Affordable Solutions by Brian

Brian is the consummate professional. He is very honest and upfront, so you never feel like he is out to do work just for the sake of getting paid. In fact, I asked him about two different smaller jobs I wanted done, and he actually gave me other suggestions on how to get the jobs done better, and cheaper. His work on the back porch was done in about a day--very quick and efficient. He and his wife Kelly actually remain in contact with you until the work is done. He is reliable and dependable, and I am so pleased to have found such a fine company for future jobs I may have for my older Syracuse home. In fact, he went out of his way to follow through on a couple of smaller, peskier details that others may have let go. Unknown to me, he searched and searched for a small older-style screw to fit my old doorknob and get it working properly again. And when we had a small issue with one of the porch post end caps a few weeks later, he was out to my house within a couple of hours to fix it. I highly recommend Affordable Solutions by Brian!

The work was completed efficiently and professionally. I was not at home when most of the work was completed. Brian and his crew finished all of the work in 3 days. One of my neighbors said they were impressed by how quickly the roof was done! There were some issues discovered with how the old roofs were installed, and Brian informed me every step-of-the-way with what was happening and gave me options as to what could be done to correct them. The team did an excellent job of cleaning up the debris from the ripped roofs. I did find very small roof pieces here-and-there, but not a single nail! I will definitely call Brian again for other services I may need in the future.

Brian himself came on time and was very candid and detailed with his explanation of what needed and should be done. He was very gracious in that he took the time to fully explain all that he saw that should be repaired and finished. Thank you to Brian for the time you spent re-assuring us that the job was a manageable one!

Being my first experience with home remodeling it went well. The end result was exactly what I wanted and it turned out great.

Brian and his crew did a great job. Brian was very professional and honest in his assessment, communicated in a timely fashion (responded to texts quickly), did very nice work.

Brian called and came to fix in 15 minutes. Fixed the door within 5 minutes. Did not charge for his service.

Very well. Professional and friendly - and got the work done on a Sunday morning due to cold weather!

It went well. He had some issues due to no fault of his own such as my walls being too thing but he found ways around the obsticals that had thought of appearance in mind as well. An unexpected issue came up after the work was done but again he came over and fixed the issue. I'm happy with the work done and especially happy that hole in my wall is fixed! Peace of mind that no critters will get i/ great.

Went great! Arrived on time, job was completed quickly, they cleaned up before leaving, door looks great!

We were very pleased with the electrical lighting fixtures that Brian installed. We decided to ask him to do some more work that we needed. Brian recommended that we buy vinyl planks and quarter-round trim and suggested how much material would be required. We purchased the flooring material and made arrangements for Brian to deliver it to us. He delivered the material promptly and shortly afterward brought two workmen, Jason and Jason, to install the flooring and cut the doors to clear the new flooring. Jason and Jason did an excellent, professional installation and we are very happy with the way it looks. We are extremely satisfied with the work done by Affordable Solutions by Brian.

Brian came and did an estimate, very pleasant and knew exactly what needed to be done .....

Angie's List has asked for a review several times so here it is. A really botched up job. No one showed up the first day. Called Brian's cell phone, left message, no response. Brian & Jeremy showed up unannounced the next day. Brian said he wasn't well the day before and "didn't feel like answering any calls" even though scheduled to start the job. Jeremy was given job info, Brian left for appointment, coming back hours later. Once job was done I {unfortunately} casually looked over it and a lot of it was botched up, wrong or misrepresented. For facer boards they used cheap, knotty 2x4's {with bolts that rusted} instead of composite boards. Brian said I could PAY someone to paint them to match the composite boards in color, it's always done that way. Contractors I've since employed for other jobs disagree with that. Top deck boards were not trimmed. Huge gap in deck boards. A deck board was popped up. Numerous screws missing {both were aware they ran out of screws and said the other should have notified me}. Composite boards had notches cut out exposing old bolts from previous step face boards. Jeremy's excuse was "steps had to be an even height", however the "even" height steps range from 4 to 5 1/2 inches. The trimming, missing screws, board gaps, popped up board and exposed bolts were taken care of only after I made them aware of it. Though seeing an overlapping board covering the bolts it's obvious they're covering up a mistake. The top platform was not to be lowered but was. Step was to be 2 boards wide but was shortened. Admittedly I caught the step height and platform errors the next day and didn't notify Brian, my only reasons being I was in a lot of pain and ticked off that he expected me to shell out additional money for a painter, plus I didn't want to deal with more excuses at that time, however Brian should have caught this if he actually inspected the job. Now that a little time has passed the deck boards have an inverted "V" look and rainwater runs toward the house which means ice in wintertime. Brian seemed concerned when first meeting that a quality job would be done as I am severely disabled and in a lot of pain and he wanted to make things easier but the opposite actually occurred. Walking up uneven steps causes an imbalance in a persons gait. That's dangerous for someone with health issues. Brian's exact words regarding the job was "sorry we screwed up". Brian can still do the honorable thing if truly concerned about quality and making the house easily accessible by resolving the platform and height issues and can probably still come out ahead. Other contractors asked what was charged and knowing material cost and given the hours of labor figure there was a substantial profit. If the job was done right that would be one thing but this was not an affordable solution.

It went very well. On time everyday. The crew was great. Very respectful and they did a great job. Yes I would rehire them. They did an amazing job for me.

