JC Home Improvements

Description of Work: Arrived at agreed-upon date/time. Performed work according to estimated. Very thorough. Did extensive prep work on an old house, then returned to paint and repair as needed. He and his crew worked long days in extremely hot weather. The house looks wonderful, as does the garage. The whole package was to prime, repair and paint large, 1930s house and detached garage, then prime and water-seal detached deck. Three days and it was done. I'm very pleased and highly recommend John Clapper.

Description of Work: These contractors were hired to rehab an old one bedroom rental house in rough shape. The first "hmm" about them was that they came twice to work up the bid and discuss what needed to be done. The bid was faxed to the owner of the house (I was the front line contact on the project) and a half down payment was made before work started. At no time during this process was it ever mentioned that they would ONLY be working weekends, so what could have been a 2-3 week project turned into a month and a half long project - that was just for the outside. The windows on the house were old wooden windows and in very bad shape, during a discussion about approaching the owner to replace them with new vinyl windows I found out that they had only intended to paint and "make them look better" as part of their original bid. My concern was that some them would not even open and on a 600 sf house in hot and humid summers, it was not an option. They increased their bid by $500 to install new vinyl windows (7 of the 9 windows total, were installed in under 5 hours, the other two took about 3 hours) in addition to what had already been included in the original bid. All in all the outside work, house painting, new porch with some concrete work (a little uneven but ok), windows, some sill plate work and stucco at the base of the house turned out well. I was not pleased with the concrete left in the grass around the house, the sand (used for concrete) that was dumped in the driveway area without being on a tarp that worked it way into the grass, the cigarette butts left on the ground even after a bucket was placed by the house and it was addressed at least twice with them. With this in mind we asked them to bid on the interior work - sheet rock and texture over the existing plaster in the kitchen and green board/texture the bathroom; new linoleum in the kitchen/bath and entry; replace front screen door and back (interior) and screen door; close off old stove pipes in closet (with sheet rock). For the most part the sheet rock in the kitchen turned out well, if you were willing to go behind them and clean the texture and texture film off of cabinets, door trim, electrical and w/d water fixtures etc. The glitch in the kitchen came from their installation of the back door. They ordered a solid wood door as it was a custom size and had to cut it down to size. It should be noted that there was no screen door on this door, and the old wooden door that was replaced had taken a huge beating from the weather, as did the door frame. However, they did not do any work on the frame itself (it should have been replaced) and opted only for 1x4 for the trim around the door on the inside. To this (thankfully) inexpensive trim, they put 18 screws... yes, screws. When asked about it I was told it was to "strengthen the door frame because it was in bad shape". I asked why that hadn't been repaired and was told it wasn't "bid for". (Note that the new porch and installation of the new vinyl windows were added to the original bid on the exterior work, added items, added cost - all was approved by the owner). After a rather verbal interaction with one of them when I was told I wasn't his "building inspector", I asserted that I wanted the screws removed and the trim to be nailed (to avoid having the new sheet rock and the underlying plaster destroyed should anyone try to remove the trim in the standard way - prying (since industry standard is to nail trim, not screw it. It was fixed, on the last day they were there, and I was told that the "frame" had all been nailed in and strengthened too. (I'm thinking ????) However, I did not know until I tried to stain the door, that the "filler" they used to fill (partially) the screw holes does not stain... so I'm left with 18 "dots" all around the door where the screws had been and a door that you can see day light around... I was also promised that one of the guys would come back the nest week and install a prehung bedroom door that had been sitting in the livingroom waiting for them (the existing one had 3 large holes in it) and was told on the last day that "it wasn't in the bid" even though it had been discussed at the beginning but I had left off my "list" that he used verbatim, and forwarded to the owner for approval even though I'd asked him to send it to me to send on to her, (she is elderly and lives over 60 miles from the rental). Basically, it felt as if they showed pride of workmanship on the outside, but when they got to the inside I kept hearing "its only a rental", or the classic "you're not my building inspector"... this could have come from the fact that I'm a woman who happens to know more than the average woman about home repair, I'm not sure. The interior work cost $3800 and it took them less than 6 full days to complete (over 3 weekends) with 80% of that time being only two of them there, one day there were 3 of them. When you consider that they had access to a charge account and the owner paid for ALL materials, they charged $633 a day for the work. In my opinion it wasn't worth that, at all. So, if you can overlook the possibility of the two brothers wanting to hit each other when they disagree (this happened once), or the poor cleanup (even though they kept saying how well they'd clean up when they were done), weekend work only, overcharging for average work (interior) and the behavior that borders on deceit, then I would say go ahead and hire them. At the very least, you need to make everything CLEAR as to what you want, put it in writing and make them commit to it as well.