Remodeling Innovations Group, Inc.

Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
No resolution was reached and we are not satisfied.  The systemic and ongoing issues with RIG and
Mr. [redacted], are illustrated in his own response.  The letter is dated 3 December in regards to
a complaint dated 3 October for issues arising in August.  The lengthy letter includes no attempt at
resolution.  In short, the job was not
completed yet he is demanding payment for this work prior to
finishing.  This is not consistent with
our contract nor his performance and obviously after (4) months we have had to
move on.  We have had no direct response from
[redacted] or RIG since August and he has made no effort to resolve other than having
his lawyer send a note demanding full payment. 
We cannot in good faith recommend this contractor and caution any
considering  RIG.  We are attempting to get full closure through
the [redacted] organization per the contract and local industry best practices.
Responses to each of RIG’s notes are listed below for more
details.
1.)   Bath
Closet:  I am 5’6” tall and when my
shirts are hung on the bottom bar they drag on the ground and when hung on the
top bar they drape over the lower bar. 
This was shared with the carpenter when built.  The measurements are just wrong and had to be
corrected to be functional.  Also
illustrates that [redacted] and RIG did not even bother to look at issue.
2.)   
Door Jamb: 
Agree it’s simple.  Yet months
later it’s still not done.
3.)   
Mirrors:  [redacted] and RIG ordered wrong mirrors.  Relationship had gone south prior to
resolution.  We did work with the cabinet
maker.  He does excellent work and we are
delighted with mirrors.  [redacted] had offered
to correct at his “cost” but adder was well above the cabinet maker’s charge
without even including what we had already paid for the “wrong” mirrors.  Another systemic problem.
4.)   
Family Room Closet:  [redacted] and RIG installed a new wood floor into the
closet.  They did not remove the trim it’s
still there along with a big gap. 
Quarter round to cover gap was never installed.  RIG apparently does have a problem installing
because it’s not done and again he hasn’t bothered to inspect.  Not relevant to $400 addressed below.
On the overall room, we actually agree on
the $400 figure.  The problem is he
invoiced $496 and has refused to explain the discrepancy.  As far as his story on details of trim I had
not heard this before.  Can assure you
are 8-, 10-, and 12-year olds are not building fires. 
5.)    Air Duct
Cleaning:  Job was horrible.  [redacted] agreed and did have room dust cleaned up as
he states.  Air ducts needed to be part
of this.  They were filthy and layered in
cement dust. 
6.)   
Office Ceiling: 
We’re confident on when damage occurred but regardless [redacted], as he states,
agreed to fix and hasn’t.
7.)   
Trim: 
Casing was at house.  It was taken
away by carpenter on his last trip from our home.  So we agree we just need the trim.
8.)   
Door Costs: 
Simple answer is [redacted]’s comments in this paragraph are wrong.  We had conversations face-to-face and there
were no charges mentioned.  Nothing was
raised until they showed up on a final mailed invoice which was followed by demand
for full payment for work not completed. 
It’s interesting that what is not mentioned is that the doors were ordered
and installed backwards from print.  We
attempted to work with [redacted] to resolve as simply as possible resulting in a horrendous
electrical move which despite promises was not fixed for weeks.  These new charges appeared only after this
incident. 
9.)   
On [redacted]’s final comments:
a.)   
Feces – Don’t know what to say other than this
did occur (kid’s have (2) pets).  [redacted]
did point out to and share pictures of with [redacted].  We do not understand relevance here other
than to embarrass.
b.)   
Tile - 
Short version.  Bath tile was too
dark in house and we wanted to change. 
Kitchen tile, we all agreed, had shades not seen in sample.  [redacted] did talk to supplier.  We paid for subcontractor’s time and
materials used.  Issue was resolved and
again do not see relevance to these issues.  By the way we love the wood floors.  We have received more compliments on this than any other part of the remodel and are happy and confident with our decision.
c.)    
Comments - 
Conversations were had with the subcontractors doing the work.  We did not receive any negative feedback from
them in fact most was positive and supportive of our position.
d.)   
“Truck” – Don’t know what was overheard by whom
but as a businessman myself to take second or third hand overheard information
and act upon it without even contacting the customer is ridiculous and
unacceptable.  We made full, timely payments
throughout the process for agreed to and completed work.  Demand for payment  for difference was not made because the
charges were invalid and RIG would not respond with details, or work was never
completed.   No financial issues were at
play nor relevant.
e.)   
Closing – In adding comments [redacted] and RIG are,
put kindly, quite selective.  They do not
mention that full payment was made for structural improvements identified by
the inspector which were missed in the design, nor that full payment was made
on “mistakes” such as the insulation where the contract stated by owner and
[redacted] admitted he forgot to tell the subcontractors.  We worked with RIG to resolve all issues as
simply as possible.
In closing, this was a huge project and first professional
remodel for us.  The overall work done by
the subcontractors was successful but the whole experience was soured by these “games”
at end.  We just want closure for both
parties.
 
