to continue working until he was paid in full. We refused to pay him the final $6,000 (per his contract) until the work was 100% complete. He stopped work and abandoned the job. At the time he abandoned the job, we thought all the issues were cosmetic.
In June, we brought another contractor in to give us an estimate on fixing the shoddy vinyl siding job that was done by the original contractor and he pointed out significant structural issues. We then hired an engineer to come and inspect the structure and he confirmed the second contractor’s assessment of the damage and he provided us with a detailed report detailing $40,000 worth of repairs. On top of the structural issues, there was also approximately $10,000 worth of cosmetic damage that the contractor refused to fix.
On July 8, 2011, a mediation led by the FHA consultant assigned to the loan was held between us and the contractor. In the meeting, our contractor agreed to have a structural engineer draw up a plan to fix the issues and he would fix the work. A week later, we were informed by the FHA consultant that the contractor was unwilling to pay a structural engineer to produce a plan and that he was not willing to fix the issues. We figured that would be the case.
Another interesting tidbit of information is that ALL of the town building inspections had passed as of May. How could all of this work have passed inspection??? Good question...one to which I do not have an answer to and am very baffled by myself. After presenting all of the structural reports to the building inspector, he then turned around and threatened to condemn our home if it wasn't fixed by the first snowfall. So, again, we thought, how does this all pass inspection and then he threatens to condemn our home. HUH?!
Oh AND - another interesting tidbit of information - the contractor has placed a lien on OUR property because he still thinks we owe him money. JERK!
So, after all was said and done, we were stuck with $40,000 - $50,000 worth of damages to our home, a contractor that was not willing to take responsibility for his mistakes, a building inspector threatening to condemn our home if it's not fixed within a few months and we have no access to the limited amount of money we had left in escrow on our loan because their is a lien on our property - PERFECT!
For almost 2 years we followed every rule and did everything that was asked of us from both the town building department and the bank. Somehow the process failed us immensely. We couldn't believe what was happening to us after everything that we had gone through with Katie's illness and to now be facing homelessness - THIS WAS A TRUE NIGHTMARE!!! It just didn't seem fair.
We were devestated and pretty hopeless when the VP of our bank put us in touch with Charbel Najem, CEO of Capstone General Contracting.
Charbel came to our home with a few crew members and agreed to fix all of the structural issues ($40,000 worth of repairs) for the amount we had left in escrow on our loan (15,000). We were in shock that this amazing company was going to step in and save us from homelessness.
Charbel sent over his own structural engineer and they devised a cost effective solution for all the issues.
Their crew started work at the beginning of December and finished 8 days later. We had to open up some of the new walls so that they could put in support beams and we had to repaint all of those areas. Although we hated seeing our new walls be torn open again, we knew it all needed to be done to secure the safety of our home.
I won't bore you with the details of everything that they needed to do to secure the home, but to say that they fixed both the issues with the foundation and the roof, obtained occupancy from the town and put this nightmare to rest.
Their team was both pleasant and professional...completely opposite from the first contractor.
We cannot even put into words how thankful we feel for them. In our eyes, it wasn’t just a construction project; they truly gave us our lives back. The relief that we feel has given us such a sense of peace. It is such a blessing to have this gift right before the holidays. We are truly grateful to the Capstone team for all that they have done for us.
The next steps with the original contractor will be formal complaints with the state against the original contractor.
I decided to post a lot of the gory details of this nightmare because I hope someone will learn from our mistakes. Firstly, do your homework - get references. Not just general references, but ask for references for similar projects. If your doing an addition, ask your chosen contractor for references for addition jobs. Ask them hard questions about their experience. We thought we had picked a "good guy" and we thought we were getting the deal of the century with his quote, but we got what we paid for and it ended up costing us SO MUCH MORE in the end. Be careful - there are a lot of scumbags out there.
If you have a construction project, I would HIGHLY recommend the Capstone team.
If you are still reading and are curious about the name of the original contractor email me. I will happily give you his name.
If you are still reading and are curious about the name of the original contractor email me. I will happily give you his name.
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