Affordable Basement Finishing Co

I've never written a negative review. If I have a bad experience I usually just write it off as a bad day. That said, I feel like I have to warn people to stay away from these guys. Not only is the work really sloppy - they do *not* stand behind it. I bought a house about 5 months ago that had the basement recently finished by these guys. The sale almost didn't go through because the permit hadn't been finalized. The seller scrambled to get that done before closing. After we moved in I discovered the following things wrong. Some of which our inspector should have found but regardless should be covered by the contractor's warranty. 1) Shower hot and cold water reversed 2) Electrical outlets all wired on same 15 amp circuit and tripping with regular use 3) Three doors that don't close sometimes depending on humidity 4) One door that the latch rubs against the wall when closing it removing paint 4) Closet doors with sliding doors - the opening is 47.5 insches, the doors 30 inches, leaving an opening of 17.5 inches which is quite narrow. The guide for the doors isn't centered so would have to be moved and the floor patched to get smaller doors. 5) Paint on light fixtures 6) Quite a bit of grout on the surface of the tile. I'm not sure if the tile was sealed. If it was it is going to be a bear to clean this up. I suspect I have left over 30 messages with their answering service. I have been contacted back a couple times and they sent their subcontractors out eventually to fix item 1 and improve item 2 (I hired my own electrician to improve it further). I have been told they will send someone to look at the doors that won't close but they ignore me when trying to follow up on that. As far as the ones that only open 17.5 inches - tough luck.

3 stars for the basement we ended up with, 1 star for the horrible experience. All this company does is file the permits then hand it off to one of their subcontractor teams (who have 2 or 3 projects going at once) and you will work entirely with that team; you will only hear from the company to ask for the next check. The problem is they do not vet the teams they hire, nor the work that they perform, and they will not help you when things go bad. Our first team was friendly and meant well, but had no attention to detail and made many mistakes they weren’t able to fix. The windows were framed so badly some couldn’t fully open. Most door frames were out of plumb and they planed the sides of the doors to fit. Many bulging / misshapen walls and soffits. The bathroom tile was awful. There were many more mistakes that are hard to capture in one picture. It was a nightmare checking for mistakes, asking for fixes, checking again, asking again, etc, for weeks on end. Our foreman did not speak English which made things harder. They were also unprofessional. Their notice of when they would come often changed without telling us. No dust control. Many design decisions without asking us. The inspector approved on condition of some extra work which they tried to skip. They broke our countertop for the wet bar. A lot more I’m omitting. When we began raising alarms to the company, they were slow to respond and basically just asked the team to fix it, then never followed up. No employee of Affordable Basements ever once reached out to discuss the situation, how best to resolve it, or ask how things were progressing, nor ever came to our home after the project started, despite raising serious quality concerns multiple times. We know the owner was made aware of our complaints multiple times but never heard from him. Their total lack of oversight and concern left us to manage everything ourselves which was stressful and time-consuming. After three failed fixes on the window framing and tile, and still doing unacceptable new work, we demanded a new team, and the company did allow this. But they never acknowledged that anything bad had happened, let alone apologized, instead telling us how they’ve “had great basements come out of [the first team] with zero complaints”, implying that we were the crazy ones. The new team was shocked at how badly the first team had done and took another 7 work weeks to redo the entire bathroom, replace 3 misframed doors, among other work, and they did a decent job. After 19 work weeks on our “8 week project”, we ended up with a decent basement, though many mistakes remain. The company never showed any empathy for our terrible experience caused by their negligence, let alone any discounts for it (beyond the property damages). To their credit, they let us pause work as long as we needed when our daughter was born. But when we signed the contract, the project was expected to be completed 6 weeks before her birth, and it was disheartening to miss that timeline and still need so much work done after she was born. The company was again apathetic about this and ignored our many pleas to speed things up, both before and after. A basement remodel is a huge investment of time and money and it’s just not worth rolling the dice like this. Please learn from us and the similar stories around and find a more reputable and caring company.

