Mid States Carpenters Group Corporation

It went excellent! They did a great job. It was done quickly and they cleaned up the mess.

Very well. He took a look at the job, we discussed some details. He and the crew came out and did the job. They were professional and tidy on the clean-up.

Judd really wanted to determine the cause of the failing so he inspected the roof and found it quite compromised in several places. I appreciated him discovering the cause and went ahead with fixing the roof also. Judd and his crew were very careful, respectful and interested in doing a quality job. They started the roof on Easter Sunday and when they left on Monday I never found one nail on the ground! Their preparation and clean up was amazing. I will definitely hire them again.

Simply put, Mr. Penny is professional. He had a two man crew doing the work and, although he could not be on site all the time due to other jobs he had in progress, he came often to check on the progress and quality of the work. He also always asked me if I was satisfied with the work as it progressed and if I had any issues with either the work or the men on the crew. He obviously runs a tight ship! And when not here he was only a phone call away, and would respond in a timely manner if something came up. I highly recommend him for your construction needs. ~Randall Ingram

very well. everything looks great. The deck passed inspection with flying colors..

Great! Judd and his crew were incredibly efficient, neat and professional. They even put all the books back in the cabinets! They get a prize for going one step beyond. We will definitely hire them to do additional work on the exterior such as water damage to siding requiring replacements.

The carpenters' team of three did very extensive repairs, some sanding, painting and sealing before installing all new gutters. The Carpenters' Group did an excellent job with a very difficult project.

The team met the challenge with great skill. It required working very high up in high heat and humidity but they never complained. I appreciated that Judd Penny suggested re-routing some of the gutters as they were allowing unwanted water to seep into places such as the corner of my deck near the basement. His employees were well-qualified and easy to work with. I felt they did an excellent job on my home in West Des Moines.

Prior to having our house repainted, we needed ~10 exterior trim boards replaced. I contacted Judd, and he was very responsive and quickly gave me a quote. During the quote process and preparing for the project he was very honest with product recommendations and why he recommended one product vs. another. He was there when the project started to review the scope and give instruction to his crew. He was not there during the entire project, but was there at least twice each day checking the work and ensuring we were comfortable with the progress. His workers were diligent and it is apparent Judd sets a very detailed-oriented standard for them. At then end of the project, he did a very thorough walk-thru with us to ensure we understood what all was replaced and were satisfied with the work. I highly recommend Judd & his crew. Not only was the actual carpentry work great, but Judd is a good businessman, which is a valuable blend of skills for a contractor.

We replaced approximately 10 exterior trim boards in advance of painting our house. Judd was very quick to respond to my request for an estimate and great with communication throughout the project. His walk-thru during the estimate process was very thorough and you could tell he was knowledgeable by the items he pointed out about the construction of our house and recommendations he made. His crew was timely, hardworking and detailed. Judd wasn't there for the entire job, but was on-site daily and was always asking if the work was acceptable. At the end of the job he did a walk-thru of everything completed, which we were very pleased with. I felt very comfortable with his crew and highly recommend them.

