All Builders United

My wife and I had a very bad experience working with Julio Guzman who owns this business, and we want to share our story with others in the hope that anyone reading this review might be able to save themselves a lot of hassle and money by deciding to work with a different general contractor. We purchased our house a little over a year ago and have worked with multiple contractors since that point. Fortunately, we have had really great experiences with these other contractors and I’ve been able to write some glowing reviews about them. However, Julio is the first contractor that we worked with and working with him was a completely different story. We had Julio come over to give us an estimate to do a variety of relatively small home improvement projects shortly after we purchased our house. He came across as very professional at the time and discussed how he took great pride in his work, didn’t cut any corners, and ultimately wanted to make sure the customer was extremely satisfied with the final product. What we experienced after deciding to work with him was quite different, to say the least. The easiest way to convey our experience is through a series of bullets discussing some of the work his team did on various projects: • Installed soffit ceiling in covered porch – This was the first project that Julio's team worked on in October (shortly after we purchased the house). It looked great at first and we thought we were getting off to a really great start with his team. Unfortunately, by the following summer the ceiling began to sag in multiple places. I first reached out to Julio about this problem in June via text, asking him to come over and fix the ceiling. He said he would come over to take a look. In the weeks that followed, he never came despite multiple attempts to reach out to him via text and calling. Six months later the ceiling started to actually fall. I texted him saying this was now an emergency situation and that I needed him to come over immediately. He apologized for the extremely lengthy delay and said he would have someone come over ASAP, but three weeks later he still has not had anyone come over to our house, and at this point we have given up on him. We have since done some reading on the subject and come to find out that the soffit his team installed was too long between supporting beams. • Basement ceiling tiles – The basement ceiling was sagging in a few locations. Julio said that he would add the proper supports to pull up the ceiling in these areas. What his team did was to use some random copper wire to hang these portions of the ceiling (I have since redone this work with proper supports). Unfortunately, they neglected to wash their hands before installing this wire and so our ceiling tiles were left with dirty hand prints on them. These are the type of tiles that are made out of some type of particle board, so it's not possible to completely remove stains from them. In general, we found that his team left a mess behind them wherever they went. It appears that they also managed in the process to damage some of the boards themselves and the thin beams that hold them up. • Attach hose from washing machine to bathroom sink – We have a large utility tub sink sitting next to our washing machine. The water from the washing machine drains into the sink, but the hose was not secured to the sink. We asked him to secure the hose to the sink. Again, his team used random pieces of copper wire to attach the hose to the handles of the sink. The copper wire not only looked unprofessional, but the way the hose was attached also meant that we could not use the handles of the sink to turn the water on and off. Again, I had to redo this project to make it both reasonably aesthetically appealing and for practical purposes to be able to use the sink. • Install ceiling fan in upstairs bathroom – After the fan was installed, we noticed the fogging in the bathroom had not noticeably improved. To test this out, we placed a piece of paper over the fan while it was running and there was no suction. I went up to the roof to look at what had been done and they had installed the vent piping so that it was laying on the ceiling for half the length of the house and eventually vented out one of the side gables. However, the piping was very long and coiled in some areas, so no steam was escaping. I told Julio that the fan needed to instead vent though the top of the roof directly above the fan and asked him in November to have someone come over to address the situation, as well as finish up the remaining jobs on the initial list we had worked out with him (we eventually gave up on having him address some of these other jobs, since it was taking too long). He said he would have someone come over to install a vent in the roof shortly. After subsequent follow-up requests, he did not have anyone come to the house to install the vent until I let him know at the end of January that I had contacted some other contractors to come install the vent. Suddenly he had someone at our house pronto. The new vent was installed about 10 feet away from the fan. This led to more problems, since they simply taped the vent pipe to the new vent, but since it was hanging, the tape came undone and the piping fell. Fortunately, I noticed a few drops of water coming down the vent, so I went up to the attic again and figured out what had happened. I also saw a large puddle of water sitting on top of the insulation in a separate part of the attic where the old pipe had been laying. I think that when they moved the old pipe, water that had been sitting in the pipe fell out and they simply left it sitting there. I was extremely frustrated by the situation at this point and asked Julio to come back over to address the problem. He did improve the connection so the hose wouldn't fall, although I've made some additional improvements since that point, including hanging the piping in multiple places with supports, so it is not flat on the ground until it reaches the location of the vent. This took quite a bit of work and I'm sure the air still does not vent as well as it would if the vent had been installed directly over the fan as it should have been. • Install kitchen handles – The new kitchen that had been installed prior the house being put up for sale did not have kitchen handles installed on the cabinetry. We did not mind this, since it allowed us to install the handles of our choosing. We purchased the handles and had Julio’s team install them. The team damaged a few of the handles they installed, and did not tell us up front, additionally one of them was not installed properly, which I later ended up addressing myself since I could not get him to come over. • Temporary fix for front steps – The concrete front steps to our house had slanted over the years and developed gaping holes underneath. We asked Julio to patch the holes and fill some of the cracks as a temporary solution until we could save up some money to have a new walkway and stairs installed. His team did patch the stairs, but the job was not finished well. There were still a number of gaps and it looked very much unfinished. They did come back to fill in some of the gaps, but the work looked very unprofessional (e.g., no effort was made to smooth out the sides of the steps and smooth them out with the existing concrete to at least attempt to make it look like part of the same structure). The concrete they used was also a completely different color from the existing concrete, so the new concrete looked totally out of place. • Billing – In February I asked Julio for a finalized statement of the work that had been completed and his final estimate of the costs. I even sent him a spreadsheet with my understanding of the work that had been completed to help him (remember that we ended up doing some of the jobs ourselves since it was taking too long for him to address them). It took him until April 20 to send me an invoice. Although we had numerous disappointments in his work and I asked him for a couple of small discounts, which he did not agree to, we still promptly paid the bill in full. There is more that I could write, but this review is already quite long. In short, we felt that we pretty much threw our money out the door on Julio who completely dropped the ball on us time after time. Obviously, this type of situation is completely disappointing and unsettling for new home owners. There is nothing we can do about the situation now except warn other prospective clients to stay away from this contractor. On the brighter side, we have since had the opportunity to work with a number of other contractors in the area who, in our experience, have done terrific work and have not hesitated to address any concerns (including concerns much less serious than those shared above) we have raised in a very timely fashion.