Crew was courteous and flexible, able to accomplish ad-ons without complaint. I felt they could have been done a little bit faster, but it didn't put me out at all. Contractor was flexible when I wanted to purchase some of my own supplies. I have found some slight errors in tile work, so I don't know if I would use them for that again, but over all I am very happy and feel I got a great deal.

We had several estimates to finish our basement, the estimate provided by Affordable was the least expensive. I was a bit hesitant because of it, we didn't want crappy work done. It fit our budget so we went with it. They were here every day on time, the work was done in a timely manner and went very smoothly. If we ever had a concern, I would call or email and get a response right away. The inspections all went without a hitch and we now have the basement we have been waiting for forever! We were so pleased with their work that we will be redoing our kitchen with them come January!

Overall a sufficient job in the end. Getting to that point was a little frustrating. The main project manager was only on-site at the beginning until the contract was signed and then was not there to manage any of the work. During the project they made assumptions about things like paint colors and windows without checking with us ahead of time before completing the painting/window installations. They did redo what we disliked after we told them about it. Language barriers made this a little difficult since our main contact was not there at all for the duration of the work. Price was probably high for what was done.

These guys are AWESOME! I called the owner, Pete, on a Friday afternoon. Pete sent Tom over on Saturday morning to take measurements and give us a rundown on the company. Tom had us plans and a tentative quote in under a week.Affordable Basements wasn't the absolute lowest quote we could've gotten. But they're easily in the bottom 25% of contractors for cost. We got quotes pushing upwards of 35k from others. We got a complete and professional job for almost 10k under that!Pros: This company keeps you in the loop every step of they way. The project manager, John, was absolutely wonderful to deal with, as was our foreman, George. They matched the construction of the rest of out house. The paint, drywall, windowsills, baseboards, door handles, etc all match what we already had upstairs.They also use all metal framing, which was a great plus for us in a basement (more prone to flooding).Workers respected our space and schedule. They came when they said they would, and 90% of the time, supplies and workers came through the egress windows while they worked. They told us which days would be the loudest (jackhammers on the concrete mainly) so we could send our kid over to the grandparents' for nap time.Little touches were added to the project, such as drywall shelving and a little bookcase under the stairs. We'd throw ideas out and they quickly provided helpful feedback and gave fair prices for these little items.Cons: This company takes a bit longer to finish the project. It took about 8-9 weeks in total and we had quotes from others who guaranteed 4-5 weeks. A small price to pay for the attention to detail (and cost savings)!Tom was really great about getting us our quote, but because he didn't have a construction background, we eventually found out that making all communication through the project manager, John, was the way to go. I'd like it if the company would move 95% of the contact to the project manager after signing the contract instead of having to go through the sales guy. However, this was quickly remedied by a quick call to the owner, Pete.We'd gladly use these guys again. Thanks for the great basement, we look forward to using it a lot in the years to come.A+

I called to have someone come out and give an estimate to finish our basement and possible other projects. As I started to tell Pete ( I believe that is his name ) about the job he cut me off. Since our basement is already framed and drywall hung he said to Google a dry wall person because they do all or nothing. At this point I was done speaking to Pete and hung up. Before I could even finish telling him about the other major things we need done to our home he blew me off.

