J & B Remodeling and Design

Would not recommend this "company" to anyone

Review: Dealing with J&B Remodeling and Design was a nightmare from start to finish. I hired them to do extensive remodeling on my home and in the end had to kick them out. Absolutely everything they did was shoddy and they took their sweet time doing it. I wrote an extensive Angie's list review, but this company is so bad Angie's list actually removed them from all searches. But you can still find the complete reviews if you type in the exact name of the company. Almost all F's.

They tend to show up if and when they feel like it and give you no notice. There were many days where I took off work and no one came. It was not worth 10 seconds of his time to let me know that the day before.

I'll just list a few examples of shoddy work. When Jason L[redacted] plastered my basement walls, he got plaster all over my brick fireplace and trim. I had to point it out and he said they would clean it up with Muriatic Acid, which turns out to be concentrated hydrochloric acid. Very toxic and not intended for indoor use on vertical surfaces. They never fixed it in any event and I still have no solution. Anyone with any sense would have taken two minutes to mask off areas they did not want to get plaster on instead of thinking they would remove it with acid later.

They never completed anything. They would do easy parts and leave the rest. For example, they were supposed to put new baseboard in, but did the easy open areas and skipped closets. And they have quarter inch gaps in the baseboard not to mention they cut it on the wrong side leaving splinters.

The baseboard was a disaster. After waiting weeks for him to get to the baseboard so I could start to move back into parts of my home, he has a guy drop it off. It turns out, staining baseboard is a time consuming process requiring sanding, even staining, and a sealer coat. This guy just slapped the stain on and produced a splotchy mess. I'm having to replace all of the work they did.

The work they did in my hall bathroom was the worst disaster. The tile on my tub surround is uneven and falling off since they did not put a proper corner bead on. The niche they were supposed to install is completely wrong and the experts I've consulted said it is not fixable.

The tile in my entrance is not parallel to the wall. In the course of 6 feet, it is off 2 inches since the guy did not snap a line to go buy.

Basically, everything these people did in my home is a shoddy disaster that needs to be redone. And he was incredibly arrogant and thought it beneath him to communicate with me. Jason L[redacted] said he would manage the job but the only one attempting to manage the job was me. He was rarely there; he only showed up to pick up checks.

He assured me the job would take 3 weeks before I signed the contract. 6 weeks into it and with no end in sight and with much of the work shoddy, I put their tools outside and they terminated the contract.

I has foolishly paid him $14,000 out of a $21,000 contract. He threatened to sue me if I did not pay him about $7,000.00 for work he had no intention of completing. My attitude is he owes me $11,000 for shoddy and incomplete work. I ended up filing a complaint with the PA State Attorney General. I don't expect much from that and will almost certainly have to take them to court. Take your business elsewhere.

As I hire professionals to redo their shoddy work and complete things they left undone, I'm finding more and more issues. These include:

- They did not level the floor before putting down a floating floor. It is crackling and I'm told will eventually break the joints.

- The misplaced many things including custom parts for toilets, medicine cabinets and outlet cover plates.

- The splattered paint in many areas.

- They trashed the outside of my home. What I thought was tile residue in my garden is actually thinset that cemented my river rock together and killed some shrubs.

- The tile on my shower tub surround is falling off. The parts that are not falling off are not flat. They did not true of the studs before putting on the shower tile.

- They only completed about 1/3 of the contract and almost all of it shoddy.Desired Settlement: He should refund about $11,000.00 of the $14,000.00 I paid him and that is being generous.

Review: We started a bathroom remodeling contract via [redacted] with J&B in January of 2015 for $5999, knowing that we would need to put in additional money for upgrades and extra square footage not covered by that initial cost. After the initial contract was purchased, Jason came over and listened to what my wife and I wanted to do. Based on this information he required an additional $2300 for extra work. All of this was very reasonable. We clearly communicated this info with Brienna that was laid out in the following email:

>I just want to put together the conversations that I have had with you and Jason to make sure we are all on the same page.

>Big Deal

>$8,500 labor $1,500 material allowance (should cover tub, faucet and tub hardware, tile, fan, lights, drywall, grout, paint, etc.)

