BURTON ASSOCIATES

never on site. the other rating was completly accurate. I just spent more money than the other complaint. A complete con man.

Whenever I brought up something he didn't want to do--like a bump-out for a window seat--he either didn't answer or dismissed it as "too expensive." He lost interest before the house was finished and left to take care of details his other, larger homes--leaving me with no steps outside of one exit door--"a door to nowhere" and a code violation. One of the biggest problem was not knowing what anything cost--his contract didn't include any prices. It was only because we had a mutual friend we had both known before that I continued with him. When I asked him the cost of the deck, he said he didn't know, maybe $40 a square foot. That seemed high so I canceled the deck, but he gave me a refund that was less than half that. He "didn't remember our conversation," but offered to still build it for the amount he'd refunded. I accepted, but he never did--he disappeared, leaving the door to nowhere. I gave him a sketch, and he chose a designer at Hammond lumber for us to see. The "designer" computerized my sketch, but made no suggestions. I told Dave I was disappointed, and wanted to ask Hammond lumber if we could see someone else. His reply was an angry e-mail defending the designer, which points up the second big problem--Dave is much more loyal to his subs than to the customer. He changed my driveway from a curve to a straight shot at the last minute to make it "easier." His designer made mistakes, and Dave wasn't here when his crew framed the house (with the mistakes). Dave corrected some, but not the closets--the rod for the clothes is just 5 feet high, and the doors are so short they had to be special-ordered, because the designer put the closet under the eaves instead of out to the full ceiling height, as Dave and I had planned. Dave wanted $3000 to fix the 2 closets, bringing the wall out to where it should have been, and I didn't want to pay him twice for a mistake--so I still have short closets in both upstairs bedrooms. His excavator made a mess of the sloping building site, he couldn't manage the daylight basement in the design and he left a 50 ft. wide, 14 ft high hill with a sheer drop off just 8-10 feet from the house. Though Dave never asked, he's been sending people to my house for over a year, using it as a referral despite my objections. They stare, take pictures, use the driveway, and leave. I wrote to Dave and asked him to stop, the loss of privacy adds insult to injury-- but the steady stream continues. When he doesn't like a request, he ignores it. My advice to anyone signing a contract with Dave Burton is GET EVERY SINGLE DETAIL AND EVERY ORAL AGREEMENT, INTO THE WRITTEN CONTRACT AND SIGNED. He knows how to build, but he's murder to work with.