SEA Construction Inc

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SEA Construction exceeded our expectations. This was our first remodeling project and we initially contacted Steve Albert, the owner and founder of SEA in early 2013. He worked closely with us and presented us with 3 different scenarios over a period of 6-7 months. He was extremely professional and responsive and frankly, we never felt the need to interview any other contractors. Nearly 10 months later, when we decided to move forward with the project, Steve personally took an interest in our project and became our day-to-day contact. We found all of Steve's team to exhibit the same level of professionalism and they were all excellent in terms of their craftsmanship. The plans were detailed and accurate and Steve proactively communicated with us during the entire project. When we added things onto the project (like the baseboards), SEA prepared a separate change order so we could track it separately from the remodeling project. Everyday, the SEA team would clean up the premises and left things very neat and clean. At one point, we had to tear out the backsplash and start over. Despite this change, Steve worked hard to have the team there on the weekends to stay on track. The project came in on time and on budget. We can't say enough about how great our experience was. We had heard about all of the nightmares from others about project delays, budgets being exceeded, etc. - but this was not our experience with Steve and SEA. We would strongly recommend them for any project, big or small - their attention to detail and professionalism is superb. We would be thrilled to be able to work with them again.

I didn't end up hiring them but they were very professional and seemed like they were very well organized and knew what they were doing. They are not a local company so I was looking for somebody who was local in San Mateo or someplace near Santa Clara. My initial impression when I contacted them and got a quote from them was that they were very professional and seemed like a pretty good company. The quoted price was fairly high. It was somewhere around $400,000. At that time, I felt it was a bit high. I believe at that time I have gotten 2 other quotes and they were definitely the highest. The owner who actually did the quote, Steven E. Albert, apparently had to go out of town so it took him a good 3 or more weeks to give us the quote. The quote was very detailed and very professional. I was pretty impressed with their customer service in that respect. For their responsiveness, they were slow. It might have been some circumstances where they couldn't control like he was out of town. It took him around several weeks to get to our quote. They were punctual in getting initially to me and coming to the house and doing the assessment. I would definitely use them again for a quote.

My husband and I hired SEA Construction to do this remodeling job on the recommendation of our architect and our realtor, who had reportedly worked with the owner, Steve Albert, before and were happy with the company's services. I am writing about this experience because I wouldn't want anyone else to make the same terrible, expensive, and hellish mistake. Why am I waving my arms, warning you away from this company? Because I am now in the ninth month of what was originally scheduled to be a 2.5 month project. To be fair, when we added the second bathroom, SEA Construction amended the schedule to 4 months, but I had no idea that 9 months later, there would still be work that remains unfinished. Roughly speaking, we are now more than 100% over time and 100% over budget. Who is responsible for this massive failure of planning and budgeting? Matthew Willbanks, Steve's project manager. It takes many failures of management to stretch a 4-month project into 9-plus months, but Matt rose to the challenge. My husband and I moved out of the loft and into temporary housing for what we thought would be the worst of the remodel. Two months became three, which became four. As we approached the hard deadline we had given to Matt, the day we moved back into the house because we could not afford another month of mortgage and rent, it was clear in spite of Matt's assurances that everything would be done that the loft was going to be uninhabitable. In order to move things along, my husband and I even came in on the weekend and primed both bathrooms ourselves so that tiling could get started. But by the time we'd run out of time, we had no kitchen, no toilet, no bathroom sink, and no working shower--and Matt hadn't even told the plumbers that there was any kind of hurry because we were moving in. The plumbing contractors worked all weekend so that we could have a toilet and some running water, but it was a while before we had a bathroom door (or any kind of door) and months before we had a kitchen sink or kitchen counters. Weeks would go by when hardly any work would get done at all. For more than a month, every time we talked to Matt he promised us that and quot;the sheetrock would go up this week.and quot; At least one construction worker decided to ride my bicycle around in the living room instead of actually working, which we caught on the webcam we set up to keep an eye on loft construction to figure out why SEA wasn't making any progress. Matt fired the bicyclist, but work did not speed up. We stopped asking for any kind of schedule, not only because Matt wouldn't give us one, but we didn't want to get another set of lies. Finally, my husband took over management of the project, building punch lists, talking to vendors, and doing the bulk of the remaining design. At least now the end is in sight. Steve has offered us a small discount, which covers the cost of a jacuzzi tub that they accidentally demolished at the beginning of the project and part of the and quot;management feeand quot; we have paid for Matt. We had originally planned to hire SEA to do the second phase of this remodeling project. You could not convince me to hire this company again.

We didn't use them yet, so far so good. They were professional and very thorough. It is just that we haven't really decided yet.

The team was amazing. Personable and friendly, all spoke excellent english. They were there promptly every day, and the amount of work accomplished daily was always a surprise. The site was cleaned every day. They even made sure that the path for cars was alway free of nails. Naturally, in any project of this size, surprises appeared when they removed the old siding. While some of this was planned, the remaining effort, which took additional monies was discussed at length before anything was done, including pictures for our files. And I am really glad they found some of these problems now. Final walk-thru was with the project manager and the entire team. The few really minor issues pointed out were taken care of right then, and checked again with us. I can't say enough good things about the work they did or the care they took of our property.

The quoting process went really well. They were very friendly and listened to everything I had to say. They also catered to my agreement.

Overall, they were very professional, quality work, and finished the job on time. I liked them enough to use them again for our next project.

We chose them because they sold us on having complete service from a design team, to job supervisor. If we could have just worked with Steve only it would have been find but it seemed as though many of the people we did work with were junior and didn't have very much experience in design or construction supervision. The job ended up taken close to six months start to finish with a great deal of time spent with our bathroom and bedroom torn apart. One of the major delays was caused by a poor decision by the site supervisor to cut the tub skirt in order to install it after the floor tiles were installed which did not leave enough room to get the skirt installed. this caused a structural problem with the skirt which was then not strong enough as the edge cut away was adding rigidity to the overall skirt. So we waited for a new skirt to arrive and the floor tiles to be pried up, the skirt installed and the floor tiles reset. The table upon which the sink vessels were mounted was installed too high. It appears that SEA's architect is either too tall or has limited experience with vessel sinks mounted on a table as opposed to traditional sinks.

I couldn't be more pleased. They competed the job on time and within my budget. They were on top of things. They never let things slide. I will use them again to build up my attic.

We'd thought that with the design and build done by one company, we wouldn't have the finger pointing issues. BIG MISTAKE! There's no one to look out for your interest. SEA is incompetent and dishonest. The $25,000 we paid was ONLY for the design and it was horrible and "vagued" at best. They hire young, inexperienced designers who are worth no more than $75/hr, but charge you $95 and $125/hr for their time. Since the designers are incompetent, you pay a lot more hours than you would for an experienced designer for the same price. We fired them after we got the quote, checked with a few subs, and realized that it was between 50-100% more than it should cost. Example: they told us it would take eight to remove and install a new kitchen sink - in the SAME location, thereby justifying their cost of $800. This is just the labor, not the cost of the fixtures like sink, faucet, etc. PLEASE do yourself a favor by avoiding our costly mistake and DON'T hire these incompetent crooks.