Gary Allen Industries

It was great. We absolutely love him. He's honest and reliable. He goes above and beyond. He's honest and his staff leaves the house clean.

Note: The reason that I did not post a review much sooner is that Gary told me that if I posted a negative review he would sue me for defamation of character, and that he has very powerful lawyers. This could have possibly prevented other negative review from being posted as well. Note #2: My ratings were based on the total work done. Some of the work was excellent, but some of it was terrible and overall I was extremely dissatisfied. On May 12, 2014 I contacted Gary Allen Industries regarding work that I wanted done the kitchen and bathroom/laundry room in time to rent our apartment to summer guests by June 13. Gary told me that they were able to complete the work by that time. On May 19, he gave me a quote for remodeling the kitchen, and on May 21 he emailed me a quote for the bathroom/laundry room. Both quotes stated: Work will begin next week and will take about a week. Work on the kitchen began on June 3 with two workers. On June 4th Gary told me that he needed the paint that day, so I ran right out and bought it, but the room was NEVER painted. There was a window partially behind the sink cabinet that was to be replaced, so I asked Gary about painting the room after the old cabinet was removed and before the ones were installed. He told me that's not how it's done and I should not try to be the general contractor. (So why had he asked me to run out and buy paint?) However, after the cabinet was installed, it was impossible to properly sand down the old trim around the windows and very difficult to even paint it. Although I decided not to replace the upper cabinets that were in the quote, it took until June 13 for the job to be mostly completed, and it never was totally completed. Gary required that I pay for the kitchen, less $200 for painting yet to be done, before moving forward with the next job. I did so, thinking that Gary wanted to paint both rooms at the same time. I was very unhappy that in the end he didn't prep or paint that window trim at all. It was eventually done by other workers I found at the last minute before our summer guests arrived. But the window trim was in very bad condition, and because it could not be properly prepped with the cabinet installed, it looks pretty bad. On June 5th, Gary's emailed me a quote for the plumber's cost for the bathroom/laundry job of $4300, which came to $5061.10 with Gary's markups ? more than 5 times the original $895 for the plumber in his May 21st quote! (The low cost for plumbing was the reason that I had chosen Gary Allen Industries over other contractors in the first place. There had been no indication in that quote that the plumber's fee was subject to change. In fact, I had specifically requested that the proposal be a firm quote and not just an estimate. Gary held me to paying the cost of materials in his ?estimate? plus his markups, even when I used less expensive ones and even when I used what I already had on hand instead. ) This would have basically doubled the cost of the entire job, and was unaffordable for me. I immediately asked Gary to find a plumber who could do the work at a much better price. He said that you would, but a better quote was never provided. Therefore, work on the bathroom did not proceed as planned and we missed out on summer rent for the last three weeks of June. But I had contracted with someone to rent July 4-18, so the work had to be done in time for that. Eventually, on June 24, having realized that the only way this job was going to get done was if I found a plumber myself, I presented Gary with a plumber's quote and asked if him if it covered what needed to be done. His response was, ?I can not do the work for you.? His reason was that I was asking him to be the general contractor but was unwilling to pay him for that job. I never wanted to be general contractor. All I had wanted was for him to do the work at the price he quoted. But since he never came up with a plumber who would charge anything close to what he'd originally quoted, I had to find one myself. And then he wanted to mark up my plumber's fees more than 20% (something he had not done in his original quote) or he would not even let me know if the plumber's proposal covered what needed to be done. I had to practically beg him not to walk out on me at the 11th hour, since at that point there was no one else available to do the work in time for summer guests scheduled for July 4. Then, on June 25, he emailed me that my plumber told him that he was not going to do the job ? no explanation given to me ? and that he Gary) was going to be away until June 30! Yet, he was prepared to have his workers proceed with the job, even though completion by my mandatory deadline was not realistic. This became clear when, at MY request, we determined day by day how long everything would take. So I proposed that we scale down the job significantly, leaving the replacing of the tub and floors and installation of the washer dryer and re-sheetrocking of that room to a later date. He emailed on June 27th, ?I can have two people start Monday and should be able to easily make your deadline.? I replied the same day requesting a contract, but he did not provide it until June 30. His fee for labor for the dramatically scaled down job