General Contractors Unlimited

I hired General Contractor’s Unlimited (David Kennedy is the owner) to remodel our kitchen, widen an existing door opening, and build a 4 season’s room addition for me. I should have known to get another contractor when they started on my addition 10 weeks after the agreed upon start date (they actually started a week after the initial completion date). David kept giving me one excuse after another as to why they were delayed, why they couldn’t get there, other job’s took more time than expected, and it wasn’t until I asked for my $10k initial payment back that he actually sent his guy’s to my house to drop off a tool trailer in my front yard. They showed up a week later to start work. GCU was to build an 18’x22’ four season’s room on the back of my house, and tie it into the existing roof lines so that it didn’t look like an add on room. It was supposed to be 18’x22’ because of the size of two existing concrete pads that we had, but the room is actually would up being 18’x21’. I was told by Dave “I guess I miss measured, but just put some flower planters at the end of the room and that should cover it up”. I also noticed the trusses he ordered were the wrong dimensions, because the peak of the addition is 2’ below the existing peak, and the overhangs are 1’ above the existing ones. My existing overhang’s are 18”, and the ones on the addition are 12” when I asked him about it he simply said “It’s too late to do anything about it now because the roof is set. I also noticed that the concrete block skirt that was to be installed around the addition wasn’t installed. When I asked Dave, he told me that if he installed concrete blocks, then the floor in the addition would be higher than the floor in the existing room, so he simple put my floor joists straight onto the footers and concrete pads so it would be level. The next thing I noticed was that there were only 4 cut outs for windows. I told Dave that the floor plan that I drew up and gave him has 6 windows plus a French Door, to which he responded “Oh, I only ordered 4 windows. Do you want me to order the other windows because you’ll have to pay for them since they weren’t in the quote (Get used to hearing this phrase). I told him to get 4 more instead of just two because my wife wanted to add two more windows for more sunlight. Once the room was enclosed and the drywall subcontractors finished their job (The drywall guys were GREAT and I hired them for another job I had done) the real cost of this project started to rack up. According to Dave, I needed to go buy the flooring, flooring underlayment, light fixtures, light switches, light bulbs, ceiling panels, baseboard trim, ceiling insulation, wall/ceiling/trim paint, and all the painting material because none of that was included in his quote. That’s a grand total of $6,600 that wasn’t in his original quote, nor was it stated anywhere that none of these were covered, so I had to come up with that out of my pocket in order to get the room finished. After 2 months the job was finished and I did a walk through with Dave. I asked why there was a white board wedged between the addition and the existing brick on my house, and Dave told me it was where his guy’s cut the opening for the room to long, so there was a 2” gap there, but it was ok because he covered it up was a plastic board that cost $75 and he thinks it looks good. I pointed out several issues I wanted fixed and corrected and he said that he didn’t see anything wrong with it and it looked fine to him. I let him know that it was my house and not his so I wanted these things’ taken care of. Simply things like: Paint the bare wood trim around the French/entry doors. Put a second coat of paint on the ceiling in the new addition since it was only primed. Paint the ceiling in the kitchen where the walls were removed and the drywall was patched. Raise the French Doors because they drag and scratch the floor. Remove the boards and install vinyl siding between the French doors and the windows on each side. Lower the can lights in the outside overhang so I can install the inserts. Install the vinyl siding at the bottom of the addition so the floor joist isn’t exposed. Replace the flashing over the fascia board so the wood wasn’t exposed. Replace the metal electrical boxes on the exterior of the addition with the flush mount electrical plates that were called out in the drawings. Fix the electrical receptacle in the existing living room that worked before the construction began. Install the tile backsplash in the kitchen. Clean up all of the nails and debris in the yard. Dave said that he would get back with me, but never did. He continued to ignore me for months. In that time, the ceiling in my addition began sagging and separating. The oak trim that I paid for turned out to be knotted pine and all of the knots began bleeding through leaving yellowing marks (55 at last count) all over the trim work. The French doors leaked, and would stick and they sit right on the floor so they continue to scratch the flooring and we can’t put a rug in front of them without moving it before we open the door. There are ½” cracks and gaps where the ceiling and the walls meet as well as there the fake ceiling beams butt up against the ceiling panels. In the past two years I’ve had to hire a contractor to repair an interior wall in our kitchen that GCU damaged, install our tiled backsplash that GCU didn’t, and I had to paint the existing living room myself. GCU did come in the fall of 2017 to paint over the knots that were bleeding through the trim but it didn’t work because they still bleed through. They also tacked up some quarter round and used a lot of caulk to try and hide the gaps that were showing all-round the ceiling. GCU came and talked with me in Feb 2018 and ensured me he would be back in April to fix everything…Today is the 30th of April and I’ve not hear a peed from Dave. I could have written a novel as to all of the other issues I had with the GCU crew, but I believe this write up speaks for itself. My suggestion to anyone looking to hire GCU to do work for the…DON’T!! You have been warned.

The roofs okay, but around the chimney I had some leaks. I had to call him 3 or 4 times to patch the leak. The next rain I kept having leaks. I eventually had to just take care of the problem myself and I have not had any more problems.