Tom of All Trades

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Couldn't have been more pleased from start to finish. A true professional with work ethics. A real privilege doing business with him.

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Very well he was very competent

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After Tom completed work for me earlier in the year, he was the first person I thought of when I needed additional work done at my town home. I was preparing my place for sale and had several issues that I needed resolved in a short time. He was able to come out to provide a bid for the work within a few days. His bid was significantly lower than bids from other contractors. He was able to fit the work into his schedule within a few weeks. Once completed, an inspector came out and approved of the work that was completed. The sale moved forward successfully! Aside from doing good work, Tom is professional and kind. I recommend him without hesitation!

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Tom was able to stop by to assess my project the same day I originally contacted him. He is kind, knowledgable and professional. I contacted him on a Thursday and he completed my project on Monday. He arrived when scheduled, worked safely and efficiently and the new shutters look great. I have already talked with him about a second project I hope he will complete for me. I would recommend him to others without hesitation.

We wanted to do the work ourselves, our bank had different ideas. Because this was a Fannie Mae home, we had to get a licensed contractor to bid the job, then we put the money in an escrow account till the job was done. Contractor had to sign off on all the work then bank would send out their inspector/appraiser. After approval, our money would be released to us. Tom Russell of Tom of All Trades not only agreed to give us a bid, he volunteered to coach us when we needed it or do any work we couldn't. He always answered calls promptly, made trips to the home regularly when needed and was always helpful. He didn't give us anything but honest help when needed. He was great! Our neighbors use him for work all the time, he does great work too!

Tom was great about being flexible as I kept walking around the house and pointing out new small things that I wanted his help with. Very friendly, efficient, and well equipped with all of the tools that he needed. He cleaned up after himself and had a very positive attitude. He was also very upfront with me about what sorts of projects he was not qualified to do (e.g. plumbing). I'm definitely planning on using Tom again.

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great!

The renters gave top marks to Tom. We live out of state, met with him in May but did not see his finished work. Our renters were very satisfied. Tom said in May that he wouldn't be able to get to the work until late July or early August, but was able to complete all before the end of July. He was punctual, professional, and worked very well with our renters. Although he obviously is very skilled, he was willing to handle the wide variety of items we needed to have done. We would definitely use him again.

on time, good problem solving, friendly, thorough, efficient, effective

Have used Tom many times for work on both our home and a rental property in Missoula. He does great work, is absolutely punctual and astonishingly reliable (shows up on the dot), works his butt off, pays attention to detail and is utterly honest about what he can do and what he can't. Was also great in his willingness to pick up materials on his way to the job, etc. I personally worked with him to install solar tubes and hardwood floors (tearing up carpeting, putting in floating sub-floor, etc), got to know him well, and think he's a great human too. After some disastrous experiences with other people, Tom has been the .handyman sent from heaven. Have recommended him to several friends and all rave about him too.

