Maverick Renovations

From: ***To: ***Subject: RE: You have a new message from the Revdex.com serving Western Pennsylvania regarding complaint #***Date: Tue, Jul 23:25:+0000 First let start by stating that I do not lie the bucket was in the middle area because I used it, then did not put it awayWhen I pick it up there was about a 1/of water in it, that could not have come from wallsTwo people saw the drip come down and hit the windshield inside the garage. Now lets think about this if, the walls are taking on water and their concrete So why not your one inch pad? It's uneven, and turning back to sand in placesAt the ends it breaks off with just a touchAs for the extra's I did not want my pad painted, I wanted it sealed the railing is still where you stated you took it offFrom the garage to the padBecause I have ponding I have algae and discolorationThe cuts I was going to overlook, but no one else deserves to have there life savings squandered In closing the gate , first I never approved your plan to do it the same way that did not work, you did not even use galvanized concrete sleeves, but plastic ones you can not brace something with a wood shim

From: [redacted]To: [redacted]Subject: RE: You have a new message from the Revdex.com serving Western Pennsylvania regarding complaint #[redacted]Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2015 23:25:25 +0000
 First let start by stating that I do not lie the bucket was in the middle area because I used it, then did not put it away. When I pick it up there was about a 1/2 of water in it, that could not have come from walls. Two people saw the drip come down and hit the windshield inside the garage.  Now lets think about this if, the walls are taking on water and their concrete . So why not your one inch pad? It's uneven, and turning back to sand in places. At the ends it breaks off with just a touch. As for the extra's I did not want my pad painted, I wanted it sealed the railing is still where you stated you took it off. From the garage to the pad. Because I have ponding I have algae and discoloration. The cuts I was going to overlook, but no one else deserves to have there life savings squandered.    In closing the gate , first I never approved your plan to do it the same way that did not work, you did not even use galvanized  concrete sleeves, but plastic ones you can not brace something with a wood shim.

Review: All the miter cuts are way off, creating gaps. Risers for step were cut to short, there fore they had to create a box step to reach the pad. Gate was not secured properly at any point in assembly. therefore it fell off. The concrete pad was done improperly from the start, and in doing so the unevenness, of the concrete has created ponding and deteriorating, which in turn it is leaking through to the garage within a foot of the motor for the garage door opener. The paint started coming up first because he did not let it set properly, nor was sealant put down. His idea of fixing the leaking pad, was to paint it again. His idea of repairing the gate was adding a lag bolt, and shove a new piece of wood at base to hold it up. Both repairs he was proposing, had already proven to be ineffective. So I ask him to leave.Desired Settlement: Have Mavrick Renovations pay all or some of what they were paid, as soon as possible so that necessary repairs can be made to avoid further damage and possible fire.

Business

Response:

The risers for the stairs were built exactly as they should havebeen, because we built them using a widely used pre-manufactured frame. Theseframes can be found at many big box hardware stores and are sold all over thecountry. Contractors often use them forbuilding stairs in order to save time on a job. We did have to use a spacer at the bottom of the stairs in order toreach the front porch/door, so that first step at the bottom is roughly 1"higher than traditional stairs, but had we not done that, it would have createdan inch too much distance between the porch and the top step and been a bitmore inconvenient for the homeowner than what we did. The only otherthing we could have done in this case would have been to increase the distancebetween the top stair and the porch by the same inch, but we thought the way wedid it would be safer in the long run for people to walk on, especially duringthe winter months. When working on older homes such as this one, sometimescontractors must deal with the existing structure not being completely plumb orsquare, or done by any modern standards, and then make adjustments on the fly inorder to make a solution work. The mitercuts that she mentioned were cut to precisely 45 degrees as they should havebeen, but the deck surface above the garage itself was not square to begin withas it is an older structure and had possibly shifted due to mine subsidence inthe area. To my knowledge there are only2 cuts which weren’t as snug as they could have been, and only were off by maybe1 or 2 degrees, but everything else was fine. To be clearer, we’re talking about a job where we built 3 ½ sides ofdeck railing, along with stairs, in a 22’ X 22’ space, so we made literally hundredsof cuts as we built these railings and stairs mostly from scratch. These 2 cuts are only at the corners wherethe railings meet at the front corners of the deck surface itself, and that’sonly because the entire deck was not square to begin with as I’ve already saidand can easily prove. To suddenly say that ALL of the miter cuts were doneincorrectly, and only now, when nothing was mentioned before this complaint aboutthese cuts up until now, smacks of a customer reaching in order to attempt to putpressure on us to do what they want, but really aren’t entitled to have done.What the customer does not mention at all is all of theextra work that we did while on site but that we never charged her for, just toadd value to the work we did and in the interest of full customer satisfaction. Some of these things included boarding up abroken window in her garage, removing an iron railing from the stairs coming upfrom the garage, and installing “grip strips” on her deck stairs for addedsafety, all at her request. I try toalways do something extra for my customers, but sometimes it isn’t appreciated.The gate post was secured with extra-long carriage bolts andfastened to the home using concrete anchors for stability, and the only reasonit malfunctioned was not because of these carriage bolts at all, but ratherbecause of a wooden spacer/shim beneath the gate post working itself loose overtime and with usage. I offered to fix this particular problem byanchoring a replacement spacer to the concrete pad and then reinstalling thegate on top of it and then refastening it to the wall anchors, and the customerat that time agreed with it, so in my eyes that problem was settled. But now (which is only maybe 3 weeks afterthat particular conversation), and for whatever reason, the customer suddenly didnot think my remedy would have worked, and so she went another route to havethat problem fixed by someone else, which was done only within this past weekor so. The concrete "pad" that we put down was originally contracted to onlybe a “skim coating” (which is generally 1/8" to 1/4" thick ofconcrete) over the damaged pre-existing concrete roof, but as a courtesy weadded a full inch for added stability and integrity, all based on thedeteriorated and cracked condition of the underlying concrete, and in order tofurther stabilize the structure in light of the mine subsidence in the areawhich she is still to this day experiencing problems with. On 6/23, in the interest of customer satisfaction, and inorder to see if we were ‘somehow’ at fault with regard to these leaks, I andone of my employees who is also experienced in brick and concrete work went andinspected the garage at the customer's request. During that inspection we determined that the water leaks she isexperiencing have absolutely nothing to do with the work we did, but ratherthey stem from the deteriorated condition of the garage walls themselves, evenup to the joint where the walls meet the ceiling. The cinderblocks allaround the inside and outside of the garage are greatly in need of mortar/repointing,and there are multiple holes inside the garage through which one can actually seethrough to the outside. The customer apparently has even attempted toremortar these blocks herself in multiple areas in an effort to save money andon more than one occasion, but did it improperly as she is not a professionalbrick pointer, and therefore is still experiencing leaks going right throughher inadequate patches along with elsewhere in the garage. At the left rear of the garage near an electrical outletthat we installed is where virtually all of the observed water is coming in,and this is through the largest of the holes in the wall where water is runningdown from the very steep and grassy hill behind her