Sustainable Home Energy Solutions, LLC

company left a voice mail that she is on vacation out of the country and will not be returning till Aug. 21, 2014, spoke with her, she stated this was a Time and Material job without a contract, the Tresses were ordered from a reputable tress designer, the windows had nothing to do with them...

whatsoever, they were ordered by the consumer through Lowes, job was completed 4 months ago, told her I would add a note to the file and would delay the closing of the complaint a little

Sustainable Home EnergySolutions, LLCI believe the most important response to the customers allegations was explained in full on my initial response of August 14, 2014. I wish to state again that we assured the customer on the last day on the job, we would be available to discuss any issues that came up with their new contractor. We fully expected to hear from the customer in the months after the job. Since this was a complicated job, consulting with the next guy on the job made sense to me, and I was fully prepared to follow through with that.
Our first inkling there was any issues came to us by way of a complaint to Revdex.com from the customer after the fact. There was no opportunity for us to look at the alleged problems. Furthermore in the almost six months we worked on the project, the customer did not approach us with a verbal or written complaint. She paid each bill that was presented, but now, we receive a Revdex.com complaint and are supposed to respond to issues that we never even knew were issues, and have since been supposedly rectified.
The customer comments that I am being "untruthful" in my responses. I stated the facts as believe them to have happened, and was not "untruthful" in my comments. It is not helpful to assume and state that am being "untruthful." I didn't do "unprofessional work", nor were there any mistakes that I was aware of. Neither did I misrepresent any abilities or do a "terrible" job. These are only her opinions.
Although the customer comments in her response she "made it clear from the beginning that her project was difficult and would require skilled work" we don't remember any such conversation. In fact, I found the customer to be unaware of the difficulty of the job in the initial meetings with them. I also had the customer come to my home which is an 1810 log home, which underwent a huge remodel and addition in 2009 to show them what my abilities and level of skill were. I did this to show THEM what my skill levels WErS.
The customer states in her response that I told them I was in "over my head" after they decided to terminate their dealings with me. These are their choice of words, and again, they misconstrued a statement I made about it being a "difficult job." I never used the phrase "I was in over my head" because that was not what I felt, nor was it an accurate description of what I was trying to communicate on that occasion. As I stated in my first response to their allegations, I have built hundreds of homes and additions and done extensive remodels, of every type including historical homes and all their complexities. Over a successful career of forty-years, I can assure you that I did not "feel I was in over my head," but did have a sober assessment of the scope and difficulty of the job.
The comments the customers attribute to me regarding email were taken out of context from a conversation at the beginning of the job. I have email and have used a computer since the 1980's in various aspects of my business. I don't believe that texts and emails are the best way to handle all communications that arise in a fluid situation like a construction job. I do believe the give and take of phone calls and personal interaction is a far superior choice for most communications in this type of project. Text is an extremely limited form of communicating and emails miss a lot of nuances that conversations allow. Considering their cell phone service was "spotty," maybe an investment of a land line would have been a good decision, considering the scope of their project.
The only travel time the customer was charged to the site was on the first two bills in October &November 2013. This was a total bill of around $250.00. The only other travel time charged was on the 12/18/2014 bill which was the time to travel to the engineer and the county building department. The initial time and materials agreement did cover travel time, but I stopped charging them for it very early on the project. Every message I received from the customer was answered in a timely fashion. To have done otherwise would have served no purpose.We did dig a hole in the back yard in anticipation of pouring footers and proceeding with the project. Unfortunately, as detailed in my last response the winter weather intervened and I was not able to go forward with the footers. There was nothing else to do on the project until the footers were poured. I did not "disappear" but was in regular contact with the customers. The only "menial" work my employee did was 6 hours of cleaning mortar joints. They were charged $20.00 per hour for this totaling $120.00. My employee was supervised by journeymen carpenters and myself during all the work he performed at the job. My Supervision of him was completely adequate for someone who has 20 years experience in running heavy equipment.
PRIOR to us being hired by the customer, the customer ran their sewer, water and electric right through where they planned their addition. Those lines had to be moved which we did. We never had any knowledge of any problem with the sewer lines until this last response dated 11/03/2014, from the Customer.
! recognize the Revdex.com is not in a position to make decisions regarding the merit of each complaint they are Sent. It is obvious that our viewpoints of what incurred on this job are very different than the customers view. Most importantly though, we did advise the customer of our willingness to discuss any aspect of the job with a future contractor, when we left the job. We offered to do this because we felt it to be the right thing to do. The customer never called us and did not give us an opportunity to assess the alleged problems when they were discovered. Our first knowledge came from the complaints she filed with Revdex.com. Contacting us about the alleged problems was an opportunity to work out her problems at the appropriate stage of her project. Coming in the back door after the fact does not lend itself to resolve of a problem.
However, the most disturbing aspect of the customer's latest complaint is her alluding to age and handicap in a prejudicial fashion. I believe age and disability to be protected status under U.S. law, along with sex, race, or religion. The customers inclusion of these remarks is completely irrelevant and inappropriate and distasteful.
Sincerely,
Bill D[redacted]

[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed Administratively Resolved]
 Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:The response given my Mr. D[redacted] is factually incorrect.  
I did not refer to Mr. D[redacted] as old.  He referred to himself as old, giving that as a reason why he did not check his email in a timely manner.  But, if we are discussing distasteful behavior, referring to your client as childish for complaining about poor workmanship and unprofessional business practices certainly qualifies.  I am not a child.  I am a 50 year old woman with a Masters degree and years of successful home renovation. I have experienced sexism from contractors in the past, men who wanted to deal with my husband, because they thought I didn't understand the complexities of home improvement.  This situation was just the latest example of that.
Mr. D[redacted] did such poor quality work, we had to have all of his work redone by another contractor, with the exception of one task.  The only thing we were able to keep was the steel I beam he installed.  We spent thousands of dollars reframing the walls Mr. D[redacted]'s son and brother framed.  The work was so shoddy, one of the people Mr. D[redacted] hired to work on our job returned to tell us Mr. D[redacted] was doing bad work and he wanted us to know.
Did I mention that Mr. D[redacted]'s son filled in a stream with dirt because Mr. D[redacted] told him to spread dirt in the "low" spots, but didn't supervise that task?  For this we were charged not only the hourly rate for the son, but the "supervision" fee for Mr. D[redacted]. Mr. D[redacted]'s son routinely showed up with an excavator that had a flat tire, then proceeded to bill us while he tried to fix the flat.  The excavator sat in the giant mud pit hole they dug for over a month.  
My husband wanted to fire Mr. D[redacted] early in the process, but I asked him to give Mr. D[redacted] a chance to rectify the mistakes.  it was only after Mr. D[redacted]'s son started damaging areas of our farm that we had recently renovated that I finally agreed that they were not our contractors.  Mr. D[redacted] wanted us to sign a contract for the work on our farmhouse, and I knew by then that we would never get a finished product from him and his crew.
I am not really interested in constantly rehashing the bad experience we had with Mr. D[redacted].  I am trying to save future home renovators from the same experience.
Regards,
[redacted]