Below is how the last several months transpired.In late August 2013, we signed a contract with Affordable Basement Finishing (ABF), based out of Broomfield, CO, to finish our basement. The owner of ABF is Pete Enzinna, who was supposed to act as the General Contractor. ABF is top of the list on Angie?s List and the BBB for basement remodel contractors in our area. We received bids from other contracting companies as well, however ABF?s top rating on consumer review websites made us decide to go with them over other less expensive bids. My husband is in construction and would normally do the job himself. However, he had an injury and had several restorative surgeries and was on painkillers, therefore unable to do the work himself. I was newly pregnant with our second child, and wanted to have the basement finished before our daughter arrived. So we decided to hire a reputed General Contractor who would have our backs and leave my husband out of the remodel work. We were willing to pay a premium for someone to do this work and do a good job, as all the reviews for ABF had suggested. The final bill with ABF was $25,705.15, not including several items we purchased ourselves, such as lighting, fans, and bathroom bidet sprayer.In September 2013, ABF began work on our remodel using the basement egress window as an entrance to the house, which would keep my husband, who is a stay-at-home dad, from having to deal with the construction. As construction was ongoing, there were several things that I wasn?t particularly happy with which met with resistance when I asked them to fix it. During construction, one evening I went down to check on how they were doing and found that they had changed the design that was approved in the contract, and built a platform for the washer and dryer in the laundry room, over the existing sump pit. They told me that it was the best way to do it, and I believed them. I told my husband about it, and he got really upset, and said that if they didn?t have an engineer design it, it would never be structurally sound. Then my husband went down and looked at it, and blew a gasket at me. He was so frustrated with the work, and still recovering from his surgeries, that he decided to stay out of it, which is what we had arranged with Pete in the first place. At that time, we had no proof it wasn?t an engineered solution, and I believed that Pete was doing an honest job. The next time I met with Pete?s crew, I asked them what it would take to move the laundry back to the original design over the concrete floor instead of over the sump pit. They said it would take some plumbing, but since the tile and drywall were not up yet, it was easier to do then than later. The crew said the plumbing could be moved for around $500. I asked Pete to help do this, and he gave me a verbal amount of $3000, which even though I felt was outrageous, I was willing to pay it to make my husband happy, and more importantly, because I was beginning to understand that my husband was absolutely correct in noting that our top-load laundry would be un-functional on a platform.Even with the inflated price that I was willing to pay, Pete refused to switch the laundry back to its originally designed location, because he said it would take an additional 3-4 days to move the plumbing and he wanted to get the job done quickly and just would not make the change. He also assured me that this platform was going to work, and I was placated.The tile work started. In the bathroom, the tile was horrendous by any standards, because even I noticed it and brought it up to the tile guy, who corrected only what I saw and pointed out. We had family visiting us over Thanksgiving. When my husband went to show his brother the work in progress in the basement, he was thoroughly embarrassed at the appalling tile job in the bathroom. I brought it up to Pete after the holiday, who said on the phone it was just fine. Then my husband encouraged Pete to come to the house, to show him in person that the tile job was unacceptable. Even at that point, Pete refused to re-do the entire tile work, and marked off 6 tiles to replace. However, Pete?s crew, after we pointed out the flaws to them, agreed that the work was terrible and replaced the tile with their own labor and out of their own pocket on the weekend. However, this meant that we did not get any travertine tile in the bathroom since the crew paid for it themselves, but we were happy to just have it look decent.In early January, Pete wanted to finish up the basement and get his final payment. I had been paying him regularly and on time per his schedule throughout the project. There were a few things we asked him to take care of, such as a falling heat register in one of the bedrooms, and a leaky bidet sprayer that had to be warrantied with the manufacturer and reinstalled. When removing the bidet, we found that the plumbing was not installed correctly, and that had to be corrected as well. Since Pete wanted his final payment before going to his mother?s funeral in Florida, and we wanted to be done with the project as well, we agreed to have his crew come back for the bidet work, and we made his final payment on Friday, January 10th. I was 9 months pregnant by this point, and we were excited to finally have laundry in the house again.On Saturday, January 11th, after digging the washer and dryer out from behind 6 months of accumulation in our garage, my husband took the appliances downstairs to get them hooked up. The dryer needed to be hooked up first. He somehow got the dryer onto the platform by himself, as I was unable to help due to my advanced stage of pregnancy. At that point, we realized that the dryer did not fit on the platform. The front of the dryer extended out 4 inches past the platform ledge. We had not even tried to get the washer up yet.I left a voicemail for Pete, and given that it was Saturday night, we didn?t expect a return call until Monday. That night, on January 12th at 2am, I went into labor. My husband rushed me to the hospital and we had our beautiful baby girl at 2:23am. We also have a 2-year old little boy. On Tuesday, January 14th after I had come home with my baby, we gave Pete a call as we had still not heard from him. He said he was in Florida and there was nothing he could do until the following week. We said