Excel Services Inc

We had to give the owner Jose 1/2 of the total job amount up front. The owner required a labor only contract with him which was a mistake. This is because we ended up paying way too much for the quality of work done. We paid for all materials used for the job. Every time he would buy materials for the job, we had to repay him based on receipts; it was often impossible to determine what the items were or if they had really been purchased for our job alone. Jose and his crew were often unprofessional. He begged us several times for money before the total job was done. We had to withhold money or they would not finish each room project/problem before going to the next one. Although the workers usually were pleasant, the work was sloppy (ex: did not prep enough or tape enough when painting; some of our own stuff was broken and/or scratched, our refinished hardwood floors were scratched) and we always had a large punch list of things to be fixed that were not done properly the first time. It greatly helped that I spoke Spanish to the workers or communication with the crew would have been difficult. Jose was not on site a lot and we basically felt that we were serving as the crew's supervisors. The primary concern of the owner was to collect money and get the work done very quickly, not to manage the project. We would not recommend this contractor except for a small rental job that does not require much attention to detail.

Jose and his team delivered an amazing quantity of work at a decent quality for a low price. His bid was more than $1k lower than the other 3 bids we received for comparable work. Jose came over, gave us an assessment and price a couple days later. His team began work ~1 week after that and completed all the work in ~3 weeks (~1 week longer than scheduled.) Jose can be a bit curt on the phone, however he is very committed to ensuring that his customer is satisfied. Although his team's work was at times a little sloppy, they corrected their misses (eg, caulking in an area, painting a bit of wall color on trim) when we pointed them out. They even corrected minor damage/problems that created and were in no way their fault. We had a major problem with a leak that we thought his team caused: He and his team came over, discovered the real cause (which was the a/c system in the house) and fixed it at a very low price despite the fact they had nothing to do with it. He is *very committed* to his clients' satisfaction and will go the extra mile.