HIGHLAND HOME IMPROVEMENTS

It went very well. They did a nice job.

I

I wasn?t really happy with their service. I wanted a step or a shelf in the shower and I didn?t get that. The detailed work wasn?t very good. I specifically asked for a sub-contractor who speaks English and he was nice and friendly but I couldn?t communicate with him as he didn?t speak English. I gave them the plans and the drawings and they pretended that they lost them and didn?t do what I wanted. I also had to call them back to fix a threshold that wasn?t up to my standards.

The job went very well. The work was actually better than I expected. It looks great. They were the cheapest of all the bids we got. I would definitely use them again.

We received a flyer yesterday from a man canvasing the neighborhood and gave it to my girlfriend. We called for an estimate. A man came and before he rang the doorbell he urinated on the side of our house. Her daughter lives in the basement and witnessed this. We called the company to let them know and the person we spoke to tried to make an excuse for the worker.

Did I mention he lied? Mike told me his boss told him to call to make sure we were both home. When I called the office to complain the girl who answered informed me Mike was one of the owners. Nice!!

They were great, we just were not ready to begin the project.

Tom Klein was so nice to work with from the start. He bent over backwards to accommodate us so we would feel comfortable with the payment schedule and work schedule. (just an important side note: we had originally hired another construction company to do the job and they never even started our job and we lost a very large deposit to that company. For details pull up the complaints against that company that have been filed). So, we were very leery and scared to hire anyone. We put our trust in Tom and Highland Home Improvement and they came through for us beyond our expectations. From the day they started the entire crew worked very hard on every part of the job. The crew was knowledgeable, courteous, and reliable. They followed and executed the architectural plans perfectly. Communication was excellent. Whenever we called with a question or comment we were always able to talk directly to someone or someone called us right back. We were living in the other part of the house through the entire process so they kept things as clean and neat as possible. We highly recommend this company!!! There are a few little things left for them to do, they should be done in a week and we will update our information upon completion.

Very happy with the job done. Easy to work with as we choose designs and changed our minds. Polite and respectful as they worked around us. It was a large job that finished on time, even working just before the holidays.

We got attention and honest answers from beginning to end. Highlands crews are very professional and prompt.

Quoted 3-4 weeks and took 5. Numerous days where nobody showed up. If I called then they typically showed up the next day. They used a couple of different work crews that had very poor communication between them. The first crew was very responsive and listened to my needs. I was very happy with the project about 2 weeks in. The drywall crew were slobs. They left their garbage from lunch in the basement, spilled their sodas and did not clean them up, took my broom from the kitchen and destroyed it and then poured their wall "mud" into my garden. They also treated my upstairs bathroom like a "Lepra-can" at a Cubs game. Even though I have a slop sink in the basement (which they also destroyed) they cleaned themselves off upstairs in my bathroom and left a disgusting mess in their everyday. When I called Tom to complain about the mess they left in my basement they moved the mess to my backyard and left it there for 4 days. There were several detail items that I told them about up front that I had to continually remind them about during the project because they never wrote anything down and continually forgot them. Most of them ultimately were completed to my satisfaction but would not have happened without a lot of monitoring on my part. At the end of the project they were right on time to ask for their final check. When I pointed out that a gas line had not been run they told me that it had. When I went to the area where it was supposed to be and couldn't find it they told me it was someplace else. I had to leave right after that conversation and later that night they asked my wife for the check and also told her the line had already been run. Ultimately they did the work but were very willing to have me write the check for uncompleted work. Part of the rehab was an office area with an internet connection. Luckily I tried to connect to the internet before I wrote the final check because the outlet was not connected to anything. I spent 4 hours figuring out what was wired incorrectly and fixing it which I charged back to the company. During this fix I also discovered that the furnace had not been completely installed. While digging around for the Internet wire I found some duct work that went around a corner and connected to nothing. Again I pointed this out the next day and it was fixed but the fact that I had to find it is pretty pathetic. This morning I found a vent cover that has one of the screws just barely hanging into the drywall at an angle because they destroyed the drywall during installation. It's just a small item but I know that the person who installed it realized what they had done because instead of fixing it the right way they angled the screw just right so that it would not fall out. There were parts of this crew that did outstanding work and went above and beyond. Unfortunately this was a very small % of the people who worked on my project. I will not use them again.

Mike was very attentive to overall customer service, and made certain everything was done according to our specifications. We had chosen some tile upgrades, and the workers did a great job with the installation. (We have had many compliments on the beautiful tile work.) We have a non-standard sized kitchen which required custom cabinets, and although the cabinets that were delivered were not the ones we ordered, the workers were able to retrofit them into the space- rather than returning and reordering cabinets, which would have further delayed completion- and they look lovely. (Although there was some loss of overall space in our already small kitchen as a result.) We did have some communication problems, both during and after the job, and some issues that needed to be fixed after the job was completed. However, Mike made certain that everything was eventually resolved, and continued to work with us until we were completely satisfied.

During the course of the installation, workers caused landscape damage and performed substandard repairs of flaws in their work. Eighteen months after completion of the work, and twelve months after a legal fight, Highland offered to settle the dispute. Highland agreed to send a workman to make needed adjustments in the windows and to pay for landscape damage. The company did pay for the damage, but the workman never came to make the promised adjustments.

I have gotten quotes from Highland before and this was the first time we used them. I was extremely happy with their work. Prompt and courteous. We wanted a very wide central stairway leading from the deck into the backyard moved to the side. They made it less wide and reattached it, reusing trim pieces and relocating railings that we already had there. Mike made great suggestions about how and where to reattach the stairs so that it accommodated our needs better. He also removed about 2 feet from the overall length of the deck. The concrete slab that the stairs originally landed on was removed - this wound up taking the better part of 2 days to break up and remove, and they were very careful and did excellent cleanup. I would use them again for sure.