we knew, but we just wanted to get on the schedule for when he got back. He promised to come to our house on Wednesday, January 22nd.During that week, we had friends stop by our house to see the baby. As we were describing our laundry situation, some of them suggested that we get a structural engineer to confirm whether the platform that?s supposed to hold the laundry appliances would be strong enough and structurally sound or not, and possibly get a solution. While we were waiting for Pete to come by the next week, we hired a structural engineer to review the work. He stated that the platform is absolutely not structurally sound, and has given us a letter to that effect.On Wednesday, January 22nd, we waited for Pete to come by. However, he did not come, and instead sent a plumber from his crew to fix the previous bidet issue, and asked his plumber to look at our issue with the laundry platform. We were of course disappointed that Pete did not come in person even though he had promised that he would, and we had waited over a week. His plumber went back and told him that the platform was not going to work, the appliances don?t fit, the platform would never hold up to a running washer and dryer, and that the laundry room would need to be re-worked so the laundry was on concrete, not on a raised platform.The next day, January 23rd, we contacted Pete about the platform again and asked him to please come by the house to look at the problem, so that we could discuss a solution. We had a two-year warranty for all labor on his contract, and we really need to have a working washer and dryer in the house, especially with two children still in diapers, a toddler and a newborn infant. During that phone conversation with Pete, he was being extremely unreasonable, and accused us of trying to get free labor from him. We explained to him that we just wanted a working laundry room, and we need to fix it somehow. We didn?t have any more money to fix something that shouldn?t have been wrong to start with, and we mentioned that if he couldn?t come out, we would have no recourse but to look at what our options were with the credit card company. At that point, he called us con artists, and said that we only paid with credit cards so that we could get our money back through a credit card dispute. We tried to reason with him that credit card protection goes both ways. If he had done a good job, we wouldn?t have had a leg to stand on in a credit card dispute. All he did was yell at us the whole time on the phone, and the call ended with no resolution, and us being insulted. My husband and I were both really upset, but we calmed down in a short while and tried to give him another chance to make things right. We sent him an email, and included pictures of the laundry room, since he didn?t want to come by and see the problem in person.The following day, January 24th, Pete called us. He asked what the report from the structural engineer said. As my husband started telling him what was in the report, he started yelling at us telling us to not rehash the issues of the past. It was an extremely frustrating conversation, and he still refused to come to our house that day. He said the best he could do was come on Tuesday, January 28th. We had no choice but to wait for him. In the meantime in an effort to be proactive, we called other contractors and a home inspector to get bids on what it would take to fix the problem in the laundry room, only to find out that Pete had not done entire major portions of our basement project. In fact, we will require a complete demolition and redo to just do the air-conditioning. We have an infant and a toddler and need a solution to have a functional basement and laundry area.The next Tuesday, January 28th, Pete did come to our house. He brought along with him, without warning us, a friend of his who he called a retired city inspector, who now does construction. We allowed Pete?s friend to go downstairs and look at Pete?s work. He agreed that the laundry room was horrendous, not structurally sound, and would require a complete redo. He also took note of the fire hazard heating system that ABF installed, the hallway is skinnier than code, the fire blocking is missing, as well as all of the TV and sound cabling, then quoting Pete $8500-$10,000 off the top of his head without really doing a deep dive bid. This really angered Pete as he was probably expecting his friend to say that nothing was wrong, or it was only minor issues. After much discussion back and forth between Pete, his friend, me and my husband, we asked Pete to come up with a solution that would help us get the basement functional and all parties happy. Pete agreed to do so by the end of day Thursday, January 30th. However, he never called or emailed and has not responded with any type of solution other than letting his guys continue to squeeze us in-between their other jobs as and when they have time. It took nearly three weeks for him to even bother to come and look at the issue. He had taken final payment from us without even doing a proper walk-through.We disputed with our credit card companies. Some of them have sided with us, while others have not. ABF has given a different story to every credit card that we disputed with, from calling us con artists, to a manufactured story about how he told us that putting in a closet would make the washer/dryer not fit, and even a story about how one fine day 3 weeks after the job was done, I decided to wake up and want all my money back that day. Good thing we have email and paper trail documentation for all of this. Pete's rebuttal about the closet causing the washer/dryer not fit is really just a lie, because the closet is NEXT TO the appliances, while the washer/dryer don't fit FRONT-TO-BACK.As of April 2014, Pete has put a lien on our house for over $30,000, for a job that cost less than $26,000 and for which he was fully paid. If he has an issue with the credit card companies giving us some of our money back, he should go after them, not us, because the credit card companies went by cold, hard facts and structural engineer's reports and home inspection reports.At this point, we do not trust that ABF has the skills necessary to complete the job, based on the disaster they have currently left us with. We are so sorry we ever hired them.