Regards,
[redacted] and [redacted]

Review: Multiple Issues are involved from selection above.

We have had multiple issues throughout this project but heart of current situation is that RIG has not completed all work/services, has demanded payment for work not performed, has included charges for change orders in this final invoice that were never discussed, and has not provided requested itemization for charges that were.

To try and bring closure, we sent a final check for the agreed to and completed work to RIG via certified mail on 15 September.

We have not had verbal contact with contractor since 7 Aug. We have not had direct email contact with contractor since 10 Sep. We received an email only note from his attorney demanding payment on 17Sep (after we had sent check by certified mail) and a follow-up note from attorney saying that the check would be returned but we have had no response since then.

Per the contract we signed (written by RIG) all disputes were to be settled through [redacted]. As we have had no response after the check receipt , we initiated the process with [redacted] and to date they have received no response from him (today is 10th day).

We still do not have a fully functional bath - No mirrors or usable closet - for a job that was to be completed in July.

Can provide all details and specifics of issues/contract/etc. as needed. This is the first time we've experienced an issue like this and thus are not familiar with process.

Thanks for you help.Desired Settlement: We want resolution of contract. We have sent payment that we feel is much more than fair for the work completed in order to have closure. He has received the check. We have had no response from him in over (2) weeks.

We are looking for confirmation that the project is closed and we can proceed with other options to finish our open items.

We are incredibly disappointed in the closure of this project and just want to move on.

Business

Response:

This letter is in response to the allegations set forth by [redacted] and [redacted]. Going in order fromtheir list of concerns.1) The master bathroom closet- My trim carpenter has conversations with [redacted] withregards to the height. These shelves were set according to their conversation on site. From myunderstanding that the problem came into play when she tried to fit a dress in the one of thepoles after the closet was completed and the dress hit the floor. If this was an issue at that timewe could have made some adjustments at an additional cost.2) Door jamb- this was a pre hung fire door that came in as a unit and installed as a unit. If it wasmissing a piece of weather stripping that can easily be installed.3) Mirrors- Original contract called for basic mirrors. There had been a conversation of up gradingto framed mirror’s, after I gave them an approximate cost on the mirrors they were then goingto think about the upgrade and get back to me. They never got back to me. The basic mirrorswere installed at the time of the shower door installation. At this time [redacted] told theinstaller to remove the mirrors because she as getting framed mirrors. At this point there wasnever any other conversation other than speculation by the client that they were to get framedmirrors. I assumed because of budget constraints that they did not want to upgrade. When Ireceived the call from the installer I immediately got a price from our cabinet builder andrelayed that to the homeowners. It took approximately (3) weeks for them to get back to me onthese upgraded mirror cost and at that time I suggested that they call our cabinet builder andwork directly with him.4) Family room closet- Based upon the original contract as well as conversations we were going toremove and reinstall the existing trim (i.e. base boards and casing) to save some money. We didremove all the millwork to include removing all the nails. Once removed they were placed in thegarage in a nice and neat pile. When it came time to re install trim we could only several pieces.We immediately brought this up to the homeowners as to where this trim could have been.They once again assumed that they were getting new trim but said they would look for it. Thehomeowners did make a comment that the “kids” may have burned it in the fire pit, but wereunsure. We looked everywhere looking for this trim to include the basement, the dumpster andthe attic in the garage. It could not be found. After we looked high and low for this trim [redacted] and myself talked about having to get new millwork and to upgrade it to cherry. Weagreed on a price to include staining of around $400.00 (my cost) and he was ok with that andagreed to it. If the closet needs to have shoe molding RIG wil not have a problem installing it.5) Air duct cleaning- I do not have an excuse as to why he used a gas powered saw in the basementnor why he did bag the area off. I my self was not happy when this happened, but what I can tellyou is that they came back the very next day at 8:00 am to clean their entire basement from topto bottom. This would include all areas of the basement and everything in it. The basementlooked 100 times better that before this incident happened. Not only did they clean from top tobottom but they organized the mess that was down there (family mess not ours). They wentabove and beyond to clean everything. I visually inspected after they cleaned and I wascompletely satisfied with the job they had done. I immediately texted [redacted] as to thestatus and he was then very appreciative of what he did and I apologized once again for whathad happened. He at that time was appreciative of what was done. That was the last we heardabout this incident and considered them to be happy and satisfied with the cleaning job thatwas done. Nothing more was said until they had a list of concerns.6) Office ceiling- RIG and its trades did very little demo to the bathroom (removed one wall andpulled the floor to accommodate the new plumbing locations. 95% of the demo was done by thehomeowner which was started a year or so before we were hired to help. ¾ of the way throughthe project they noticed that some of the screws from the drywall had popped out in the officebelow. Because it was brought to my attention this late in the project I did not complain aboutfixing the nail pops and had made arrangements for it to get repaired. At the time of repair itwas brought to my attention that there was water damage in the ceiling. This made sensebecause when [redacted] did his own demo he had an issue with the plumbing upstairs. Instead offixing the leak he simply put a bucket under the shower head that was leaking and would dumpit when it was full. It is not to say who made the drywall screws pop, but I took the high roadand head them repaired.7) Trim for patio door- Never supplied??? I find this very interesting because we had had severalconversation about this trim and when it was to get installed. [redacted] and [redacted]wanted to have the patio door replaced ¾ of the way through the project. I gave them a price(twice) as well as product information and color samples. It took them several weeks to get backto on this because he was trying to find a patio door at a lesser cost. Please note that this patiodoor installation would have been done at our cost for labor and materials. He finally told usthat he was going to supply his own door and then have our carpenter install it. Because it wasgoing to take 4-6 weeks to get the new door, WE all agreed that it would be best to install thepatio door casing after the new door was installed just in case the new door was bigger orsmaller the casing would only have to be cut once. The casing is at the house and our carpentershowed them were it was.8) (2) Doors invoiced- This is correct that they were invoiced for (2) new doors. Originally theywere going to reuse a door for the pocket door and have a dry walled opening into the closetbased of the original design concept. Once they agreed to move forward with RIG they hadwanted to change the layout of the bathroom and were very well aware of extra costs -In conclusion I would like to make the following key points. From the time of initial consultation RIG andthe [redacted]s had a great working relationship. On the first day of demo [redacted] told us that she cleanedup as much of she could under the kitchen sink and there was a little ferret feces that she could notreach. Once we removed the countertop we the realized that the little bit she could not reach was ahuge pile. My guys wanted to walk off the job because that is very un-sanitary. Because of the goodrelationship we had at that time I asked them to stay. Once we removed the dishwasher and therefrigerator it became very apparent that the ferret had run of the house because the feces got worse(we do have pictures for your reference) as we went along. I once again asked them to stay. I did noteven make mention of this to the homeowners because they may have been a little embarrassed anddid not want them to feel uncomfortable.The next key point is the tile. We had meet at the flooring vender to do selections. At this time theywanted to upgrade from laminate to wood. I highly suggested against the wood because of the dog andthe other animals the have in the house. They ended up going with wood for the record. After weselected to wood we then went to select tile. We made some suggestions after they has asked regardingtypes of tile and what we thought would look nice. I then made a suggestion with a tumbled stone fortheir back splash which would have looked really nice. I also made the comment not once but 4 timesthat if they selected this tumbled stone and because it is a natural stone that the consistency may not bewhat they were looking for and that I have several clients in the past order extra boxes so they couldpick out the stone that they wanted. They decided to go with the tumbled stone that was darker. Theythen went on to pick out the bathroom tile and shower tile with what they thought would look nicebased off of [redacted]s’s thoughts. When it was time to install the tile in the bathroom, [redacted] was veryangry because the tile in the shower was too dark and that it made it look like a cave. I meet her at herhouse to talk to her about this and even brought out the color boards that they picked from to showthat it was the tile they had selected. She then started to toss the tile around out of frustration. We thenwent out to the garage to look at the back splash tile and she got even more upset because that too shethought was wrong even though it was the correct tile that they liked. To make a long story short theflooring vender was going to charge a restocking fee for exchanging the tile out. I go them to waive thecost of the restocking fee to try and save face with these clients. Once this was resolved we then had thereselect new tile. At this time [redacted] and [redacted] argued as to whose fault this was and [redacted] told [redacted]that this was the tile they picked out and it was not RIG or the flooring venders fault. Thinking that afterwe got the fees waived and charged the minimally for the removal [redacted] was still not happy. Sheconsistently slandered me personally to everyone who came into her house and that it was my fault thatthey picked out the wrong colored tile. My final point is this, with every trade that came through their house [redacted] constantlyslandered RIG about all these “problems” that they had with us. These guys had no clue as to what wasgoing on and questioned me as to what their problems were because we don’t ever have issues like this.She made numerous people very uncomfortable to the point they wanted to leave and come back whenshe was no there. One of the biggest issues that I had with one of [redacted]s comments was “We are havingissues making payments on [redacted] truck and are having money issues”. This to me a big red flag, hencethe reason why I am asking for payment in full to include interest and collection fees that are associatedwith this project.Remodeling Innovations Group makes every effort to go above and beyond to make our clients happywhich is why we have been so successful in what we do. I appreciate your time and understanding withthis [redacted]er and would hope we would have the opportunity to talk about of side in more detail.