This is a complete re-review of the project described below, the earlier review being done without sufficient inspection of the job as Tom performed it. This was a project to install an exterior pre-hung door, from start to finish, including cutting the hole in the wall, installing the structural framing, placement and securing of the pre-hung door, installing the door hardware and making sure the entire installation was secure, stable and weathertight. The door was a passage from our dining room onto a deck I had just installed on the back of our house. My initial review of Tom's work, done within 24 hours of his leaving and without sufficient inspection, was complementary. I commented upon his diligence, communication, punctuality and professionalism, and upon the apparent quality of the finished job. Apparent, that is, from a cursory look. That review was premature. It was done based upon the appearance of the door, its presumed stability and the fact that it was plumb and functional. It was also done based upon our discussion of how to carry out the project and my observation that he seemed to know what he was doing as the project progressed throughout the day. However, after a thorough inspection of the job Tom did, some issues arose. They are detailed below. Added as of 9/29/13: Tom's apparent inattention to detail and to finishing the project properly has worsened as time has passed and I've had further involvement with the results of the project. I've discovered several detail and finish items he either failed to do or did poorly and which were done or remediated by me. While I won't go into detail on each of these, suffice to say though they were detail and finish items, each was important to the integrity of the finished project and the functionality of the door. It was evident Tom had allotted a specific amount of time for the project and when everything didn't fall together as he needed, he simply left the project with a lot of loose ends undone. One, it turned out the door was not weathertight. The evening after it was installed, there was evident daylight coming through the base of the door in each corner of the door sill. It turns out Tom failed to put in place two weatherstrip wedges designed to ensure the tightness of each of those corners. We recovered and affixed one of those wedges. He apparently threw the other away. Two, Tom had to cut out a portion of one piece of oak flooring to fit the door into place. This was something of a surprise to me since I had meticulously designed the surface of the deck to be one inch below the level of the inside floor. The door was then to be installed over the oak floor with additional substrate to support the door sill and frame and to make a smooth, solid transition from the dining room floor to the deck. But when Tom informed me the only way he could get the door to fit was to cut out this portion of the oak flooring, I was still under the impression he knew what he was doing. The only answer I can come up with for this error was that he built the structural framework to accommodate the pre-hung door without first determining the level of the finished inside floor. And with the structural framework already in place when he went to fit the door in place, he chose to cut out a piece of our floor rather than take apart that structural framework and rebuild it so the door could be placed as I had planned it. Three, upon my thorough inspection of the installed door, I discovered that Tom had failed to install any substrate, or sub-sill, beneath the aluminum door sill that was integral to the pre-hung door assembly. Three inches of the aluminum sill was just hanging out over the deck with no underlying support. The problem here was that the aluminum flexed with even a slight amount of weight on it and it would have been impossible to seal the edges of the sill with that situation. More importantly, the sub-sill should have been installed before the pre-hung door was put in place to support the side framework and brick moulding that was part of the pre-hung assembly. Without the sub-sill not only would the aluminum sill be subject to bending from weight of people walking over it, but the entire door would have been subject to sagging over time. Additionally, without the sub-sill, the bottom of both the side wood frame and the brick moulding were exposed as raw wood and also open for insects, dust and debris, if not also moisture, to get into the framing of the pre-hung door. Which, of course would invite mold, wasp nests, and anything that might be blown into or otherwise enter those open cavities, which extended up the entire height of the door frame. Four, the evening I first tried to lock the new deck door I was unable to get the deadbolt to work properly. The bolt did not seem to line up properly where it came out of the door. Upon further inspection, I discovered that the guide sleeves that are included with both the deadbolt and the lockset, designed to make sure the bolt kept its alignment, were not installed in either the deadbolt or the lockset. Once again, we recovered one of the sleeves, but the other was apparently thrown out. And, to be fair to Tom, these sleeves are not always part of the assembly of either a lockset or the deadbolt, but it seems that since they were in these instances, they should have been utilized. All of the above problems have been or will soon be taken care of, by me. The one weatherstrip wedge we recovered has been affixed to the bottom side of the door frame and seems to have taken care of that problem. I am still contacting door companies in the area to find another wedge to install on the bottom of the hinged side of the frame. I will have to fashion an oak strip to trim the floor-to-threshold transition where Tom left a half-inch gap when he cut out a chunk of our floor. It will look like it was intended to be the way it will look after my fix, but it wasn't. I installed a sub-sill that will adequately support the pre-hung door structure and also close it to the elements. I did this with the door in place because I didn't want to have to tear out the door in order to put a sub-sill in. I layered it until I had a stable substrate for the entire pre-hung door and clad the sub-sill with colored drip edge flashing to act as a moisture barrier. While the flashing-to-deck transition may need future re-caulking, it is a stable installation as it stands and will keep the entire door stable. And finally, I have managed to get the deadbolt to work without the guide sleeve and will leave it that way unless it acts up again. In my initial review, I stated I could have tackled this job myself but I felt it would have taken me three days, at four or so hours a day, to complete, and I wanted to get on with other installs I had yet to do on the deck itself and to get the wall closed up as soon as possible after it was opened to receive the door. As it turned out, I spent about three hours anyway correcting the omissions and mistakes on the door and, in retrospect, should have done the whole job myself. Live and learn. Though I'd like to think I've lived long enough not to have a whole lot left to learn. And to put things in perspective, I have no animosity toward Tom. He's a personable guy who showed up when he said he would, worked diligently and, I assume, thought he'd completed the job when he left with my $400. If he left believing that, though he was mistaken, it was innocently so. If he left knowing he did an inadequate job, shame on him. And, of course, part of this deal is on me; I should have done a more thorough job of inspecting the finished product before he left. Still, the result would have been the same. In fact, I did notify Tom of the weatherstrip problem a day or so after his install. He responded quickly that he'd be over to take a look when he was back in town. Then I discovered all the other things that were wrong and I responded to him that I'd rather he not come over. In that response I detailed the other problems. To be honest, I didn't want the guy who left this unfinished job inadequately done to take another crack at it. That just doesn't make sense. I told him I'd take care of the problems. He has not responded to my message outlining the additional problems. And that, in itself, is something of a concern. Finally, an observation: This is the second time I've been led astray by glowing reviews in Angie's List. That being the case, my subscription to this service expires soon and I have no intention of renewing. My impression is that this exchange of opinions does little to establish who can do what you want done and who can't. Too often, in the afterglow of what may appear to be a job well done, especially viewed by a client who has little or no idea of how it should have been done, it's easy to casually blow out a review full of praises of a worker who may or may not have done things right. In other words, I'm no longer content to rely at all on the impressions of people who don't know what they're looking at when they assess their finished projects and the people who do them. I don't find Angie's List to be of much value in this area.

Tom was awesome! When coming across snags, he had great work around ideas to get the project done in a professional manner.

so efficient and prompt. knew what he was doing

We sold our commercial building and had 10 days to vacate approximately 5000 square feet. Tom showed up on time with his own vehicle, trailer, tools and equipment. First the basement which was full of personal items to be moved into storage. Then he took down slat wall. He took everything to a storage unit and arranged it very neatly on shelving. The last day we were in the space he took leftovers to the dump and helped get the rest of the fixtures to an area for recycling. He is so competent, has a great attitude, and is very easy to work with.

The job went very smoothly, and Tom is very personable, prompt and knows what he is doing. He called us back that very day we left a message on his machine. He showed up each time when he said he was going to show up. He did everything he said he would do and for a reasonable price. I would and will recommend him to friends and family.

See above. He continues to do work for me and I recommend him to everyone.