Shane's Construction

Shane gave us a written quote of $3150 to remediate the rotting wood under a trapezoid window, install 18 ft. of new gutters with hoods, 20 ft. downspout, and install (2) large custom triplex roll out windows and (1) smaller stationary kitchen window including interior & exterior trim. We would NOT have hired him if the price was higher. He measured the window openings and gave us the dimensions so we could order the custom windows from Home Depot (which we did immediately). He insisted on a cash payment of $2500 before he would begin work. The first day went relatively well as he accomplished tearing off all the old gutters. So everything would be ready for him the next day (Friday), I worked for many hours afterward repairing & painting the facia board, prior to the new gutters being installed. He showed up around 11:00 AM, and rather than do the promised work, abruptly announced he was taking the rest of the day off, leaving us with no gutters and damaged shingles even though heavy thunder storms were forecasted. I was worried about water damage, so I caulked the holes on the roof ledge to be safe. He returned with his helper on Monday to lay two rows of edging shingles and install the gutters. There was a 4" X 5" piece of rotted facia wood that I requested be cut out of which we were charged an extra $100 to replace. The next day he began tearing off the wood under the window & removing the wall facia which revealed extensive internal rotting as we had expected and discussed with Shane due to the prior ding-bat owner not maintaining the property and then lying, concealing, and conniving in order to sell it. This breech was something that would have been evident to ANY reputable home inspector as it was visible upon climbing a ladder up to check out the base of the window in addition to doing a simple finger push test which would have revealed the rot. On the spot, Shane demanded another $2,000 cash to put in a 4 ft. header, claiming he would be risking his life if the trapezoid window cut loose. I have been around construction most of my life and performed huge repairs on property and I knew absolutely that the repairs could be made safely and there was NO WAY that window was coming down. Nevertheless, we had no choice but to pay his extortion at this point which now totaled $4,600 BEFORE any of the major work was accomplished. He promised to remove the rotted wood under the trapezoid when the windows came in (6 weeks in the future) and left for the day with a large area of the house completely open and unprotected from the coming storms you may have seen in the news. I worked like a man on fire caulking & painting Zinnzer Cover Stain on the new 12" X 48" X 2" header board and then taped up the area with plastic so we wouldn't incur more water damage just in the nick of time before the storms began! Shane returned 6 weeks later when the new windows arrived and proceeded to cut out the old windows. I was observing what he was doing and he seemed to be in a huge rush to cover the bad area outside that still required serious remediation! I politely requested that the old rotted wood above the header be replaced, as he had promised, and with great irritation he exclaimed, "I know what I'm doing! Don't you have some dishes to wash?!" So, not wanting to get in the way, I went to do other work on the house - BIG MISTAKE! When I returned two hours later, to my horror, he had trimmed out the interior of both large windows with ROUGH cut cedar wood full of knots and cracks instead of light maple finish wood to match the trim and window sill that he removed! Also, he had installed the exterior panel over the header and none of the rotted wood on top had been replaced! It was obvious looking at the now installed windows that the dimensions he had given us were too small, therefore, the exterior trim board would no longer cover the opening! The only way to correct the breech was to use 2" X 4" studs for trim instead of the custom trim that he removed to install the windows! The same problem occurred on the kitchen window as well >>> the window was ordered too small to fit the opening and he had to cut pieces of wood to fill the large gaps!!! I told him I was not happy with what he had done and wanted the job done right. His response to me was I would need to pay him for the new materials plus another full day of labor to fix it! We had already paid an additional $300 for materials ourselves above & beyond the $4,600 we had already paid him. To add insult to injury he demanded an additional $650 on the spot before the job was finished! We have now paid this 'christian' man $5,250 - a full $2100 ABOVE his quote to do the job - WAY more than the cost of three custom windows! I knew we were in trouble at this point and he could just walk with our money leaving us with a major mess that would have been a huge loss for us as senior citizens owning property in a retirement community. I doubted that a guy with this little integrity would ever pay a court judgment against him, so I was in a panic when I realized we had hired someone this disreputable. Remarkably, he did come back the next Monday to finish installing the other window (see details above). In my 64 years of life I have never experienced such unprofessional and shoddy work. Having lost all confidence in Shane's ability to properly finish our windows, I told him I would hire someone else to finish the windows and he was perfectly fine with that, even though we had already OVERPAID him to properly install and trim out the windows. Frankly, I was deeply disappointed and stunned that Shane could take advantage of struggling grandparents knowing we had to take out a loan to pay him and are raising our 4 yr. old grandson!!! Welcome to Arkansas! As you can imagine, I am highly stressed and have lost a lot of precious sleep over this situation PLUS we must still hire and pay another contractor to finish the work! Remember my Angie's List friends, DO YOUR HOMEWORK BEFORE YOU HIRE ANYONE TO DO WORK FOR YOU or pay a heavy price for being a trusting naive fool like me....