Consumer

Response:

[redacted] and the entire Remodeling Innovations Group team are the best. We recently bought a home in the Town of Cedarburg and wanted his and her bathrooms in our master suite. [redacted] and his team helped us to completely redo our master suite (quartz counter tops, new tiles, glass shower/bathtub doors, etc.). They also took care of all the electrical and plumbing aspects (dimmers in bathrooms are a MUST!). [redacted] was very professional, honest, and responsive. We were in touch almost every day and he kept me up to date on the status of everything. The remodeling process was made fun by everyone on the RIG Team. There were a few unexpected complications but hey, that is part of remodeling. [redacted] made sure everything worked out and we could tell he genuinely cared.

Everyone that comes over to my place LOVES how everything turned out, especially the exquisite work in the bathrooms. I've recommended [redacted] and Remodeling Innovations Group to so many of my friends and will continue to do so because they are amazing.

Review: Remodeling innovations group (RIG) did basement remodeling for me. This remodeling project included building a window. They did the window with Rockwell window well. RIG failed to attach the window properly to the wall of foundation. The result of that was that the inappropriate screws they used snapped and the window well separated from the wall. It required multiple conversations with RIG to convince them there is a problem. Finally, they did attach the window well with more appropriate screws. The RIG person that was doing that work in fall of 2013 reassured me verbally that they will put more dirt around the window when the ground settled. Now the dirt around the window settled and I contacted [redacted] at RIG about this. He decided to employ the tactic of not responding to my emails or responding with ridiculous info such as saying that he is "out of town with limited cell reception". After I sent my fifth email about it he said that dirt was already delivered. However, no dirt was delivered after RIG person told me that it would be if settling occurred. Finally, [redacted] said greater than a week ago that he will check his records and get back to me. I have not heard from him since then. Overall it has been greater than 1 month, 6 emails and one phone call and no results. The agreement with RIG included 1-year warranty and it is still within that time frame. In my opinion [redacted] is evading from taking care of this issue hoping that I will quit and do the work myself. I will probably end up doing that but then want to make sure this goes in RIG Revdex.com file. Thanks.Desired Settlement: If RIG does not do the work I can do it myself, but I want to make sure this info goes against their Revdex.com rating.

Business

Response:

Remodeling Innovations Group received an email from Mr. [redacted] regarding some settling around his

new window well and as we told him at that time we did come back last year to add some dirt that had

settle when we were there the fix to his window well that separated from the house. He was very

adamant about us doing it at my expense because he was still in warranty. RIG's warranty covers

everything we did and or supplied for one year. RIG did not supply the dirt around his house nor does

the warranty cover natural settling. There could have been numerous reasons why it settled to include

his current down spout locations. Mr. [redacted] is correct there was an issue with a gap between his

house and the window well that was caused by settling. We did get that taken right away upon his

request last summer. Remodeling Innovations Group has always stood behind their work, but when it

comes to Mother Nature and natural occurrences we have no control over that. Had Mr. [redacted] asked

if we could help him with his settling rather than tell us that we had to do it, we would have been more

than happy to help out for a nominal fee. Please also note that during time of construction of his lower

level he had some mud jacking done around his house to bring the concrete to level as well as bring in

more dirt from settling around his house.

Remodeling Innovations Group makes every effort to work with their clients to remedy situations if and

when they do arise.

Consumer

Response:

BUYER BEWARE! We first met Matt at the 2015 Wisconsin NARI show. He presented himself as an honest, knowledgeable, customer focused individual. He seemed to understand our desire to have quality work performed at a competitive price. We had a large project ahead of us – a complete remodel of our kitchen and master bath as well as paint and carpet throughout. Prior to signing the contract we made sure that Matt understood our completion date of Sept 11 because of a family event that we had planned to host. The date was written into the contract – as of this posting – February 15, 2016 our project is still not complete. We had several quality issues along the way and unfortunately each of those had to be pointed out by us or another contractor and not by Matt. One important thing to understand is that Matt is an administrative contractor. As the administrative contractor he should have been checking on the work of the subs on a daily basis – that did not happen here. As invoices were submitted, we asked for clarification and we still have not received it. He claims to have a great attention to detail however multiple communications still have not addressed our concerns or produced the appropriate paperwork that would address our concerns of overcharges. His personal schedule took priority over ours as he was rarely available after 4:30 or on weekends for addressing concerns or for general meetings. As our project passed the deadline and moved into November he had contractors working on other projects and not ours. He told us that none of his projects have ever gone this bad. How did we get so lucky? We trusted Matt and Remodeling Innovations Group. A project that should have been enjoyable was instead extremely arduous. He and his company have never once taken accountability for the delays and quality issues that we have been presented with. Please do your homework so you are not sharing your experience next year.