house and seeping inthrough the cinderblocks in many places at or around this location. Some ofthe cinderblock in this particular area is not only moldy, but is actuallycrumbling and even falling down from the wall due to many years of water damageand land shifting. The left and rearwalls was the only area in the entire garage which held any observable evidenceof water leaks, as there were moist spots on the garage floor ONLY in thatparticular area but NOT AT ALL in the area where she said she’s had to keep abucket. As a professional courtesy, I advised the customer that inorder to remedy the ‘actual’ problem, all of the block would need to be professionallyre-mortared inside the garage and outside, and the inside of the garage shouldbe sealed with a waterproofing product such as [redacted] or similar.While we were there, I and my employee inspected the ENTIREgarage ceiling along with all of the walls, and there was no evidence of waterleaking from the ceiling specifically AT ALL. She then proceeded tofabricate some farfetched story about the 1” thick concrete that we installed somehowbeing ‘porous’ and that's why it is leaking from the ceiling and not the walls,but even if that WAS the case, why is/was there no evidence of said leaks whenwe ALL looked at the ceiling inside of the garage which is directly beneath thepad? Why is there also NO evidence on the floor of water dripping onto itfrom the ceiling? She has alleged that she's had to keep a bucket in thegarage to catch the water dripping from the ceiling, but no such bucket waspresent when we arrived to inspect, there was no evidence of water evenreaching the floor in that particular area as it was perfectly dry, neither wasthere any evidence on the ceiling of any water leaks coming through it abovethat area or any holes. Then the story changed again this past week andsupposedly that was not the area where the water came in, but it was anotherarea entirely. Again, she’s obviously reaching, because there’s noevidence present on the ENTIRE CEILING OF THE GARAGE for any of her allegations. To be very clear, there IS moisture on the garage floor but ONLYnear the left and rear garage walls, not in the center of the garage ceiling wherethe garage door opener was installed. Theinspection on 6/23 told me that the customer is obviously attempting topressure us into doing repairs for free on her home by using our labor warrantyfor work we did last year as leverage. Butthese are repairs which have absolutely nothing to do with the work we actuallydid and warrantied, and so I rightfully refused to do this added work. I could never remain in business if I spent mytime doing work for which I wasn’t going to be paid. This customer could not show me a SINGLE shred of evidenceof water leaking from the top of the garage above which there is the concretepad. But I on the other hand was able toshow her MANY areas from which water was leaking in via the cinderblock walls andlack of or broken mortar, and evidence of water on the floor directly beneathand near those areas. When water enters a structure, there are always telltalesigns such as dirt trails, mold, staining, pooling, moisture on the floor, etc.which will make the sources of water leaks evident to the experienced eye. There was nothing like that on the 'ceiling' of her garage at all, especiallynot where she said she had placed this supposed bucket (which I never saw), butmany areas like that on the left and rear walls of the garage and on the floor directlynear those areas.This customer has had ongoing issues with mine subsidence andland shifting for a number of years, of which I was aware well before westarted, and as evidence of that she right now has an enormous sinkhole to theright of her home near a manhole in the street. The ground around herhome has obviously shifted and her left garage wall is actually concaved(bowed), which has broken the mortar seal between her bricks, and resulted inwater entering the garage from multiple cracks and seepage on the left and reargarage walls even though she's had previous work done to keep the left wall inplace by another contractor prior to us coming out to do anything at herhome. It doesn’t help that her home is also at the very bottom of one ofthe absolute steepest hills in [redacted].), so water isguaranteed to run downhill to her home and will definitely enter the foundationunless precautions are taken.She has mentioned to me on more than one occasion that her homeowner’sinsurance doesn’t cover damage resulting from mine subsidence, which is why thehouse/garage has been in the state it’s been in for all these years. She originally wanted me to help her dealwith her insurance company in order to file a claim to have work done, as thatis a service that she knows I provide since I helped her neighbor across thestreet with his insurance claim and did his work before I ever started her job. However, if there is no mine subsidenceclause in your homeowner’s policy (which means you have no mine subsidencecoverage), there’s no way I or anyone else could possibly help in that regardunless or until you get coverage. As far as painting/sealing the concrete, we were not originallycontracted to paint the concrete pad at all, nor was that part of any amendmentto the original contract. We painted the pad with concrete paint as acourtesy to make the overall surface color more uniform and for visual appealsince we were building a deck railing around it. What occurred with thepaint was that