AW Martin Construction Inc

A frozen pipe in my mother’s kitchen above a finished garage left us in dire straights. The exterior of the home is brick construction from the 1950’s but the pipe froze in such a way as to run across the floor and ruin the vapor barrier in the exterior walls. How to replace it without tearing down the brick? I asked seven contractors for a bid. All came out to look at the job, but it was a complicated repair in a persnickety township. Only two of them actually gave me a bid. I chose A.W. Martin and I’m glad I did. His bid was slightly higher, but his word was true: all expenses he had reckoned with wound up being covered by our homeowner’s insurance. Plus I had direct access to Tony via his cell phone at all times - a novelty to me since it did not work that way when I had used the insurance-preferred contractor for a previous repair. Indeed, communication was superior! Tony took the time to explain all aspects of the job in layman’s terms and didn’t mind if I called back for further clarification. He advised me about modifications that wouldn’t cost much now, but would save big bucks in the future. Tony worked around my schedule, which was important to me since I lived out of state and was overseeing the project from a distance. He sent workers from his team who spoke standard English - important to my elderly mother who is hard of hearing and has trouble understanding folks with accents. (Some of his subcontractors did speak Spanish). To save me money, Tony let me provide a shelving unit that I wanted recessed in a wall, charging only for installation and trimming it. And he dealt with all aspects of the township permit process - no small deal for the township my mother lives in! His electrician, Tim Murphy, installed my preferences of where the ceiling lights should be to the inch - to the inch! This electrician came back out at no charge one week after things were finished when the washing machine ground-faulted out and my mom needed help. It hasn’t happened since. I found Tony to be amiable, generous with his time and very concerned about customer satisfaction. The one down-side was that I had requested no work over the weekends, since Saturday was my day of worship and Sunday my mother’s. I did have to take him to task for scheduling subcontractors on Saturday, and he rescheduled them. If you are a seventh-day Sabbath keeper be very explicit about your request for no Saturday work. All in all, my experience using A.W. Martin was superior. I highly recommend Tony and his company. When I started the repair I had over twenty numbers for contractors on my cell phone. After the job, I am down to four: Russel Garage Door, Rich’s Carpet One, the electrician Tim Murphy, and A.W. Martin, itself.

Its took many months to get started but they did a beautiful job.

Super! Workmanship was professional. Workers were dependable and gentlemen. Owner always returned phone calls and answered all questions-kept us completely informed and assisted us on getting partial insurance coverage.

A. W. Martin crew are prompt & courteous work done in professional manner. Some communication issues but resolved.

Never bothered calling me to discuss or schedule - I found someone elde to do the job.

Contractors came & gutted the entire downstairs & the carpet. Fans & dehumidifiers ran for 10 days. Had remediation process. Took a couple of days. A entire downstairs was rebuilt Contractors were courteous, hard working & did on excellent job. My downstairs looks beautiful.

Anthony Martin was immediately responsive, met with us and surveyed the problem. We recognized his team would be unable to fully diagnose the remediation until the sunroom floor was pulled up. It took awhile for the project to get started but it appears to be worth the wait. We think his team did an excellent repair job and added measures to prevent future moisture damage. The job cost much more than what I had originally anticipated but we believe the remediation was done thoroughly. My only complaint is in regards to communication. His office could improve their timely communication with the client. We highly recommend AW Martin, just make sure your communication requirements are clear.

Once the job started, it progressed with minimal downtime. A. W. Martin and his sub-contractors were very competent and helpful, advising us when there were minor, issues and decisions to be made. There was a problem with the insulating contractor, who tried to install fiberglass in the vaulted ceiling without all of the required baffles. Thankfully, the person overseeing the job for A. W. martin noticed this, so they had to return the next day to insulate the ceiling properly.

This is our third project with an Martin. From initial contract and project plan to the very end of the project, the crew was on time with high quality work. Extremely professional & trustworthy. Great company.

It was a very long process but the results are beautiful. A W Martin employs professionals, busy professionals, but folks who know their work. The project took longer than expected but they were thorough.

