Great Basin Deck and Shade

Kurt Krug had a very professional crew. The first team pulled up about 6 square feet of my pavers for each support post, dug large holes to secure the steel uprights and used what seemed to be about 10 bags of concrete per hole. The construction crew took over next and put up the aluminum structure and did all the finish work including the electrical internal wiring for lighting. The prices were very competitive and the quality of work excellent and generally the crews were always on time and very good to work with. If you ever think you will need lighting, fans, outlets etc on your shade structure get the contractor to install them during construction. The Great Basin crew knew what they were doing and provided all the power for my outdoor lighting with wiring internal to the structure itself. They will bring out the wiring to a point where you can have a certified electrician do the final hookups to your power supply. That is extra of course, but well worth it.

The workmanship was awesome but the scheduling was completely unreliable. They performed the services about 8 months late.

Our story with Kirk is too long to put all of it here. The bottom line is this....I would only use Kirk again because of price compared to other quotes received (after haggling) and that city was inspecting everything they did so at least someone was double checking his work but for NO other reason. Kirk has NO communication skills and is unable to keep appointment times or deadlines to save his life. We signed the proposal the end of March and he told us it would be done in 30 days (and no problem would be done by our hard deadline of 6 weeks). In end didn?t start work till 5 weeks after proposal signed and finished work two days late ? all of which were past the deadlines we gave him and he agreed he could easily meet from the get go. It took him another 6 weeks to finish one remaining piece. My advice to anyone thinking of using him is this. #1 the headache of dealing with him is only worth it if the price is good. #2 double whatever timeframe he gives you for the project. #3 be prepared to become a nag and call him many many many times. #4 don?t pay any more than 50% till the whole project is done lock stock and barrel. If we had to do it over I would have gone with him just because of the price & city involvement checking his work but would have held back all but the deposit to keep him doing what he agreed to till it was 100% done.

He was working with a manufacturer to create the shade for our home. He had a falling out with the manufacturer. I had paid him a $5700 deposit for a $9000 job. He now says that he cannot do the job, and he hasn't returned my deposit, even through he claims he sent it out in UPS Priority Mail that never arrived and didn't have a tracking number.

I WISH I had read these reviews before signing on with this company. Please pay attention to all that is written here, there is no coincedence that all the reviews follow the same theme. Kurt, the owner, has no respect for his customers or their time. We were promised a start date that went beyond the estimate. When the cover that we had designed together arrived, it was wrong, they had ordered the wrong pieces and style. Weeks went by with a pile of product in our yard, eventually, the correct pieces arrived. The installers had already anchored pieces of the initial cover to our house. This had to be relocated, when this was done, there were holes and cuts in our house's stucco that they patched with caulking! This was never fixed, I ended up having to re-tecture and paint it myself. Additionally, the installer dumped concrete waste all over our back yard, a huge mess and very unprofessional. The patio cover project went weeks beyond estimated completion. We agreed to have lighting installed in the patio cover, this was part of the bid and the agreement. However, electrical permits were not filed or pulled, so we were told they would have to come back to finish this at another time. This piece has still never been completed, and never will. I will never do any business with Kurt Krug or his company again. Even better! We had planned to have them build a paver patio along with this project. I basically got so fed up trying to speak to Kurt about this, that we found another vendor to build this part of our project. Do not do business with this company if you require any level of communication or follow-up.

DO NOT sign with this company without adding customer protections to the contract: estimated starting date, estimated completion date, guaranteed completion date WITH financial penalty for non-compliance. I signed what I thought was a proposal, a hand-written generalization of what I wanted. That was the contract! I asked for drawings, was promised that they were forthcoming, also expected a contract with list of materials. It only exists in the contractor's head, making for many misunderstandings between him, his builders, and me. The carpenters were not told that my deck was to have two levels, so when they found out they had to redo a section of the framework. With no drawings or specs, they did not know that I had ordered special lighting. They had to redo some of the electrical work to accommodate my selections. Communication was a problem for me, many missed appointments and unanswered phone calls, and a worse one for the builders. My contract for two TREX decks was signed 25 July 2013 and work was not completed until 4 Nov 2013, and only then when legal action was threatened! I received many excuses and empty promises. No work was done for one month after basic foundation beams and joists were installed. The excuse was that he was waiting for materials to be ordered. But a phone call to his supplier indicated that the materials were readily available. I had to supply my own plywood to cover these beams so I could step outside my patio doors safely! The work done by the crew of Chris and Jesse was EXCELLENT and I am very pleased with the final result. But getting there was a nightmare of dealing with this contractor.

