Custom Built Decks

Review: had john s[redacted] come to our home and develop a plan for a deck upgrade. The time period was August 2014. At that time, he requested a 20% deposit. We were very unsure with his business process, so we got him to settle for a $5k deposit. He estimated that the work would get started about October time frame. During the time leading up to October is was very very difficult to get in contact with him. When we did, he always said we were on the schedule and would get back to us. Very poor customer service. We started having doubts that he was not going to do the work and took our $$. Finally in Dec 2014, the permit and plans came to us for our permit. Long story short, the information is still not dun correctly and we need more infomration in the paperwork. Now, Jan 6 2015.. I have called the number and no Voicemail. This is awful and disgraceful way to do business. John showed up at our door before Christmas to give us the application for the permit and said.. it should all be there. When my husband took it to township. NOt completely filled in. NOw we can't get in touch with him.Desired Settlement: phone call, and a number that works to get in touch with him

visit with him to go through paperwork

get this thing submitted in good standing. Or we want our $$ back and forget the service.

Business

Response:

Please see attached response.

Review: We signed a contract in December for a deck to be built by March 2014 or a full refund. We were asked to put 90% down, but put down $20,000 or 62% of the total. We have since been asked for an additional $10,000 more from the owner, which we agreed to because we just wanted the deck progress to move forward as it was already several months past the contracted finish date. The deck is no where close to being done and it is the end of June. The mason contracted to do the stonework cannot order the stone as he has not gotten paid by the owner for the past 3 jobs he has done. The deck has not passed inspection and has quite a bit of work to do in order to pass inspection before any more work can even be done on the deck. We were told by the owner that he would get the plans stamped by an engineer in order to move forward. The township has not received any paperwork from the owner to date. In addition, the inspector said he would not accept a stamped copy of the plans, but instead needed explanations of how each item that failed inspection would be handled. We want to hire a new contractor to finish the job, but only owe $2000, which is not even enough to cover the stonework, let alone the rest of the deck. We were promised by the owner that everything that didn't involve the inspector would be finished on the deck this week (ie. stones underneath the deck, finish putting up fascia, add gate to steps). There has not been anything on our list of items that needs to be done for the deck completed this week. We have had materials sitting in our driveway for months, which is unfortunately where our children play. We've heard promise after promise from the owner that he will finish, but the deck looks exactly the same as it did in May.Desired Settlement: We would like to be refunded enough money to cover the costs of having another contractor finish the deck. We will get an estimate from another contractor, but anticipate $10,000 to for another contractor to finish.

Business

Response:

Handwritten response.