The short version: You get what you pay for. This wasn’t the cheapest estimate, but they fixed it RIGHT and we won’t have to do it again. Judd and his crew were always very respectful and courteous and I would trust them with any project on my house. Many dog walkers and retirees have stopped by and commented on what a great job they did and how you just don’t see quality work like this anymore. The longer version: This was not the easiest project as it’s a 2 story house with a walkout and the chimney is on the side with the steepest hill. I started getting estimates for repairing the chimney last fall (2015). There was rot and the wood peckers had started going after it. I got several estimates from people who were just going to replace the few obviously rotten boards, slap on some paint, and call it good. That’s how the previous owner had fixed this problem several years ago. I had one person come look at it, explained several of the issues, said it would be expensive to fix it right, and then never bothered to give me an estimate. I got a hold of Judd and he came and took a look. He understood the root cause of the problem and spent some time thinking about the best way to fix it so it wouldn’t rot again. The way it was originally built, caused water to sit where it shouldn’t. He did a very thorough job with the estimate. They started repairing the chimney in April (2016). Once they tore off the outer layers, the could see there was very little insulation randomly placed so they insulated it. That would explain why it was always so cold by our fireplace. They had to repair some structural pieces that had rotted. They made it look beautiful by matching the house trim on it instead of plywood and 1x4s that had been previously used. The siding also ensures the water will move down the side of the chimney, not sit on the 1x4s which isn’t something I had thought of until Judd pointed it out. He did some work at the roof line to make sure the water flows away from it instead of pooling against it. They finished off with a good caulk job. A week before they arrived to work on the chimney, we decided the whole house needed to be painted. I quickly got estimates on that and we decided on Judd and his crew. They weren’t the cheapest but they pressure washed the house, scraped, caulked, primed, and 2 coats of paint. They brushed under all the siding edges to ensure the primer and paint got worked into the crevices of the siding. The previous owners had painted trim on the front of the house but the rest of the house was all the main color. Judd and crew painted the trim all around the house and it looks great. When scraping the house, they found a soft spot in the soffit at the front of the house. They took it out to replace it. I happened to walk out shortly after they did this and there were 7-8 very large wasp nests laying on the ground (I’ve never seen wasp nests this large). Every spring and fall we have wasps in the house. We could never figure out where they were coming from. We haven’t had a wasp in the house since they repaired the soffit so I’m guessing we now know the source. When this house was built, they put the gutters up then painted the house so there was bare wood behind the gutters. They took those all down and found a few places to repair. The gutters were too small for the roof so we had them put 6” gutters on as well. Due to the bigger gutters, they were able to eliminate a couple of the drops so there isn’t so much gutter clutter on the house. Finally, the vent in our master bathroom was never connected correctly and was vented through a soffit vent which caused dirty drips on the side of the house. One rainy morning, they vented it through an existing vent in the roof and cleaned out fan because it had builder crap in it (not the first time we’ve found that issue in this house).

Very nice work I am very happy with the deck.

I was under the impression that there was going to be a drawing of the deck shown to us, so we could visual see their idea. I was disappointed that it was only a verbal explanation of what the deck would look like.

Judd Penny's excellent team was led by a talented young craftsman named Brett. The deck is intended to serve as a platform for a shade shelter we are building at a later date. We had to allow for some rain delays but the work was executed beautifully and in a timely fashion. We would definitely recommend The Carpenters Group to friends and look forward to working with them again in the future. (By the way, since we prefer to keep financial details confidential, our review does not include this information.)

Judd was professional, honest, and kept me up to date on his progress throughout the job. He was flexible in scheduling and coordinating with me while I was out of town. I will continue to use Judd for various home projects.

Judd was great. The room looks wonderful and he was very gracious in all the knowledge he was passing along to me!

He made a trip to store every time he needed something. Wasn't smart enough to make a list for the day. Of course, he needed to be paid for his time. Told him he wasted his time and my money. I received 2-3 more attempts to let him do it for me. Asked how culpable he thought I was. This is what I want done. His business removed from Angies list and my letter posted for everyone to see. I intend to take him to small claims court for $5000. I'm 75 years old and it's all I can do to keep from reporting it to the t.v. news. It's not like I have money to burn. I feel you should have checked his work ethics more thoroughly. I bought his services through an Angie's List special. $500 work for $250. I was only going to use him to update my previous home which he might have been capable of doing but an opportunity to buy a house closer to my children came up and it had too many problems for him to efficiently handle. All he saw was an older lady with money to spend. I have witnesses for most of the major occurrences. He also made several derogatory remarks about my movers through 2 men and truck which were totally false. I would hire definitely hire them again. I would appreciate anything you can do to rectify this major problem. Feel free to call me and discuss this before I take it to court.

