Dana F. Duvall Contracting

unknown

unknown

Mr. Duvall is a terrific, talented contractor whose men are top-notch. He and his team are meticulous, energetic craftsmen. He is very talented in problem-solving and design.

He was supposed to show up on a Thursday, didn't call until Friday morning. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, having been in the construction industry. He was here promptly on a Saturday morning, was very nice, took all the information, and we never heard back from him again. If the job was too small, in the wrong location, even though it is in Mt Airy where he lives, or whatever the reason, he shouldn't have even wasted my time coming out to look at it. If he was too busy, at least let us know.

Customer Service - None Better Dana Duvall takes customer service to a level that I did not know existed in the contractor space. If we had a concern or issue, he addressed it immediately without argument. It was so nice to work with a contractor that really cares about the quality of the work he does and accepts nothing less than the best from himself and his employees. He holds his people accountable for mistakes, and fixes them on his own time. Granted, there were relatively few mistakes and they were minor, but any time we pointed something out - it was fixed quickly and without issue. Quality of Work - Excellent We could not be happier with the quality of the work that was performed. Our kitchen looks absolutely amazing, and is even better than we had envisioned. Dana came up with some really creative solutions to issues we had making things work the way we wanted them to, and improved on the original plan with his ideas. He clearly has a lot of experience in every area of construction and remodeling, and uses that experience to come up with a high quality end product. I was a carpenter for 7 years, and built custom homes inn the 3-4 million dollar range, so usually I am not happy with contractor work and quality. This is not the case with Dana - everything that was done exceeded my expectations. Price - None Better in our area We got several quotes from other contractors, and Dana's was the lowest. We were worried that the work might not be good, and this is why his prices were so competitive - but after checking with several references in our neighborhood - he came highly recommended. He bills everything by the hour, and gave us receipts for everything purchased - no markup. the really nice thing, is that because he bills by the hour, there is not such thing as a and quot;change orderand quot; when working with him. Anyone who has worked with contractors knows that change orders are where they make a lot of their money. If you change your mind about something, they gouge you because they know you must pay it. With Dana it was easy - he'd just let us know how many hours our changes would take and we would decide from there whether it was worth it. I would estimate we saved 25-30% over any of the other contractors we interviewed. Timeliness - Expect to take a little extra time, and manage your expectations This is the only area I gave Dana a and quot;Band quot; on. Dana Duvall is a small operation, and because of the excellent quality and price he has no worries about attracting more work. As a result, there are some days when resources are not available to work on our job. There were also some delays at the beginning of the contract because the electrician messed up the permit - not really Dana's fault, and I doubt he'll be using that electrician again. Like all projects, plan more time than the contractor thinks it will take and you'll be fine. We were not at all displeased with the pace of the work and expected it to take exactly as long as it did. However, if you are a person looking to get everything done in a rush from start to finish, make sure you get realistic expectations on how long the work will take and plan on extra. So, even though we were completely satisfied with the timeliness of the work, we gave it a and quot;Band quot; because this is not a huge contractor with 100 people working on your job and it make take a bit longer than some bigger players. UPDATE: I have downgraded the timeliness score to a C. The electrician Dana used on this particular job did not properly install the under cabinet lighting, and Dana was going to fix this. It's been almost a year, and the lighting is still not fixed. Overall - EXCELLENT We would not hesitate for a moment to use Dana again, and have already recommended him to several friends and neighbors. Dana makes sure that when he walks out, the customer is completely satisfied and he stands by his work. We couldn;t ask for anything more.