Detail By Design

Description of Work: We moved an existing house to a new location with a new walk-out basement. We hired Detailed By Design (DBD LLC), Jesse Luetzen, in May, 2012 to do all of our concrete work (foundation, garage, & basement), & rough grade dirt work, in preparation for the house, which we planned to move on to the property in September or October, 2012. He also contracted out another company to handle the septic system installation for us, and he replaced a shop roof on our property too. Mr. Luetzen identified himself as a general contractor, and stated he could handle the entire project. He assured me he was licensed, bonded, & insured. His contractor's license in ND had lapsed in March & he's not bonded. We had bids from a plumber and electrician already, but we did not know if they were still available to do the work. He said he would coordinate with them or find others. After DBD LLC received $20,000 down, they dug a large hole & left it that way for 2 months as we watched the summer pass by with no further progress. In the end of August they finally put up forms for the basement walls, which were not secured & blew down repeatedly for about another month. (They required another size-able payment from us to put up the walls.) In mid-September they finally poured our basement walls. We set a move date of October 1st, & Detailed by Design (DBD LLC), Jesse Luetzen, assured us he would have the project completed in time, so we went ahead and scheduled it with the house movers. . Less than a week before the move date, we still had no basement floor, garage floor, or septic system, so we contacted another company to pour a decorative stained & stamped basement floor for us instead (we had planned on adding that feature at a later date, but we were desperate to get a floor at this point, and they were kind enough to squeeze us in.) 5 days before the move, there was still a sizeable trench running along the interior perimeter of the basement walls where they had been over-dug. 4 days before the pour, Detailed By Design (DBD LLC), Jesse Luetzen, still had not completed the dirt compaction work or floor heat installation in preparation for the pour that was scheduled the next day. The other concrete company offered to do the prep work & floor heat installation for him, but Detailed by Design (DBD LLC), Jesse Luetzen, insisted he would complete the preparation/compaction & floor heat, which he miraculously did, against all odds, overnight...or so we thought. The move date came & the garage floor & much dirt work were still incomplete. The house moving company had already disconnected, lifted, & moved our home to the new location where it then sat on a semi-trailer for another week. The house moving company even rented equipment out of frustration and completed some necessary dirt work so they could drive up close enough to the foundation to set the house down. Mr. Luetzen had numerous excuses why he could not get the work done. When they tried to set the house down, an 8 foot corner section of the SIX INCH thick concrete basement floor slab broke & sunk about 10 inches from only about a 1000 lbs of weight on a jack on the floor. After much arguing with Detailed By Design (DBD LLC), Jesse Luetzen, about the integrity of the ground / compaction under the entire floor, we decided to have the floor ripped out against his wishes, and it's a good thing we did. The demolition crew that removed the basement floor took photos of several large caverns under the floor where the dirt had settled enough for a grown man to crawl under the floor. The problem area was not limited to just the one corner of the basement either, as Mr. Luetzen had told us. Compaction tests later performed in the basement & garage had levels WAY BELOW NORMAL standards. Numerous other contractors, plumbers, plumbing supply companies, & inspectors also said the floor heat system installed by Detailed By Design (DBD LLC), Jesse Luetzen, was nothing more then regular 1/2 inch water pipe (not floor heat pecks). They stated it would have disintegrated over time from the antifreeze-like fluid in the system, & it was incompatible with any cast iron parts in the boiler & heating system. It was also spaced over 2 feet apart in many places (insufficient coverage for even heating), and it was never secured or insulated beneath. Detailed by Design (DBD LLC), Jesse Luetzen, also agreed to contract a plumber and electrician for us, for which we gave him another $10,000 deposit to secure their services. As numerous red flags sprang up, we contacted both the plumber & electrician, and found out neither one had been paid a deposit, nor had they been hired by Mr. Luetzen. Our house was already being moved down the road with no one to hook the basic utilities back up on the other end. Mr. Luetzen did much of that work himself, under the guise that he was "working with" these licensed contractors. He went so far as to tell us that his plumber and electrician would vouch for him and "sign off on his work as if it was their own" for the sake of the inspectors, which to our understanding is illegal and was not the case at all. We spent much more than the original plumbing & electrical bids to correct work he had done himself, as no one else wanted to claim his work. Mr. Luetzen refuses to give the money back. He was also given about $4000 for other work that was never performed, though knowing what we do now, we don't want him doing anymore work on our home. The sill plate DBD LLC installed on top of our basement walls is not flush & has several gaps above & below it, and it was never secured to the house on top. We've gone through 6 cans of Great Stuff foam trying to seal up the gaps in between the top of the walls, sill plate, & the house to keep insects, rodents, & the elements out. We went with the Foxx Blocks concrete forms for our basement, but the forms were poorly secured during the pour & the walls are bowed over a half inch in places, so we'll have to build a frame around the interior basement walls to level them enough to hang sheetrock. The 2x4" load bearing