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Ark Construction & Project Mgmt Reviews (1)

Review: I hired ARK to do an addition onto my existing house. They started by digging to close to my chiminy per plans said 4' min. and they dug 2.5'. The chiminy collapsed. He said he would fix it later. At this point I had already given him more than half the money. The concrete in the basement was poured crooked. LVL beams were notched. No joist hangers were put in just toe nailed. I had to pay an engineer to come out to tell him he was building it all wrong and he argued that he wasn't. The first floor is 2" to low and the 2nd floor is 2" to high. The entire addition is crooked to the house. One wall in the front is 14' long and the parallel wall is 13' long. He left the wood and roof uncovered all winter so that all of the OSB board on the floor warped. The ice and water guard wasn't adhered to the roof just a few nails so it leaked. The roof on the addition was never finished to the existing house so I had a gaping hole for snow and rain to get in. After the inspector came and failed the framing he never came back to finish the job or deliver the shingles that I paid for. The project was supposed to take 30-40 days. He left after 6 months.Desired Settlement: I would like a refund in the amount it has cost me to fix all of the issues that he caused and didn't fix. I did get a settlement from his insurance company in the amount of $7,500 to fix the chiminy. I am still working on the project so I haven't come up with a final figure but I have spent about $20,000 so far.

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Customer desired to save money by hiring their own designer for the addition and to perform certain aspects of the addition. I (ARK) usually do not accept this for jobs this large due to the details needed to build properly. ARK requires to use their own designer for large additions and new construction because we know we will get all specs in writing and there will be no questions throughout the job from start to finish. Or we will refer a qualified designer to customer. I allowed customer to go his own route with designs since I have known this customer for some years and thought I could trust that he would give us what we needed to perform the job in terms of prints. Customer went through numerous designers to get what he wanted and none of them provided detailed specs on blueprints for the job of this magnitude. The job was supposed to begin in spring of 2013 but did not start until late fall of 2013 due to delays with the designers. I stated numerous times before work began we need more details. There were no footer/foundation prints, framing prints, roof prints, or prints of any kind that showed the attaching of the addition into the existing house. All that was provided were rough dimensional prints and outlines of perimeters of addition and footer. There were no specs on any products being used in addition or roof. There were no detailed prints of any structural beams or posts of how they should be installed, secured, and to what and with what hardware. Professional blue prints will have multiple angles of site and addition with all specs to the point. None of this was provided. Customer had to have his prints stamped by an engineer to be accepted for the township to receive the permit for building. Customer was responsible for obtaining permit since Ark did not use their own designers. The engineer who stamped the drawings was not the designer who designed the addition and they failed to get details before stamping from the customer and designer on what was desired. They simply stamped it. . How do I know this? Customer states he had to “pay an engineer to come and tell me I was building it wrong and I argued that I wasn’t”, was not true! This occurred when we were building the roof with no prints. We did not know structurally how it was supposed to be built due to the large roof load and open air space. . Since we had no prints, I stated to customer that I was not comfortable building this magnitude of a roof without the engineer to approve things and put them on paper. I (ARK) asked customer to have the engineer who stamped the basic drawings of perimeters of another designer to come out and approve of how this roof needed to be built to code. I (ARK) requested an engineer and I (ARK) halted the job until it was approved. The engineer who stamped, arrived one day at a set meeting on site. We had our main questions about the roof, so we met on the second floor. This included five people. From the beginning, the customer directed us to build two main reverse gables off of the main roof gable structure with open air walkthroughs from area to area. Meaning the main roof rafters did not go all the way to the supporting structure of the addition to achieve these open walkthrough areas into both reverse gables which were to be separate rooms from the customer’s perspective. The engineer stated to the customer at the meeting on site, “I don’t remember you wanting the design of the roof this way with open walk areas into both reverse gables.” Engineer stamped the roof to have both reverse gables simply as dead space reverse gables so the main structure roof holding the reverse gables had full length rafters from the peak down to structural beams on the first floor walls. This is not what the customer wanted at all, so right away I knew the engineer who stamped these basic drawings did not know what was going on. The engineer then had to charge the customer to go back to his office to design how the roof the customer wanted on paper for us to build to make sure it passed code. This allowed for a 3-4 week delay during winter months for the engineer and customer to be on same page and to provide roof stamped drawings. The engineer still only designed one of the reverse gables and not the other and they both are totally different sizes. Lack of details needed once again. This was a major delay on customer’s part. If I did not request the engineer to come out, then it potentially would have been built wrong. I actually tried to get the designer out there with the engineer who stamped them also, but he would not return my calls. He eventually called me back days later and said the customer and he were fighting about money so he has no say in his designs anymore. ARK took the necessary steps for safety on this major part. I have all documentation and email communication to support this. Customer, in an effort to save money, also bought his own backhoe to do the excavation himself. The excavator and the general contractor on job (the customer) was to lay out entire addition on ground in terms of location for him to dig and for ARK to come in and build. ARK was not contracted to do the excavation. Customer took over a month to lay out the addition and to dig it, but did not finish it. He never finished digging and asked for help. I referred someone to him who came in and helped customer finish digging. ARK’s job was to start our work when the basement was dug and complete. ARK started by digging footers and prepping them. We dug the footer in the exact location customer’s basic drawings showed. Customer stated we dug at 2.5 foot from chimney base and that is correct because the 4-foot mark was the inside of basement of addition of new block wall supporting addition. The blocks where 12” blocks. This requires a 2-foot-wide footer, so to get the block wall shown on drawings, the earth had to be dug at 2.5 feet