Great! Couldn't be more satisfied! After he powerwashed the house, it took him 2-3 wks to actually get started on the carpentry repair work. Said he had a hard time finding good help. He only had one man to help him who was brand new. I got to hear a lot of the instructions that he gave him. He was very attentive to detail and supervising what he did. Judd was very knowledgeable, thorough, communicative (email and in person, there were no surprises), respectful, courteous, professional, considerate, and helpful. He has a really sharp eye, and takes pride in his work - said , "When I touch something, I own it." He was even more than I expected -showed me how to seal my deck (because I said I wanted to do that myself). When he was all finished with my house, he bought me the best deck sealer and brought it to the house for me, loaned me his step ladder, respirator, putty knife, and an empty paint can to use. I finished sealing it last week, and h*** be picking his stuff up this wk sometime. He also told me the hardware to buy to put up my kitchen window shade and said hed do it for me. (no charge) He did a lot of carpentry repair work on my front door roof overhang saying that he couldn't guarantee that it would never leak again, but he didn't think it would. He didn't want to charge me for any of that work, but I told him it looked like new again and hed spent a lot of time, labor, and materials on it, so I went ahead and paid him extra for it. Judd Penney is a a rare find!

Judd is a excellent carpenter and knows how to do things correctly. We paid a little more for his deck over other bids, but when he showed us the difference in his construction method and material, and seeing it come together, and complete, WOW! We made the right decision. We had a couple issues but he stuck to his pricing, that's a first for us with contractors. He and his crew worked tirelessly. We also went for a thicker shingle for the roof, from his options and it made a huge difference in the look of our house. This is by far the best contractor we have worked with, and we have had several over the years.

Terrible! Did not finish one job he promised. Had to hire another contractor to fix his mistakes. Did more talking than work. Was not punctual and was more interested in gouging us for more work.

First and foremost, Judd does excellent work. He is very detail oriented and meticulous and he is a true carpenter doing quality work. He was a one-man-show on my job, which I think may have been a downfall. My overall rating of a B comes from the months of correspondence and work that took place on my house (January 2015-May 2015). We started with a $6,000 budget and a $1,000 contingency. After all was said and done, I paid out a total of $8,800. Of that original bid, only $1,200 was allotted for materials (which I didn't ask for the breakout until the job was almost done - make sure you ask for that up front, he charges $45-50+/hour and at one time said carpenters like to make $500-$1000 A DAY). I have a large house in Sherman Hill, all wood siding and much of it was in terrible shape. I've not tackled a project of this size before but this is my third home so it's not new to me. I assumed that of the $6,000-$7,000 budget, at least 30-50% of that was going towards material as that seems to be the norm. After asking Judd what the breakdown was, there was quite a bit of back and forth via email and some heated words that I felt were unnecessary from him (which is why I am giving a B in professionalism and responsiveness). Each day he was there - which was over a 5 month period of time as the weather and other work (both on his part and mine) did not allow him to be in and out as he had thought - he would tell me that he's spent more money on materials than he planned and I always felt like he was trying to get me to pay him more money. It was a lot of repair that I couldn't see (inside the soffit so I had no way of knowing what had been done). Towards the end of the job, it was clear that he was not making money and therefore, the quality and amount of work suffered. The south side of my house, which needed the most repair, got the least and my painters have had to replace sills and trim work that my budget (and original scope) should have covered with Judd. I contemplated using him to build the porch railing, but after the $1,000 quote (which he said, was a very reduced price because it's a 3 day job), I built it myself in one weekend for $350 in materials. At the end of the job, we agreed to disagree. This was a large project and being a one-man-show, it did not go as we both had planned and expected. If you can afford his rates, he does do good work. I would not use him again for the size of job he did at my house though.

He always does excellent work. He is very proper, precise, and on time.

Judd is very conscientious when he does a job. He does quality work. We are seniors and he gave us a discount on the labor costs. We have other projects lined up for him to do. We would definitely recommend him. He is very versatile and can do most any repair or remodeling job for you.

Project was on time and on reasonably priced.

Judd found and corrected many structural problems that have ceased roof and siding not for years. He was always courteous and kept me informed as to options and progress.