KENNETH HART FATHER & SONS

While the quality of their work was pretty good, the estimate was so far off it was ridiculous. When we asked why the estimate was so high compared with their competitors they said it was in case they found something they could not see. Then they said if we wanted to, we could go with a time and material contract. What we found from other customers with whom we spoke is that time and material was what they really wanted people to go for and then the job would proceed to become practically never-ending. We got about half way through the repairs before we told them to go away and called in another group to finish. Their work is decent, but I would strongly recommend that anyone considering using them make sure they lock down a price with which they are comfortable and get explicit wording in the contract that tells exactly what that price covers. If not, then be prepared to get an ever-increasing bill from them with more and more problems "found" as they go along doing the work for which you originally hired them.

I know other people who have done business with him and I hear same story over and over again. The work indicated on contract was not accomplished. The crew had sub standard skills. They had lack of knowledge and poor communication. He was very worried about the sales.

Ken Hart was failry responsive to my leaking roof situation; and because I was desparate to get the repair done, I know I paid too much. He did fix the leak - he resealed the shingles, replace some of the underlayment - and the job took all of 2 hours. Then I got the bill. Shocked it was so much, but the way he wrote the estimate and spoke to me about the job I thought the job needed was more extensive. Plus I wasn't able to hang out there for the entire duration on the day he did the actual repair, but know that the job couldn't have taken more than 2 hours. The qualilty was good, and he was responsive, but he kept slamming the job the original roofer did. Then when I asked him to provide an estimate for re-roof and chimney repair, he came back with a book filled with his jobs and an estimate that was 2-3X what I eventually paid with another roofer and mason. Overall, I think Ken Hart is OK for quick, quality repairs in desparate situations (and for me, I liked the fact he personally performed most of the repair as opposed to a 'mystery' crew), but definitely ask for a more accurate estimate beforehand. I wish I did.

I have never been so angry at a vendor. I realized that he preys on new people who are not aware of the terrible reputation he has in the community. He advertises extensively and his trucks are around town. I see the same pattern. Big signs go up on the lawn and then the crew moves like snails dragging out the job as an advertisement to unsuspecting new people in the neighborhood. Things get torn down or worked on and remain that way for an extraordinary amount of time. I regret not taking him to small claims court to protect others. I did not want to prolong my aggravation by ever seeing him again. I have used every opportunity to warn others about this man.

There was a leak in the roof as we have slate roofing. Being that the house at the time belonged to my aunt and she had used them in the past we decided to call them as they had repaired the same spot not too long before the leak reappeared. After several calls and over a month later they finally came and it appeared that they might have repaired the roof. That week there was a huge rain storm and the leak reappeared. I called again and had to wait again and again. Finally I got a hold of the owner and threatened them that I was going to get another roofer to come in to repair it correctly. He got almost hysterical and told me I couldn't do that since he had done much work already on the roof but I told him to forget it as they never fixed it and responded extremely too slow. They also never billed me for any of the attempts of repair either. When I did get a certified slate roofer , I was informed that the work that was all done on the house was nothing but a temporary fix by using tar. They explained that anyone who knows anything about slate roofing and its repair never uses tar.

They originally told me they charged $48 per hour but I didn't realize that the price included the owner's time who did no work and the supervisor who did very little work. I ended up paying three employees $48 per hour when only one actually did the work. They also charged travel time which I was not made aware of. The business is in my town, but they claimed they didn't store their trucks in town so they had to go to their garage for those. They started charging me at 7am but they never showed up before 9am.