the concrete itself needed to cure for at least a month beforebeing painted, but I was not aware of that requirement when I painted it andended up painting it within a day or two of the concrete being dry to the touchand hard. The paint ended up peeling off the concrete during this pastwinter to allow the remaining moisture in the concrete to escape. To remedy this honest and admitted mistake, I offered to scrapeoff and reseal/repaint the concrete earlier this year around March/April, inaccordance with our labor warranty, or not long after the winter and once I wasmade aware of this problem. But theaverage nighttime temperatures at that time were still too cool for the paintto stick effectively. The customer at that time mentioned that she had apower washer and would just use it to blast off any flaking paint before wearrived to repaint, which was fine with me as that would save us a bit of timeas we were extremely busy with other jobs.As the nighttime temps became warmer in more recent weeks, weattempted on multiple occasions to coordinate schedules for a time to repaintthe deck surface, as we are typically extremely busy once the weather breaks,but we were unsuccessful in making our respective schedules sync up untilrecently. However, this past weekend, I and two employees did arrive toreseal the concrete as scheduled. But when we arrived this past Saturday (7/11) to paint, wefound that none of the deck furniture had been moved from the pad for us. When I asked the customer if she actually wanted us to move the furniture(since she hadn’t moved it prior to us arriving), that was when she indicatedthat she wanted us to add yet ANOTHER layer of concrete to the deck because shesomehow still felt that water was leaking through it. This was the absolutefirst time I’d heard of putting more concrete down, as it had not beenmentioned at all to me by her until that point. When I informed her that we would not be adding another layer ofconcrete as there was nothing wrong with the concrete that was there, and thatwe were only there to paint, THAT was when she suddenly began screaming and yellingat us for some reason and then told us to leave which we did. That conversation is what resulted into thesetrumped up and/or false allegations. As a business owner I take my customer’s needs and concernsvery seriously, and their complete satisfaction is paramount to me. This is exactly why I warranty and stand by allof our work, and will continue to do so. However, I do know the vast difference between a customer with an honestand legitimate concern, and one that is unjustly trying to pressure me into doingfree work for them.In closing, the bottom line is that the construction of thedeck railings, and the stairs and porch, along with the concrete pad andelectrical work, all passed a formal [redacted] building codeinspection before final payment was made to me by the customer last year at theend of the job. This indisputable fact meansthat all of the work was done safely, correctly, and up to building codestandards as indicated by a respected third-party. The customer hadabsolutely no issues with any of the aforementioned items in her complaintother than the two I mentioned (the gate post and the concrete paint) only untilthis past weekend when, while attempting to use our labor warranty to get workcompleted which is outside the scope of what we'd actually done and warrantied,she was told that we would NOT be adding yet another layer of concreteespecially since that wasn’t the reason she had water leaking into her garage. To allege that we are somehow responsible for leaks which were obviously occurringlong before we ever arrived to do any work there is mind-boggling to say theleast. I could see it if there was at least ONE crack or hole inthe concrete surface that we put down through which water could potentially enter,but there isn't even one such gap. Icould also see it if there was at least SOME evidence of water leaking into thegarage from the ceiling, but unfortunately for her, that evidence isn’t thereeither. It’s sad that I sometimes haveto deal with customers like this, who use the system to attempt to bullyhardworking and professional contractors like us, but I guess that’s just partof the job.

Consumer

Response:

From: [redacted]To: [redacted]Subject: RE: You have a new message from the Revdex.com serving Western Pennsylvania regarding complaint #[redacted]Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2015 23:25:25 +0000 First let start by stating that I do not lie the bucket was in the middle area because I used it, then did not put it away. When I pick it up there was about a 1/2 of water in it, that could not have come from walls. Two people saw the drip come down and hit the windshield inside the garage. Now lets think about this if, the walls are taking on water and their concrete . So why not your one inch pad? It's uneven, and turning back to sand in places. At the ends it breaks off with just a touch. As for the extra's I did not want my pad painted, I wanted it sealed the railing is still where you stated you took it off. From the garage to the pad. Because I have ponding I have algae and discoloration. The cuts I was going to overlook, but no one else deserves to have there life savings squandered. In closing the gate , first I never approved your plan to do it the same way that did not work, you did not even use galvanized concrete sleeves, but plastic ones you can not brace something with a wood shim.