wall, also built by Detailed By Design (DBD LLC), Jesse Luetzen, started bowing dangerously within a week of setting the house down. (By guidelines, it should have been a 2X6" wall.) We've since had it replaced with a proper load bearing wall. The opening they left for our French Doors was several inches too short (even though we had supplied Mr. Luetzen with the door specs.) The bids provided by Detailed By Design (DBD LLC) Jesse Luetzen, were very vague, even though we repeatedly asked for itemized bids. He has used that to argue over details that he states were not in the bid. For instance, the term "rough grade" referring to the dirt work. Several other contractors & professionals have been to our home and stated the mess of uneven, unpacked dirt piles & debris left everywhere by DBD LLC, were not anything that they would call rough grade in their profession. There was actually a 4 foot wide X 4 foot deep gulch left around the foundation of our basement where all the runoff water would drain down towards the basement. When we addressed this with Mr. Luetzen, he stated he did not have the equipment to do a better job, & that what we got was rough grade. We had to hire an excavating company to come in and finish the job to an actual rough grade so our basement wouldn't fill with water in the spring thaw. It was brought to our attention by a building inspector that Detailed by Design also did not put a sealer coat over the exterior basement walls before filling dirt back up against them, nor did they put a layer of concrete or anything else over the styrofoam forms outside. Detailed By Design (DBD LLC), Jesse Luetzen, also guilted us in to letting his "buddy" do the concrete floor in our garage, and the concrete driveway. His workmanship & work ethic left something to be desired. He insisted on payment in full for both the floor and driveway. He had to be given rides to and from our home to do the work, and he only did the work against protest. The floor is horribly uneven, & doesn't drain to the floor drains, the finish is crumbling, and the concrete beneath the garage overhead and walk-in doors is very uneven, leaving gaping holes for the wind and snow to blow in. He also ran out of concrete, and refused to purchase more. We had to pay to have a concrete truck bring 1 yard of concrete on another day to finish the floor, which of course has an awkward seam in it due to the 2 separate pours it took to complete it. He was repeatedly a "no-call/no-show", and we finally had to hire another contractor to fix the doorway openings & pour the driveway before we got a foot of snow the next week. When we told him we hired someone else to finish the driveway, he insisted we owed HIM money! We caution anyone who might be considering hiring Detailed By Design (DBD LLC) or their associates. The original bid was for $40,600 for the garage floor, basement, rough grade dirt work, plumbing rough-in, floor heat, & septic system. We're up to about $70,000 including the cost of removing any work he did & having it re-done. My wife runs a business from the home, and the loss of income she experienced for those 3 months with the time she had to take off work to deal with contractors, inspectors, government agencies, banks, & attorneys is impossible to calculate. Not to mention her inventory was packed away in storage since we had no place to put it while we did demolition and repair on our home. With no place of business to operate from, she had to turn business away. My wife, 2 year-old daughter, and I lived WITHOUT electricity in our home for 2 weeks......WITHOUT running water for nearly 2 months.....and WITHOUT heat for almost 3 months during the middle of winter waiting for the demolition and repairs to be completed.

Description of Work: I hired him to rebuild my flooded home. It wasn't long before the red flags started to fly. I had prepaid and and didn't want to fire him bI efore the money was used up, but with the quality of work that was being performed, I couldn't let him stay any longer. I wish that I would have never let him into my home. The quality of my home will be forever compromised. There was drywall that was not secured to the wall studs. When I was painting my walls with a paint roller, I could watch the drywall move from the weight of the roller in many different places. There were spots where the drywall was 1/2 inch from touching the studs. Flooring that was not screwed down before the tile went down. There was plumbing that was leaking in multiple spots before I even got moved back into the home. I hired multiple contractors to come in and redo the parts of his work that obviously were not up to standards. I had to remove some drywall that was installed improperly and do it over. I also had to hire someone to retape and retexture and repaint on the main floor of my house. I WISH THAT I COULD HAVE FIRED HIM BEFORE THE DAMAGE WAS DONE. My house will never be what it could have been if he was never u RadEditor hidden textareaI hired him to rebuild my flooded home.%26nbsp%3b It wasn%27t long before the red flags started to fly.%26nbsp%3b I had prepaid and and didn%27t want to fire him before the money was used up%2c but with%26nbsp%3bthe quality of work that was being performed%2c I couldn%27t let him stay any longer.%26nbsp%3b I wish that I would have never let him into my home.%26nbsp%3b The quality of my home will be forever compromised.%26nbsp%3b There was drywall that was not secured to the wall studs.%26nbsp%3b Flooring that was not screwed down before the tile went down.%26nbsp%3bThere was plumbing that was leaking in multiple spots before I even got moved back into the home.%26nbsp%3b I hired multiple contractors to come in and redo the parts of his work that obviously were not up to standards.%26nbsp%3b I had to remove some drywall that was installed improperly and do it over.%26nbsp%3b I also had to hire someone to retape and retexture and repaint the main floor of my house.%26nbsp%3b I WISH THAT I COULD HAVE FIRED HIM BEFORE THE DAMAGE WAS DONE.%26nbsp%3b My house will never be what it could have been if he in it.