was $2200, only $325 less than your quote for the original job! But I signed it, under duress, as at that point, it was the only way the job was going to get done for our guests arriving July 4. Unfortunately, he still did not complete the job in a timely manner to meet my deadline, some of the work was very badly done, and some of the work was not done at all. Because of what Gary Allen Industries did, the way they did it, and what they didn't do, I experienced tremendous stress and considerable expense to get this apartment ready for the summer guests who were arriving July 4th. These guests also posted a very detrimental review on my rental website because of problems with the apartment that were a result of your not completing your work properly or in a timely manner. As though that were not bad enough, since I had to pay other workers to complete what was left undone, I ended up paying more for the scaled-down job than Gary's quote for the complete job. With the scaled-down proposal, Gary had promised me a beautiful, like-new bathroom (except for the floor and tub) and assured me it would be done in plenty of time for our first guest. Instead, the floor was full of glue and spackle that is still there, the tub surround was bulging out from all the debris that had fallen behind it when you sheet-rocked the wall above and had to be hastily replaced before the guests' arrival, the bathroom walls were unpainted, the walls by the toilet, tub, and over the sink looked horrible, garbage (including the shower doors) was left behind, etc, when he left the night before our guest's arrival! I had purchased a vanity and sink basin according to the dimensions that Gary had given me. However it didn't fit at all and the ill-fitted basin propped on top of the vanity looked totally ridiculous. Finally, when Gary's workers left, there was only a hole in the floor where the toilet and been. There was no pipe with the shutoff valve that provided water for toilet was nowhere to be found! What became of it is still a mystery. The painting of the kitchen that had been finished weeks before was left unprepped and unpainted and the bathroom was also left unpainted. Gary had promised that his workers would stay that night until everything was done, but instead, they around the usual time. Yet Gary demanded full payment in spite of it all. (Final payment should not be made until a job is satisfactorily completed, but under duress, I paid almost the full amount because I could not afford for him to leave all the construction debris behind on the deck.) He also threatened to sue me if I did not pay him what I owed, and to sue me for defamation of character if I posted a negative review. So I paid him almost the full amount. I paid more than I should have, but wanted to avoid wasting time in court and having to go against his powerful attorneys. Before leaving, Gary also wanted payment for the materials that that he had purchased for the job, and I complied. He promised that he would give me a copy the receipts for which I paid him, but he never did so, even after I reminded him and asked him again to send them. Gary Casazza never responded to my last email in December 2014 which included most of the information in this review and requested that he complete the remaining work in his original proposal at no additional cost. Despite my frantic efforts, there was not nearly enough time to get all the needed work done in the bathroom and kitchen, and then get everything else set up, clean, and ready for summer occupancy as well! Consequently, our first guest of the summer posted a negative review on a major vacation website. It was so detrimental that I stopped advertising that rental on the website where the review appeared.

Gary and his staff were prompt, incredibly hard-working, skilled at all aspects of building and remodeling, very fair in pricing, and very honest. We can give the the highest recommendation possible.

Gary is wonderful: repairs were completed in 2 months: we were the first to move back in after the superstorm thanks to his quick work: he is meticulous and the trim work is much better than the original builder's work: when we build our new house we will ask Gary to be the GC. If you are lucky enough to get Gary to do work for you, you should be quite pleased: his work is excellent!

If you have a need for a builder/contractor, you can not do better than Gary Allen Industries. It has been a pleasure to work with him.

All through the process he acted in a professional manner addressing our concerns and making all the requisite recommendations during the construction of our home. He was instrumental in getting us into our home in as short a time as possible and in my opinion went above and beyond what I would expect in a GC. From the moment we met with him to provide an estimate and review of our property he was sensitive to all our needs as we were replacing a home we had lost due to fire and needed to be in as soon as possible and as close to budget as possible. No project of this scale goes off without a hitch and the true value of your GC is how he deals with those issues. Any time we had pointed out an issue or were disappointed with the results of one of the sub-contractors, Gary did everything to fix the issue in a timely fashion beyond our expectations. I would absolutely recommend Gary Allen to work on a project such as this.