>$10,000 total-$4,001 discount $5,999 discounted total (paid to [redacted])

>Extras $2,300 material allowance including: materials for custom vanity and matching medicine cabinets (in style discussed with Jason), labor for double sink plumbing material, labor for tile extra sq footage, lights for above sink, electrical for fan and 3 way shower room lights.

>Grand total: $12,300 - $4,001 = $8,299.

At the time, Jason informed us with the bad winter weather they were behind on jobs. We were, at that point, not in a rush and told him not to worry rushing to get the job done. When I inquired 2 months later as to when the work might begin I was told that it could be soon, but they thought I was not in a rush! (2 months wait time for an update is pretty patient.) Eventually the work began at the end of June, 6 months after the initial contract was signed. We in January were not in a hurry, but 6 months is a rather long wait. Unfortunately this was not the largest of problems we would encounter. In October the work is not complete. I was told the project would take 3-4 weeks; instead it is now month 3! Most of this delay was days where no work was completed, and/or workers showing up without materials to complete the work. In the first 5 ½ weeks of the project, only 11 days had any work completed with 3 of those days being less than 3 hours.

While the stone tile work was excellent and other work perfectly acceptable, some things have been sloppy:

1. The additional 3-way light switch requested and paid for outside of [redacted] was installed beside the existing light switch with separate side-by-side electrical boxes. This should have been a double switch box and I needed to replace it.

2. We were told that the vanity originally ordered was not the medium brown color we chose but instead a dark red mahogany; therefore we had to wait an additional 2 weeks for the new one to be delivered. Mistakes happen and we were fine with the wait. The vanity that was eventually installed was dark red, and what I would absolutely define as mahogany color. At this point, we decided to live with the incorrect vanity color as it looks fine. So not only do we have a vanity not in the color we chose, but one of the doors was installed backwards and will need to be fixed.

3. During the demo, part of the drywall in the next room was knocked down. We had asked for this to be repaired, but it has not. I have had to patch this.

So, after 3 months of work much remains to be done. All of the lights, the toilet, towel rack, the mirrors and a small amount of trim need to be installed. Plumbing for the vanity and electrical work for all lights need to be completed. The final straw came when Jason could not return (after 2 ½ weeks of no shows) because he could not find the faucets we chose in the store. Jason had a detailed list of parts for over 2 months but for some reason left the purchase of the faucets until the morning of installation. At this point we were informed that the tile work took longer to complete than what was originally thought and the stone tile we picked were not included in the big deal. They would need and an additional $2200 to finish the project. The issue here is two-fold. First we have $8500 budgeted for labor and, based on the small number of days when work was actually completed, do not believe that number was reached. Second, the tile choice has not changed from when the original $2300 was calculated to cover extras above the Big Deal. Why was this not brought up then?Desired Settlement: We are looking to get partial refunded of $1000 from the contractors as the work that need to be completed to finish the job cost over $1000 to complete. The initial contract was not honored. At the very least we are looking for an itemized list of charges for this work.

Review: I signed a proposal with this company to remodel 2 bathrooms in my home. I gave them a check for $3000.00 on March 24, 2015. They have yet to do the work and they refuse to answer my calls.Desired Settlement: I would like the deposit of $3000.00 returned.

Would not recommend this "company" to anyone.

Contract to tile a shower signed on August 13, 2013. Deposit of $500 was paid the same day - check [redacted]. J&B Remodeling and Design cashed the check. We were not in a hurry to get the work done, but J&B Remodeling and Design would not give us a firm start date. We attempted to call them over two weeks (August 28 through Sept 9) to plan for their having access to the house, and our calls were not returned until we left a voice mail asking for a refund. On the very next day, they called back with excuses about their phone system not working. We asked for our money back, and they agreed to send a check.The check was sent as promised, but was unusable, as it was made out to not to my wife who had written them the check in the first place, but rather to me with my wife's maiden name as the last name. Again, days went by without being able to reach J&B Remodeling and Design, and finally they contacted us regarding the bad check. We sent their original check to us back to them with a self addressed, stamped envelope so they could get the name correct. The new check they sent in the self-addressed, stamped envelope we provided has bounced, costing us an additional $15 on top of the $500 + stamp + wasted time. When I called to discuss the situation, I was hung up on after identifying myself.