California Showcase Construction

Beautiful job, on time, very neat, removed dirt and debris, cleaned up everything. Dealt with the city permits, gave me good suggestions. I love my backyard, now.

Initially, the job went well, although there were multiple small issues (some areas not completely painted, paint splashed or over-sprayed in some places) that needed to be addressed before we signed off on the job's satisfactory completion. Our biggest concern and complaint is that the paint job, which cost nearly double a standard paint job, had a lifetime guarantee, but within three years, there were problems with the paint cracking, bubbling, peeling and staining. We contacted the contractor multiple times by phone and e-mail, but without success. We sent him photos of the damaged areas and he committed repeatedly over many months to come out to the house, take a look at things and take care of it, but he never showed up. Out of frustration, we stopped calling and have now posted this negative review.

Window replacement was wonderful. They were done with the complete house in a couple of hours. We have already seen a reduction in our electric bill. They were very professional. The insulation had to be done on another day because their machine malfunctioned. They came back about two weeks later and were done in about an hour. We were very impressed with the honesty of the company. When they realized that the old insulation was done being removed and the new insulation was being sprayed on top, they gave us a refund as we had been originally charged for removal. They were there when they said they would be, and everyone from the sales representative to the installers were great. I would highly recommend them and if we do any additional work on our home we will definitely call them.

The salesman was knowledgeable and not too pushy. He knew enough about the products to answer my more technical questions. He had a polished delivery and was the third solar company that I had pitch me. California Showcase Construstion was licensed, bonded, and insured and has a good reputation with the Better Business Bureau (which isn't all it's cracked up to be but that's why we're here on Angie's List). The permit process with the city took six weeks as they're backed up. Once the permit was pulled the panels were installed very professionally with respect for my roof. They painted the electrical conduit to match the roof and the stucco of the walls. I found out that I was required by the city to have $1800 worth of electrical panel upgrade. That took a couple of weeks to schedule. The electrician cut out the old panel, enlarged the hole on the side of my home and installed and wired a new panel. The work was done very well with the stucco being replaced and painted to look like the original. A couple of weeks later a different pair of electricians came by to finish the system and hook up the solar array. They said that the conduit from the arrays down was the wrong diameter and that portion of the job would need to be reworked. Apparently they were wrong as the city inspected the system and signed off on it. Eight weeks later nobody had come by the house to commission the system so I called to see where the project was. I was told the foreman would call but he never did but within a week someone visited the house and performed the work. I was kind of concerned as nobody called in advance to say they were coming nor was I at home. My wife was and supervised the work - not an idea situation as I am the electrician, not her. As soon as the guy had finished the work he asked my wife for a check for the $27,900 job. She said no and the guy called me. I told him I had been waiting five months for the project to be completed and he would have to wait the five minutes for me to actually see the promised system was delivered before I was going to pay for it. He had the owner call me who was much more understanding about my concerns and allowed me to actually come home from work to inspect the completion. Nobody "commissioned" the system with me to show me how the Internet based reporting system worked but I figured it out on my own. That was a promised deliverable that wasn't delivered to me. If it was delivered to my non-technical wife it was a waste of time. It appeared to me that my project had fallen off someone's list and until I poked them to remind them nothing was going to happen. It took nearly five months to finish the project with about 6 weeks of that waiting for the local city. Overall things were very good and I would recommend this company to someone else looking for a solar system installation despite the minor issues and schedule delays. I've supervised many projects and they all have small issues, it's how the company handles them that makes a difference. California Showcase Construction was responsive to my requirements and it just seems that my schedule issue was "one of those things".

Went fine. A few hiccups, but the company went out of their way to correct and assure everything was satisfactory and not delayed.

unknown

Installation went great and windows are beautiful, but......when we contacted them for the remaining windows for our home we were very sad that we had been completely bamboozled. We really liked the salesman and stupidly trusted him. When he came back to give us the estimate for the second phase his estimate was $28,000! He even tried to lessen the cost by excluding some windows. California Showcase is pushing the HERO program to make it seem as though nothing comes and quot;out of your pocketand quot; until your property tax comes due the following year. In the long run we would have paid double to triple the cost of the windows through HERO depending how many years we chose to have a property tax lien. We did have a lot of windows to do, 3- 8ft sliders and 17 windows, so when we decided to get other estimates we were shocked to find out we could get the same beautiful Anlin windows for less than half of the California Showcase estimate. Which we did! Untied Builders promptly returned our call. The owner gives the estimate (no slick salesman) , the installers were friendly and knowledgeable and left our home neat and clean. All done in six hours! So we paid too much for the windows installed by California Showcase but thankfully came to our senses when we had the job completed by United Builders!

The work crew showed up on time at 8:00 A.M. They methodically and without fanfare replaced all windows in my home. This crew was the MOST professional of any crew that I have ever hired. They were finished by 2:00 P.M. and the windows are absolutely awesome.

The crew was quick, neat, professional, competent, polite, and cleaned up after themselves. The man who gave us the presentation and estimate didn't lie. The windows perform the way he said they would. Yesterday, it was 102 on our porch. The windows and casings were cool to the touch.

I can't say enough good about the people we worked with. From the original meeting to discuss our needs, through the estimate process, the work and the clean up everyone was pleasant and professional. The job took slightly longer than expected but I have to emphasize that it was not their fault. We had an inspector who is very typical of construction inspectors I've encountered everywhere, i.e. unprofessional, not showing up when he said he would, not calling to let the crew know that he wasn't coming, lackadaisical in his actual inspection, etc. So I don't fault the company for that. The windows were ready and fit with only minor adjustment in each of the openings. With the exception of dust which could not be controlled due to the strong breezes we get in the afternoon the crew went out of their way to cover the furniture and our patio and cleaned up at the end of each day. I will definitely use them again either to replace our aging patio cover or to replace more windows as the budget allows. Great people and I would recommend them unhesitatingly to anyone.