Southern Illinois Builders

Everything he did turned out to be in error. The doors were installed in such a manner that the hardwood floors could not be installed properly. The exterior door in the garage was not installed so that it would be water tight. The utility room cabinets were installed very poorly. He also dropped something on our dryer which caused damage to the paint. Repairs have been very costly and difficult to repair.

Do not use him. He cuts too many corners. We may have to have part of our roof redone now. He didn’t bother to cover our house while he had the roof torn off and it ended up leaking in our home. We had to call him that night to come out.

Disaster! Christopher Nickolic was the contractor/owner on the job. He began work, but failed to provide a contract; he kept promising that he would bring one out, but never did. He and his crew began tearing off the decking on the front side of the house before the dumpster was on site during the few days I was in town. There was a mess all over the yard. They put their foot through the ceiling twice, once in the living-room and once in the dining room. These required patching and painting--a girlfriend showed up to paint--not a very good sign or result. The code inspector from the City of Carbondale showed up and told Nickolic to hire a roofer when it came to the roofing part. I had to leave town and was not living in-state at that time. My new tenant called to say the new but not completed roof was leaking. The workers failed to secure the blue tarp during heavy rains. I came back through town several weeks later to find the roof nearly completed, and water damage in the dining room and living-room. There was 8" fascia board wrapped all around the house with a two inch gap left at the bottom. Blown-in insulation that had come through the gap was all over the inside of the house, piled on and around the hot water heater as well as all sides of the yard. Several working lights were no longer working due to misdirected nails. I asked Nickolic to put a two inch strip of wood to cover the gap before adding the fascia coil; he pretended to do so. In January of 2010, the renters moved out and I put the house up for sale. My Realtor called me out of state to tell me that motivated buyers turned down the house because there was water damage and mildew on the ceiling. I came to inspect in May. I called the city and they had Nickolic out to do some repairs. It turned out that he did not take off the decking or shingles on the rear of the house only added the rafters on top of the existing roof. This has set up a condensation problem in the house. Nickolic put a rubber boot around the heat exhaust vent on the roof. On another vent he put four inch PVC pipe around a three inch PVC pipe not detectable from the ground. Vent pipes had improper flashing. The valley was laid wrong. He used nails that were too short to secure the ridge cap and in places there was only shingles draped over the ridge cap with no vent. He did not angle the rafters down toward the drip edge so that all around the house instead of 4 inches of fascia, there is ten inches and the gutters are way below the drip edge. He did not trim the edge of the old roof before applying the fascia leaving gaps where birds were getting into the two inch gap and nesting. The ceiling continues to show damage and Nickolic has refused to take responsibility to repaint at his expense. Some small repairs were made but the only thing that would make things right at this point is to tear the entire roof off and start again. Nickolic has since received a ticket from the City of Carbondale and a complaint of this incident is on file and working its way through the attorney generals office. He also asks you to put money on his Lowes account so you don't really have a good record of what you actually paid him. Nickolic can appear polite, but he really is a snake in the grass (no insult to real snakes intended). If you hire this guy, don't turn your back on him, or YOU WILL BE SORRY.