STANTON HOME CONSTRUCTION LLC

The PAID deck project is 6 months past the contracted finish date and still not completed. The contract was signed on 8/28/17 and the deck was supposed to be completed on 10/6/2017. Instead of having a crew of 2-3 as he told us during the contract process, Michael (apparently Craig Stanton sold the business to him) works by himself and has NEVER worked more than 3-4 hours at a time. He has said on multiple occasions about how he plans on coming out on a specific day but does not without providing a reason or notification before or after. He has failed on multiple promises (ex. will finish by X date, removing excess materials by X date, patio finished by X date). He has countless excuses like cold weather, taking his daughter to college or other appts, multiple failed inspections, truck breaking down, trailer breaking down, subcontractors not calling him back, not feeling well, closing on an investment property, etc. He is no longer returning calls or texts and the deck is less than 50% finished (see photo). We paid for 80% of the work and the only 20% of the materials have even been delivered. I am finally going out of pocket and paying another company to finish the work and am filing a claim to the county.

Owner responded with a home appointment (on a Saturday). Very professional. Verbal responses and drawings were complete.

I have waited a long time to write this review, as I wanted to give Craig Stanton the benefit of the doubt and hoped that he would ultimately provide reasonable customer service eventually. I prefer not to leave negative feedback in public forums, but my dealings with Craig over the last 12 months have been so consistently frustrating and disappointing, I feel compelled to share. At times, I decide that I am willing sacrifice a certain amount of customer service and polish for a reduced cost of goods if I determine that the overall product quality should meet my needs. I recognized from early days through direct interaction and other Angie's List reviews that Craig might not have been top-notch in terms of customer service, but his product quality reviews were generally good, and he at least struck me as a reasonable man who would had enough integrity to stand by his product if something failed within a reasonable period time, such as within the 1-year warranty period that he allegedly provides. I can honestly say I wish I paid a different contractor a little more money for a lot less frustration and misery over the lifetime of this "professional" relationship. The deck itself is beautiful at first glance. Unfortunately, the lighting has been riddled with issues, which Craig has since Day 1 proven himself not to be willing to stand by from a quality perspective. A number of post-cap lights were not fully and properly illuminated from the outset last July. Craig provided some additional LED strips for me to replace myself. Not enough to replace them all, just some of them, and on my own. Additionally, Craig installed the wrong lights in our risers during construction. While we made an effort to be accommodative at the time, within the next couple of months we realized one of the riser lights was cracked and that their cheap makeshift cover for the excess lighting wires under the deck stairs had blown away and wires were strewn all over the place. We had barely used the deck at that time, the damage to the riser light was certainly not due to any improper, unnatural, or abusive behavior by us. We contacted Craig and asked him to address on Oct 8. He told us he would be out in a couple of weeks. Time passes, no Craig. We went through several more exchanges. Months later, my wife called him, and he yelled at her (yes, literally yelled) and told her he'd come out in the Spring because the weather's been bad. Really? For all of October and November, the weather was too bad, and shame on us for not taking it on the chin when told to wait another 4 months and let the wires sit out and get piled on by snow and ice? Sure, ok. So, Spring came around and no word proactive follow-up from Craig. In April, after more follow-ups by me, he finally fixed the broken riser bulb but did not address the cracked cover that we'd waited for 8 months for him to address. We also realized the second riser cover has also cracked now. After continued tooth-pulling (i.e. Craig's telling me to call the supplier, telling me that I, in fact, broke the lights and that I am a liar - no joke - I have the email correspondence), Craig FINALLY conceded that he would send a replacement part (for us to install on our own). Shame on us for not insisting at the time of original installation to use the LED lights we had originally specified, and shame on us for trusting that he would at least stand by the quality of the alternate product he was installing when we decided to trust and accommodate him. Ok. Well, then, about 14 months after installation, we noticed that multiple pieces of railing (at least 4) from across the deck are cracked. This is not a deck that gets abused and overused. There is not much weight even sitting on it. Not by a long shot. And our use of the deck has been minimal. Yes, we are out of the "warranty" period (whatever THAT was supposed to grant us, per the above story), so we didn't hold our breath, but upon noticing the pervasive cracks, we shared pictures with Craig, and asked him if he would "consider this 'normal wear and tear' and within the realm of your expectation of the deck's quality, ~14 months after construction, or rather something that merits attention and repair." His response? "You can contract my supplier." Bottom line: if you want quality and customer service issues like I've described, hire Craig Stanton. I don't have a ton of regrets in my life, but selecting Stanton Home Construction for my decking project is one of them. For anyone looking for a contractor for a construction project, read the writing on this Angie's List wall first. If you decide to reach out to him anyway, and if he tries to "explain away" this negative review as a crazy and unreasonable customer or husband/wife couple, feel free to reach out to me. Life is too short, and for a small percentage of additional $$, you can get something that doesn't just look nice when delivered, but which also will stand up over time, and a contractor that will honor his warranty and stand by the quality of his work.