Tom came and took measurements of our ~600 sq ft basement, listened carefully to our needs. He was very punctual, friendly but professional at the same time. We met with him in a week to go over estimates. Estimate was fair enough but we found another company that gave us a lower estimate. To my experience, it is very difficult to find a responsive, professional but friendly contractor and Affordable Basement exceeded my expectations as far as the customer service. I would highly recommend them.

We made an appointment to have measurements taken and to discuss design. The appointment was during the workday, so I had to arrange for time off from work. Frank called and confirmed the evening before and then did not show up for the appointment. When I called him he said he left two voicemail's for me. I had one missed call from him at 7:02 that morning, no other missed calls and no voicemail. If they can't even get an initial appointment right, what are the chances they could get the job right?

Both jobs went very quickly, and every stage of the projects was handled with professionalism and care. The crews systematically showed up early, stayed as late as they needed to; were neat and picked up after themselves and didn't even make much noise! I would definitely use Affordable Basements (Pete) in any future project and would recommend them wholeheartedly. The are prompt, courteous, professional, and fair.

They were very professional and we found them very satisfactory. I would give them a rating of 10 out of 10. We did not take their services because we were just collecting quotes but we were happy with them. They were very prompt, very courteous and very nice.

Pete and his team finished 1,000 sq ft of our basement in early 2013. Not knowing reliable contractors (one was very expensive, another didn't have the experience, another guy that was experienced but by himself the work would have dragged out for a long time) and hearing stories of poor quality jobs and contractors that don't show up, we delayed our decision to finished our basement for years. But with kids toys overtaking the house and need for more space, we interviewed a number of contractors we found on BBB. All the quotes we received came in around $5K of each other, with Pete's being the lowest and the one that seemed to have most references and experience. After touring a couple of the jobs Pete had going and finished before, our decision was made. We couldn't have made a better decision with Affordable Basements! Here are our top reasons that we would recommend Pete and his crew to anyone looking for great work: 1) Quality of work: The quality of work and finishes are great. The work looks not only professional, I would say even better in the details than the rest of our house. Any minor things that we found (missing or uneven paint spots - that is how minor) were addressed before the job was finished. 2) Reliable Team: The team that works with Pete have been with him and each other for decades. They are not only trustworthy and great people, they were reliable in showing up and keeping our job on schedule. They worked on Saturdays and even in the worst snow days. They helped us make better decisions in how to layout the basement based on their vast experience. 3) Cost: Pete's quote included enough detail in the main sections (construction, lighting, fixtures, flooring, etc), but didn't going into so much detail that we would feel like we are being nickeled and dimed for each little extra item. We decided on a few changes that impacted the final cost, but they were reasonable and expected cost changes. Affordable Basements are the only contractors we would use for any future jobs. I can't wait to update our master bathroom!!

They did a very good job. It was probably the best price quoted to us. Since I don't have to use them again, I would refer them.

