SOUTHERN HOMES

Stanley was the general contractor for a major water damage repair that involved the replacement of plumbing supply lines, and complete remodel of a kitchen and bathroom along with the replacement of subflooring and flooring throughout the bath, kitchen, hallway and living room. He estimated the work would take about a month and it took every bit of that month and a few more weeks to complete. Communication was always excellent and we appreciated the fact the project started on time despite the fact that Stanley was dealing with a major project on his own house, which burned down the week prior to the start of our project. Stanley was crucial to working with our insurance adjustor to make sure all items were covered in the repair and as the project got underway and more damage was discovered he was able to work with us and the adjustor to make sure the additional damages also got covered. He was very honest and very concerned with the quality of his work, however, due to the circumstances in his own personal life he was not able to supervise his crew to the extent required and that led to some major problems as listed below. We found the quality of the repair work for the subfloor repair, the tile, the flooring, and the kitchen cabinet installation and kitchen painting (involved ripping out existing wallpaper and replacement) to be excellent and would recommend Stanley and his subcontractors for any project along those lines. The completed work looked amazing and it was a quality job all around. However, the plumbing work included in the contract did not get completed and Stanley was not on site to supervise it, nor did he double-check it afterwards to make sure it was done correctly. We ended up with none of the original plumbing repairs made, ANOTHER major sewage leak under the house due to the fact the workers forgot to properly connect a sewage pipe, a water heater hard-wired without shut-off valves backwards in place, and finally, a drain pipe for the water heater that actually went directly into the subfloor but not out the other side. Had we not been there to verify the work had been done correctly it is likely we would have had yet another major insurance disaster on our hands. We did call Stanley and he sent his crew out to fix the issues - they showed up late, left to get "supplies" and never returned, came back the next day and were completely incompetent as well as stoned. We finally had to send them away and call a professional plumber, who had everything fixed in under 2 hours. One final issue with the subcontractors involved the storage and delivery of furniture that had to be moved during the repairs. They did not properly secure the load and as a result we lost a washer, dryer, kitchen table/chairs, and had damage to a couch and chair as they fell off the truck during delivery back to the house. We were able to negotiate the replacement cost for these items to be deducted from the contract. The moral of the story is that you MUST write into your contract that all electrical and plumbing repairs be handled by licensed subcontractors and take care of the storage of any furniture yourself. The carpentry work and flooring/kitchen/bath work were all excellent but his subcontractors had no idea how to do plumbing and we are lucky we caught it before we had a major catastrophe.

Terrible. He did not start the job on he day he said he would. The job took three times longer than he said it would. He did shoddy work and did not want to correct the problem. He would not return phone calls and ignored us when we tried to call him about the bad job. He has been sued more than once but at the last minute, settled out of court. We even contacted the B.B.B. but when they contacted him, HE joined THEIR membership! They did help us get our leaky roof repaired by Mr. Mills but it was like pulling teeth!