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From the start the contractor (Craig Stanton) was very flexible and willing to work with me as we went through various designs. Each time I made a change to the design, he we very responsive with both recommendations and the impact the changes would have on the price. He was clear in his communications to me and once we reached agreement he immediately scheduled his crew to start. The crew which he brought in acted professionally, worked hard, and more importantly were very good mechanics. The job took a little more than a week and they worked through some rain and also came on a Saturday to finish up the job. There were a few items on the final 'punch list' which they immediatrly addressed. The end result was exactly what we had hoped for.

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Craig provided an estimate on a deck for us. Craig was punctual and had a very competitive price. Ultimately we went with another contractors but I would not hesitate to call Stanton again.

Overall the project went well, they started and finished in time estimated (3 days) and the deck looks great except one of the railings seems to have been cut a bit short and rattles when walking past. The crew was professional and cleaned up most of the materials. Two extra boards were left behind my fence without my knowledge, found them a few days after the crew left, would have been nice to know they were leaving unused materials. My only complaint was with two incidents in dealing with Craig Stanton (owner) with regards to payment structure. While he didn't take a large down-payment for the job (which I didn't really care about) he did require that almost 85% of the payment be made when materials were delivered leaving only 15% left for after the job was completed as opposed to the typical 3 payments of 1/3 each. When I asked to restructure the payment to be closer to 1/3 for each he was quite standoffish and only budged a little. The second incident was when final payment came "due". The job was left 99% complete for a day because some ordered material was missing (they came back the next day and finished), however when I called Mr. Stanton to ask for a timetable and how we would arrange final payment after work was complete he insisted I pay now, regardless if they came back or not and actually said he was insulted by my opposition to only pay after the work was completely finished. In my opinion he came off as a bit arrogant and demanding from his clients, I feel he need to work on his customer service skills, likely would not hire again for this reason. Given all that, the price was well below other estimates we received, so we are quite happy with the results given the money we saved but are definitely disappointed that we didn't find someone we could use for future jobs.

Very quick and professional.

Craig provided an absolutely seamless construction project. He provided all of the documents and language we needed to submit the deck plans to our HOA for approval; took care of the necessary permits; guided us through the material selection process and gave us a very clear timeline regarding what to expect. There was never a glitch. His workers are not only skillful, they are perfectionists! Every detail of our new deck is wonderful. The project took multiple days to complete and each day, Craig stopped by to check on the progress and to trouble shoot. But there were no troubles to shoot! We were very appreciative of how tidy the workers were. Each day they cleaned up and removed any clutter that was generated. It was hard to tell they had been there, because our property looked so clear. .We are enjoying our new outdoor space, our guests are very complementary, and we plan to contact Craig Stanton for future construction needs

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I believe that the hardest part of this construction project was making the initial contact with Mr. Stanton. We had three contractors provide bids on the project. Though Stanton did not provide the lowest bid we felt that the proposal of work to be completed was the most comprehensive and was only slightly higher than the lowest bid. This attention to detail was then followed through on the job. The crew was courteous, professional and maintained a clean work space. The workmanship is high quality and they cleared all rubbish created from removing the old deck and building the new deck. We love our new deck and had a great experience hiring Stanton Building Consulting. My only wish is that they were able to build a new deck at my daughter's house, fifty miles outside their service area.

I would have gone with them but I ended using a contractor that I had used for something else. So I figured, that a tried out person would be better than someone new otherwise I highly rated them on Angie 's list and he was very professional. If I didn't go with who I used I would have used them.