He has not started the work yet. My experience with him has been good so far; it has been completely awesome. I absolutely love him. He is very trustworthy. The plan that he has given me is exactly what he will be doing. I am totally happy with him. He is really organized and he has done this a lot. So he had a good plan for it. He seems real confident. He had his electrician and all his people come out and check what I already had in there to make sure that he gave me a really accurate quote.

Showed up on time. Didn't listen. Bid came in with items and materials that we said we didn't want. Bid was very high, but they did specify higher end work.

Overall, it was a pleasure working with Pete, his crew lead and the subcontractors. His crew was respectful in our house where we have 2 young kids, a dog and 2 of us working at home! We are thrilled with the new basement living space. We interviewed 3 contractors and chose Affordable Basement Finishing Co because of the integrity of the owner (Pete), how he stood behind his quote and that he was going to get a permit with the City. Because of the age and construction of our house, Pete warned us of a couple areas that might increase the original quote, one of which was needing to upgrade the electrical sub-panel. He gave us a ballpark figure for that potential add-on. When the electrician came to take a look at our house and basement finish plans, we ended up needing to install the sub-panel and it was under the quoted price. It took about 8 weeks for the basement completion, but the project was interrupted because we had visitors towards the end of the project. It took a couple days longer than expected for the crew to come back to our project, but I understood because our schedule essentially stopped the momentum. Pete uses metal framing, which increases the head-room by a couple inches, which made for a more spacious basement feel and MUCH less mess while under construction (no sawdust creeping into the main floor!). Every visitor to our house compliments the finish work and craftsmanship of our basement.

They showed up when they said they would and got it done very quickly. They gave me a good bid what was there. I actually asked them about some additional work and they suggested I not do it because it wasn't structural; it was really cosmetic and that I wait to do something different at a later date, when it was more needed. It was good for them to be upfront with that.

Pete was punctual and very nice. However, we were really disappointed in the bid and floor plan offered. First, we stressed that we wanted our basement to include a complete bedroom and bathroom. We also really needed to resolve some storage issues in our home--so we wanted additional closet space and a design that maximized the area of our tiny basement (~450 square feet). Not only did Pete's design do none of these things, it also failed to show that he listened to us at all. The bulk of the space on the plan was labelled "family room," not "bedroom," and there were no doors or closets in the room. Instead of maximizing space, Pete's design included a complicated system whereby I would have to open two different doors (not including accessing the basement itself!) to get to the laundry area! Anyone who has ever done laundry will understand that this is quite the opposite of functional. Also, compared to the other estimates we received, the floor plan was low quality, and the measurements did not appear to match with the scale of the drawing. Second, we were very disappointed in the price we were quoted--nearly $30k. As I mentioned, our basement isn't even 500 sqft. This price was far more than the other bids we received. I recognize that I don't have a real comparison for quality of work, which certainly adds value, but nothing we received (like the floor plan mentioned above) gave us any confidence that the work done would merit a price point nearly $10,000 more than any other bidder. Additionally, Pete was uncompromising on certain elements of the design, such as a "requirement" to have travertine tile in the bathroom. It was one of the ways that he was trying to emphasize quality; however, if he had listened to us at all, he would have understood that our priority was on space and storage, not a flashy basement bathroom.

Pete and his crew were great. They had done two other basement finishes on our street in the recent past and we went and checked out the work they did to our neighbor's homes. Pete came out, sketched out a design for us that incorporated the things we told him we wanted, then he came back with a fair bid. His employees were very courteous and professional. They did a great job. There were no surprises and we were very happy with the work they performed.

A waste of a year's time while they jerked me around, then refused to do the work.

It was a very pleasant experience working with Pete and Eleir their many years of doing these jobs shine though.

They did a great job, and were very easy to work with; prompt, thorough and professional. Pete regularly kept me informed with all the details during the job.

Pete called my to give me a quote and was very professional.

The job was finished to our complete satisfaction and is very beautiful.