Kurt told us at the time that it would probably take 4-6 weeks to complete. After hearing nothing from him in mid-August, my husband called him and Kurt stated that he was still waiting on permits and approval from the Homeowner's Association. We believed him, and continued to wait awhile longer. With the project still not started by the end of August, my husband checked with the building department and Homeowner's Association and discovered that he had not even started the project by applying for the appropriate permits. At that point we sent him a letter of demand to return our deposit within 3 business days, or else we would proceed with legal action against him. He called my husband and begged to be given a second chance and offered to knock $500 off the price. My husband agreed. The project was finished up November 1st. On October 31st, Kurt was calling me to tell me he would be done with the project that day and wanted to arrange to come pick up his check. My husband was out of town and I told him we would pay as soon as my husband returned from his trip and had a chance to inspect the patio cover to make sure he was satisfied with the end results. Kurt continued to call and state he needed to be paid immediately. Since I already told him my husband wouldn't be back until the afternoon of November 4th, I never answered his phone calls over the weekend. My husband went to check out the patio cover on the 5th, at which point we mailed him a check for remaining balance. However, we did not comply with his request to make out the check to him personally rather than the company. The deposit was made out to the company, and the final check was going to also be made out to the company. Our guess is that he was trying to avoid the taxes on that amount, thereby making up for the $500 discount he gave us for his nonperformance. What really upset me was that he called EVERY SINGLE DAY for six straight days, demanding to be paid IMMEDIATELY, when his 6 week project ended up taking 5 months to complete. I had half a mind to make him wait 5 months to get paid, but I just wanted to be done with this guy. I would not recommend Kurt to my worst enemy. If you are looking for a contractor with integrity who will complete the work in a timely fashion as promised, don't choose Kurt. Trust me, you don't want to do business with this shyster.

We ended our relationship with Kurt at that point. It took us 2 weeks for a refund after being told 1 week. Kurt sent his receptionist with our refund that was $100.00 short. The young lady made up the difference. Kurt is a used car salesman I invited into my home. He has absolutely no respect for anyone else's time or schedule. We have hired Brad Winter (Nevada patio solutions)to build our awning. We are right on track and Brad is great with communication.... Also, his quote came in under Kurt's!!!

After going over the work I wanted done, Kurt wrote up an estimate and I accepted, although he did not sign it and I was not asked to sign anything, either. I specifically asked for 3 cut-outs; for the fireplace cleanout, the hose faucet and the dryer vent. When I came back at the end of the day, I had no dryer vent cutout. I as informed that they never cut out a vent. At the end of the third day of work, when they were almost done, Kurt informed me he was building a second bench. Silly me, I just assumed they had leftover decking material. He charged me 600 dollars for the bench! Since I had given him a verbal okay, I felt obligated to pay him. My dryer takes much longer to dry my clothes and I called him back to see if he could make the agreed on cut-out. Never heard from him again either by phone or text. Get everything in writing if you use this company!

Called Kurt after seeing his truck in the neighborhood. Wanted a second price before proceeding. He came right over and discussed our project. Gave us a written bid. After my husband and I discussed it, and the first bid, we called Kurt back. We were under the impression that work would start in about a month. I had to call to see the status of our order. When it finally did start, work progressed fairly smoothly. There was an ongoing problem on getting the messages, tho we told Kurt and his office lady that we used the home phone primarily. Done nicely, works well. Took a couple weeks and 3 phone calls to get our warranty paperwork, but all now fine.

I was very disturbed by the lack of communication on the part of the contractor. I was told it would be completed in four weeks, it was more like four months. The contractor was not very good about communicating why the project was not on schedule. I would not have been so upset had he keep me somewhat informed about what was going on and why things were so delayed. I must say that now that the project has been completed I am pleased with the outcome.