from existing house. ARK poured footers and built the foundation to customer’s excavation layouts and the basic prints shown to us with dimensions off existing house. Majors delays happened in the foundation build due to flooding in addition and thick mud. Customer was responsible for all drainage work as stated in contract. These were un-workable conditions. ARK built an extra wall with foundation blocks to help support the chimney area as requested by customer. Customer’s responsibility was to pour his own concrete and support base of chimney in that area for the stairs in addition and for the chimney support. Ark only had to pour basement floor. Customer took over 2 months to do what was his responsibility. The weather and flooding in basement was his responsibility to control according to our contract and since he was the excavator on the job. The concrete floor Ark poured in basement eventually cracked towards the front since the water issues where never resolved during the entire job and the customers drains did not work. Ark used Fiber in the concrete and it still cracked. Rebar would not of even helped this. This would never of happened if water was dealt with after the foundation was built.Close to 2 months went by and ARK had framed the entire first floor. Then one morning, the base of the chimney which consisted of an 8” footer and about three rows of bricks fell off the bottom of the chimney into the blocked foundation area he was supposed to have filled with poured concrete. I helped customer that morning before we continued with framing, to temporarily support the chimney so it would not continue to fall away from the old house. Another month or more go by with only the temporary supports holding up the chimney and over this time customer continually debated on removing entire chimney or not depending on what his final plans where inside the house. It was not a structural issue at all but personal preference of his. At this time, we were already building the second floor and since the second floor was being built, customer, his father and another worker (not ARK’s) decided to remove the entire chimney brick by brick – the chimney was over 25 feet tall. They used our new second floor to walk on to take the chimney down bucket by bucket lowered with a rope. So, the chimney never collapsed but only the little base footer did – which was his responsibility as excavator and general contractor. Customer turned the chimney “collapse” into my insurance to try to get money for it. Again, it never fell, it was taken down. My insurance understood this and denied coverage. Customer used a lawyer to try and get money from my insurance and my insurance denied liability of damages, but awarded customer $4,500 to avoid litigation and to keep the peace. Customer signed this document and it was notarized stating customer cannot place any future claims on ARK for any reasons with concerns to the addition. I have this document in writing, notarized and signed by both parties. My insurance and even customer’s lawyer understand customer is the main person responsible for all the “issues” and that is why he was told to sign the document from my insurance that is notarized. Concrete in basement was poured to what customer requested us to do. ARK asked if he wanted slope to the middle to the drains installed by the customer and he stated “no”. Customer and ARK agreed to have some slope by doors for potential water infiltration from outside since customer was not taking care of his water issues anytime soon. Customer was responsible for all drainage, French drains and water issues during job and after job. The entire job was flooded all winter long which caused major delays. Toward the end of the job, the customer was installing his French drains, which should have been installed the day after the foundation was built. The main drain line connecting his inside and outside drains was not properly built. From the addition out to the creek, he ran solid thin walled 4” pipe to drain all drains around addition. He simply connected the pipe and did not properly fill stone or sand in and around it, but dropped large piles of mud on top of it from his backhoe crushing most of the pipe, if not all. The day he did this, it was the same as always a huge mud pit. Over the following weeks after he did the final drain line, nothing drained. The basement was flooded every day and it turned to solid ice time to time and delays added up. All claims from the customer concerning things not built to length or height or any other related claim, was all due to the fact there was not a single detailed blue print on the job as stated above. The ice and water guard cannot be installed in the dead of winter. I (ARK) began to install roofing underlayment without the ice and water shield, at the same time notifying customer of this since it would not adhere in the winter. Customer would have to put on at a later time in the spring. Customer said to put a few nails in it to hold it up and some day when it warms the tar would adhere. It was customer’s responsibility to shingle the roof as stated in contract.There was not one print outlining with specs of how addition roof was to meet and attach to existing house. We built the reverse gable as shown on some basic drawings and with guidance from customer, we closed in the gable end on top of the customer’s existing roof to prevent weather intrusion until customer had specs on what else to build for final tie in. He never received the specs. I have pictures to prove this. Inspector came to the house when I and the customer were present. Inspector failed two simple things that I (ARK) did return to fix in the following two weeks: 1) The second floor needed to have double 2 x10’s instead of single which was approved by his engineer and that I did perform and, 2) One section of first floor needed to add three studs under an LVL helping to support the roof. I have videos and pictures proving the repairs were made by ARK. The project was to take 30-40 days in perfect weather and if customer performed all his duties as stated in contract. Mud, flooding, snow, engineer and customer miscommunication, no one being on the same page, designers taking 6 months to get basic perimeter drawings to us - this all caused major delays. The customer did pay for the shingles due to the fact that customer would not sign and pay for almost $3,000 in change orders already performed on the job during the foundation phase and first floor framing phase. My contract includes a change order clause, stating that customer is responsible for paying for any and all additional work and materials. I was not comfortable bringing more materials on site when customer would not sign the change orders and would not pay for changes they requested. This is all stated in contract between both parties that ARK has the right to halt work due to customer injection. The overall scope of what happened all stems from the customer wanting and trying to save money, the blueprint/design, engineer miscommunication, customer’s excavation issues, and more all stated above.

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Description: CONSTRUCTION & REMODELING SERVICES, HOME IMPROVEMENTS- ADDITIONS, REMODELING SERVICES, TREE SERVICE, CONCRETE CONTRACTORS, CONTRACTORS-GENERAL, HOME IMPROVEMENTS

Address: Street address on file with BBB, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, United States, 15068

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