My experience with AW Martin was excellent. The work performed was perfect. I wouldn't change a thing. The lead carpenter, Christian, did a fabulous job. He was meticulous in his work and extremely neat and clean.

This was a major job (actually, four jobs), and Tony Martin and his staff accomplished it precisely as we had envisioned it and exactly according to our tastes. We have an older home and are sticklers for preserving its character. Tony Martin and his staff understood our needs and sensitivities on this issue--both in the design phase and during construction. In particular, we were able to preserve existing cabinetry in our kitchen and integrate it with new construction in a relatively seamless way. In obtaining new windows, we were able to match the existing window style in the rest of the house. We were impressed with the skill and professionalism of the staff--from carpentry, to plumbing, to electrical work, to tiling and painting, to dry wall installation. Everything was carried out diligently and according to specification, and every single staff member was polite and friendly. The carpentry work was particularly skilled. A number of problems required custom-made solutions, which were creatively and tastefully done. There were unexpected problems that were discovered along the way (such as the old termite damage in our kitchen sub-floor, the hole in the roof above our bathroom, problems with the placement of bathroom lighting, etc.). Tony and staff dealt with all of these surprises transparently and promptly. On several occasions small mistakes were made (placement of a cabinet, for instance); these were corrected without hesitation. The only negative I can think of was that there was some uncertainty about our start date, and communication early on could have been better. But we are VERY pleased with our new kitchen, bathroom, closet, and storage area. In short, we would not hesitate to use Tony Martin again for any further remodeling needs and give him our highest possible recommendation.

Contractor has done work for us before; on time, in budget. Crew was excellent, clean, respectful of property.

Work crew on time. No lapse in job completion. Eager to please, personable and helpful, creative problem solvers!

I have done construction contract development and negotiation for many years, and know that it is essential to have a detailed contract and scope of work in writing to avoid misunderstandings later. In addition, this process helps determine what you want and what you don?t want. Tony patiently and professionally worked with me to negotiate a solid, detailed agreement. At that time it was evident that he had obviously been doing this a long time, and knew what he was doing, and when it came time to actually do the work, this was shown to be evident. There were items he talked us out of, as they were impractical or not cost effective, and others he suggested to make the finished product much more effective. His subcontractors were top notch ? for instance, Ronda Hyams from Better By Design, LLC in Princeton did a wonderful job in redesigning the kitchen. It went from being a nice room before the damage, to a showpiece after their work, as installed by Tony?s team. Ronda even made the long distance decision making very easy for us by consistent communication through the internet. We only had to travel to her showroom once, which saved us valuable time. I feel that her exceptional accommodations were reflective of Tony?s respected business practices and the good relationship he maintains with his subcontractors. Other specialty work that was subcontracted was HVAC sizing, procurement, and installation. The house was converted from baseboard hot water to forced air, which was much more effective, given the nature of past installations over time. This work was done excellently. In cases where additional work was uncovered in the restoration process, Tony was able to demonstrate clearly why the repairs were necessary and provided options to carry out the work. His recommendations were always backed by solid experience and made sense economically. The quality of the work was so high that we had him perform additional renovations on the second floor, which added significantly to the value of the home. One of the features of his service which convinced us to use AW Martin was his use of a professional program for estimating the work. This allowed us to provide an updated cost breakdown to FEMA which was consistent with FEMA?s own method for determining the cost of renovation. While it took much longer than expected to obtain this breakdown after the work was completed, AW Martin eventually provided a detailed breakdown which was sent directly to FEMA. We are now working with FEMA to try to obtain a more reasonable payment for the work that had to be performed.

Mr. Martin was courteous and upfront about all the details. We received a full outline of the work that needed to be done and an estimate of the cost. During the work, while the wall was being dismantled, additional damage was revealed, which required more work and cost more. The workers were efficient and professional. All the debris from the work was cleared away. At the conclusion of the work, the wall, sliding door to the deck and the very large window above it, were restored to their original condition. The only minor comment I have is that the connections to our alarm system were removed during work and not reinstalled. We needed to have the alarm company fix this at an additional charge. All in all, however, A.W. Maritn is an excellent company to do business with. We will certainly call on him again in the future for work on our house and will recommend him to friends and neighbors.