Julio is tremendously patient and attentive. My wife and I must have called him four or five times to discuss and review our project goals. Each time he exercised tremendous patience, revising plans accordingly. When we finally decided to do the project, we did so at a time when we needed it done in just eight days. Julio didn't shy from the task and performed a tremendously professional job. I would recommend him broadly. He is fantastic.

I have never worked with a better contractor. Scheduling was efficient and tight. Once the work was started they worked straight through (6 days/week), which is something I value highly and hardly ever happens. The owner is intelligent, experienced, resourceful and a delight to work with. His crews are amazing: very hard working and they clean up their work sites every evening. Great care is taken to protect the home and any pets. We would definitely use them again. M.K. Miller

He first came in after I had water damage done to the house. He was my subcontractor with Jenkin's Restoration. He took the insurance quotes and made suggestions for either replacement or upgrade; all within the insurance budget. His workers were fantastic and the work is beautiful. They kept my two cats inside the whole time they were working; I really appreciated that. He is a lovely person to work with and I would hire him again for any and all home repairs.

This was an insurance job, and as soon as Mr. Guzman was assigned the job, the experience was as pleasant and worry-free as possible. He came by to re-measure and be sure he had the right numbers and a full assessment of the job. Two days later, the crew arrived and work began. They started early in the morning and worked until dark every day. They were courteous at all times, and were careful and thorough. I would definitely call All Builders United (Julio Guzman) for other projects.