Mr. Stanton sent out a mailer with what seemed to be a great price for a deck. We have a townhouse and our deck is 24 years old and we thought it would be a good time to replace it. We wanted to leave the foundation in place and replace the planks and railing and add a staircase down to the backyard. The deck is off our kitchen. When I called Mr. Stanton to arrange a visit so he could provide an estimate he stated that the price would be higher than he advertised because the cost of material had risen. We were fine with that and had him come out. When he saw that the deck was one story up he said that would add to the cost and of course we knew adding the stairs would add to the cost as well. He provided us with two quotes. One for an all wood deck and one for composite with white vinyl railings. Both prices were very reasonable. We then asked if he could do a wood deck with vinyl railing. He said he wasn't sure and would do some research when he returned from vacation. During that time we went to the HOA for approval of the white vinyl railing. Since there are no decks in the development with a white vinyl railing and it is not in the by-laws they refused but said they would consider a wood like color vinyl railing. Mr. Stanton had us meet him at his supplier to look at other vinyl railing colors and asked his supplier if he could use vinyl with wood when he returned from vacation. The supplier said he could use a vinyl railing with a wood deck so we picked out a treehouse color vinyl railing and presented a sample to the HOA which granted their approval. We informed Mr. Stanton of the approval and asked him to provide us with a new quote. He stated that he didn't remember what we had picked out and his supplier was out until the following week. He stated that he would check with his supplier when he returned and give us a new quote. We didn't hear from him the following week so we wrote to him asking when we could expect to receive the new quote. He responded out of the blue that he could no longer fit our project into his schedule and apologized for the inconvenience. We wrote back saying that is was very inconvenient and unprofessional and that no other contactor would be able to complete the work before Labor Day. We asked him if he really was to busy to fit us in or if in fact he wasn’t comfortable doing a wood deck with vinyl railing since he had never done one before. He ignored that question and once aging offered his apology. So here we are 41 days later and our contractor just blows us off. You decide if you want to do business with someone like this..

Except for numerous delays due to inclement weather, the contractor showed up daily until job was done. Encountered two roofs instead of one when the deck was removed, and added costs to job for additional material and labor, all of which I considered reasonable and fair. Very pleasant to work with and I would use this contractor again.

He seemed like a nice enough guy. At that point I was going to move my staircase so there was a lot more work involved. He said that he would get back to me and I didn't hear from him again. I did send him an email and I didn't hear anything back from him. I guess I wasn't that diligent in following up with him. He was able to meet with me on the day that I called him. I would consider him in the future for a quote.

Floor turned out to be more difficult than anticipated, but contractor held price. Work completed on-time and in-budget even though multiple contractors were needed for the tile work, electrical, plumbing. All work was done to my satisfaction. Contractor advised on purchase of cabinets, fixtures, appliances and negotiated pricing on my behalf to keep me within my budget.

My old garage floor was in pretty bad shape. Paint was peeling and walls were not looking too good. Craig came in with a giant machine and basically scoured the paint off the floor,, repaired the drywall, installed new lighting and painted it alll in bright colors. This was quite a bit of work for the money and the finished product looks fabulous. My garage is so pretty now that I actually hung pictures up on the walls. I highly recommend this company.

Craig showed up the day before we went on vacation and prepared the house for demolition work. He sealed off all the adjacent rooms to prevent dust from traveling all over the house. The dumpster arrived and after about 3 hours the entire kitchen was empty. We wanted him to do the job while we were away to minimize our discomfort and boy were we glad we did. We came home 2 weeks later to a gorgeous, completely remodeled kitchen and no mess to contend with. Craig redesigned the kitchen to my exact specifications and added some features that I didn't even know that I wanted, but now cannot live without. His professionalism was outstanding and he communicated with us every day by e-mail and phone whenever he had a question or suggestion. We made a few changes during construction and he implemented them perfectly. This was a dream renovation and totally unlike the horror stories I have heard about kitchen and bath remodelers. I enthusiastically recommend him to all my friends.

Went well. Good person, good to work with. Would recommend to others.

Craig was fantastic. I love my kitchen!! He was easy to work with and very knowledgeable without making me feel stupid. He and his workers showed up on time. Everything was cleaned up at the end of the day. He also called me each afternoon with a progress report before he left for the day. I have had a lot of people come and work on my house in the past year and Craig was by far the best.