Scheduling was easy. The estimate was turned around in-person very quickly and the estimate was very thorough.

I tried contacting the company several times and they never responded. I was trying to contact them through Angie’s List message center. They sent an initial response to show interest in the project but I never heard back after that.

I tried to contract with them for the work but we ran into a snag. The work i was looking for was a) remove full wall mirrors and repair or replace the walls so they can be painted b) billed a wall and install pocket doors to close off a room, c) put up a bannister and railing system. We had a contract and the price was reasonable. I was to supply the pocket doors and the railings, bannister, ballusters and newel posts for the railing system. The owner of the company rejected the deal that the salesman and i agreed to. He wanted to supply the railings, ballusters etc. OK, i said that was fine so send me a new contract. The new contract came in $2K higher than the first to reflect the additional materials. The only problem was that the materials only cost $1K at full retail from Lowes. At $1K or $1300 he should have been ahead and i would have paid a few hundred more but not double! I tried and tried to reconcile the difference and got zero response from the company so i just went with the other company that quoted. I am confident their work would have been first rate but wasn't going to be coerced into paying $2K for $1K worth of materials. Nonetheless, i would have them back to quote any other work.

We chose Aw Martin because he gave a professional impression, and provided a detailed proposal outlining the cost of the projects, instead of a vague estimate (which we got from other contractors). May not have been the cheapest, but it was peace of mind to have a definite number to start with. Of course, there were still some additional costs, because as the projects went along, changes needed to be made to the work that we did not anticipate at the beginning (probably par for the course with any renovation project). The work was completed in a timely fashion and Mr Martin made sure we were happy with the finished product. He was easy to communicate with. I was especially pleased with the work that was done to modify kitchen cabinets...another carpenter we had look at the project said they could not do it, but AW Martin's cabinet person did a fantastic job and it is not possible to tell that it has been modified. Overall, the work went smoothly and he was good about getting the work done in a timely fashion, which was a very important issue for us. I would definitely consider hiring AW Martin again.

Originally we had an issue with no call back, but the office apologized and Tony called me directly to also apologize. We are now exploring the best options for our project.

Someone showed up promptly for the appointment as scheduled. He noted all the work we wanted completed, he said it would be about 10 days before he could get the quote. The quote came timely as specified. They also followed up with several phone calls. They were very professional and seemed genuinely interested in our business, however, unfortunately, the project estimate was higher than our budget.

Came the same day as my inquiry! Was very professional and knowledgable. When returning to give the written estimate, met at a time convenient to us (after hours!)

I would highly recommend Mr. Toni Martin for the job he did for us. Communication was great, he was accessible for any questions we had, knowledgable, well organized and on time. The job was done before we moved to our new home, so we wasn't there during the day. It took them four days to finish everything. Every night went by to inspect the progress, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that they worked fast and that the quality of the work done was great. I'm very detail-oriented person and I loved that Mr. Toni was the same: after they installed new carpets, he pointed out a tiny dark dot on the carpet, saying that they would take care of it the next day - I didn't even noticed it, and was impressed that he intercepted an issue before it even became one. Majority of contractors would just be quiet about it, waiting for homeowner to mention it (or not). The next day I came the dot was gone, as he promised. There was a small misunderstanding regarding paint color for the living room - they used too light color, not the one I picked, so they repainted the room without making big deal out of it or charging extra. Also, he said that since I picked dark color for our living room, they needed to go with three coats instead of two, but the estimated price stayed the same, regardless. The crew was nice and polite and the quality of their work was great. A.W. Martin was recommended to me by my co-worker. As she said, he wasn't the cheapest contractor you'd come by, he's probably somewhere in the middle price-wise, but the quality he provided was great, he's perfectionist and he stood by his work. These things were important to me, so I decided to hire him and didn't regret it. I was pleased with the final result, so I plan to call Mr. Toni for other projects in the future.

All work was done in a professional and neat manner.