GBI Guaranteed Builders Inc

In 1992 my husband and I contracted GBI and Avis Homes to build us a home. Our home is a modular so the home was built by Avis and delivered and the button up and on-site work was done by GBI. The home itself is great. My sister and friend both have similar ranch style homes that were stick built and both have had problems with their windows and settling and we have not.. The home itself is very well insulated and we could not be happier. The work that was done by GBI is another story. We chose the home based on a model home we saw. Here is a list of some of the issues we had that should have been handled better by GBI. We ordered sandstone siding and received gray. When we told them they replaced the gray with tan/cream color, again not what we ordered. The island in the kitchen was supposed to have doors and drawers on both sides but instead it had doors only on one side and 4 sets of electrical outlets, which looked horrible. When we told them they replaced the island but never set it in the floor and now it stands about 1 inch higher than the rest of the counters. The counters in the bathroom were placed in the wrong spot and was never corrected. And next to the siding, the biggest issue we had was the shutters. Only half the shutters were put on. It took us months of asking them to come back, and us contacting the BBB for them to complete the work. Now 20 years later we decided we wanted an addition. Because it has been so long, and we know the quality of the product, we thought we would give them another try. Honestly how could they be that bad if they were still in business, right? Wrong. We stopped by their office/model home and spoke with one of the women showing the homes. Based on the size and description of what we wanted the women told us it would be approximately $20-25k. We thought this was low so we called a few days later and was told the same thing by another woman. To get a better estimate they suggested we have someone come out and give us a written estimate. She took our name and information and said someone would call us. About a week and a half later someone FINALLY gave us a call. Then it took him a week to come out to our house. We were not getting anything special and told him the same thing we told both women. When we told him they both quoted us $20 - $25k, he laughed and said they did not know what they were talking about, which I thought was rude. The quote ended up being double what we were originally quoted. Obviously we chose not to work with GBI again. Not because of the price but mainly due to the gentlman that come to give us the quote. He was rude, unprofessional and if we had to wait 2 1/5 weeks for him to come to our house for a quote, and this was during the winter so it was the off season, we couldn't imagine it would go any better than it did the first time. This company is unresponsive and offers poor customer service. The quality of the product that comes from Avis is very good but I would never recommend GBI.

Excellent work. Nonstop from excavation, foundation, framing, roofing and siding. Top quality materials exactly built as planned. Town building inspector very happy with them. On budget to the dime. And accomodated change orders and upgrades easily. Carlie and Doron were great. I was going to GC this myself but they were lower priced and their carpenters etc were better than the guys I have used before. Also, they use floor and roof trusses that allow greater open spans. Most independent framers dont have the experience or equipment to handle this. Its a really big deal if you dont want columns everywhere. Also, since the basic wall framing is done offsite the building goes up quicker and less on site waste removal-- no dumpster was used at all. Dont be fooled by their 'modular' label. This is just how the walls are delivered to the site (2x6 in our case) and that the roof and floor trusses are engineered. GBI are very skilled and efficient builders.