Everything went well the day work was scheduled. Brian had 2 guys plus himself, arrived on time. Brian promised our list could be finished in a day, and it was all completed in a day! The work addressed our concerns and we are very skates fixed with the results. Scheduling his team was a little tough because weather was not cooperating for outside work, but they are worth the wait! Communication mostly via email, but easy for us.

My family just moved here and over the course of the past 3 months, Brian and his crew have done two jobs for us. No doubt we are extremely pleased with the results of both. Everyone we dealt with at Affordable Solutions was very professional, hardworking, skilled, courteous and prompt. We highly recommend Brian and his team to anyone looking to make home improvements. You'll get a call back and no job is too small, which is very hard to find these days. We will definitely call Brian in the future for any additional improvements we make!!!! Thank you Affordable Solutions!

All went beautifully. The windows were installed completely in 3 days. The work was done very professionally and look wonderful. Brian is very responsive and has a good, reliable crew. They are prompt, and always leave the job site clean, as though they weren't even here. I have hired Brian several other times in the past, and wouldn't use any other contractor. You are always provided a written estimate detailing the work, and receive an updated one if any changes are necessary. I will hire Brian again for my next project, kitchen update.

I read many of the 5 star reviews for Brian and all seem fairly positive and mention how punctual he was. So maybe I caught him on a bad week, but getting Brian on his Cell Phone proved nearly impossible. Not being able to speak with somebody when you are trying to conduct business is a hard way to do business, especially when they show late for an appointment. I leave for work at 7:45 AM, so we scheduled an appointment between 6:30 and 7:00 AM. When Brian didn’t show by 7, I called to see if he was still coming and got no response. He did show around 7:15 AM and it may have proved only a mild irritation if not for the tight schedule, having to be to work on time myself. Finding phone calls to be frustrating with Brian, I switched to texting hoping he would get back to me when he had a free moment. However texting proved just as frustrating. Long periods of time, (up to a day or more), would pass before receiving a reply. But being a “Ma and Paw” outfit, I know they don’t have the infrastructure of larger contractors so I was willing to deal. In retrospect this should have been a red flag because upon reading the negative reviews, this behavior seems be Brian’s M.O. Brian responded to each complaint the same way. “I’m sorry I’m not sorry, I’m not at fault, you are, nothing is ever my problem and it’s always your problem”. So I am sure he will tell me how very wrong I am. I should have walked away as soon as this behavior started. So what was all this frustrating communication about? It’s simple, or at least it should have been. 1) I wanted to get a ROUGH estimate for installing 3 windows. I was trying to ascertain up front what kind of money we were talking about to avoid wasting each other’s time. 2) If the rough estimate seemed worth pursuing, I wanted to schedule an appointment to have Brian come and see the job in person. Taking care of these two simple tasks was 4 days in the making. When I finally got to speak to Brian, he gave me a ball park estimate of $200 a window for installation. ($600 in total). Being OK with the rough estimate, we scheduled an appointment that Friday for him to see the job. Once Brian had a chance to see the project in person, he said "We should be pretty close to the estimate I gave you on the phone, but let me work up the quote and send you the final version". Now for a number of reasons, I was expecting to get the final quote sometime that day, like by noon or at least by the end of the working day. As a point of comparison, the home depot guy sent his quote from his tablet literally before he left my house. So when Brian made a point to say "Can you please respond to the email as soon as you get it so I know you got it", It reinforced the notion I would be receiving the quote shortly thereafter. But after watching for and not seeing the quote all day, I texted Brain at 4:30 pm asking where the quote was, thinking maybe he got my email wrong or something. Receiving no reply, I texted again at 7:15 pm asking if maybe I was texting the wrong cell #. At 8 pm, I finally got a text from Brian stating he had not seen my messages previously, that he had only just returned to the office and noticed them on his phone, and to my supersize he had not yet looked at my estimate. He further stated he would probably not get to it until Sunday and to expect it sometime on Monday. Since Brian said he would not be able to do the work for a month anyway, the delay posed no real issue. What was particularly annoying about this whole exchange was that I had been anticipating the quote all day. If Brian had mentioned how long he would need to do it, I would not have been looking for it and wondering if he had the right email. In 2016, who expects a 4 day delay between the initial visit and getting the final quote? But given the fact it took 4 days just make the appointment, I should have known. There was just a general lack of communication and difficulty in getting ahold of Brian. What should have taken no more than 8-10 minutes during a single phone call was instead strung out over 8 days from Sept 30 to Oct 7. To my supersize, when I checked my email the following day, Brian's Quote was in my mail box. Upon reading it my jaw hit the floor. It was $1890, 3 Times what I was originally led to believe. So I think it bears repeating here what Brian said after seeing the job first hand, "We should be pretty close to what I told you on the phone". I assumed that meant worst case scenario, $800 - $900 for all three windows. Before I continue, it occurs to me that Brian MIGHT say; “I didn’t say $600 for all three windows during our initial conversation, I said $600 PER window, and that is exactly what my final quote says”. And I would be willing to chalk this up to a simple miscommunication if it were not for one important fact. I called VERY SPECIFICALLY, to get a “PRICE PER WINDOW” estimate for installation. I was very clear about this, going so far as to tell both Brian and his Wife at separate times about an estimate I got from Home Depot and how outrageous the quote was, and how it was a huge waste of everyone’s time because Home Depot refuses to give out any pricing prior to seeing the job. If Brian had in fact said $600 per window during our initial talk, I would have hung up the phone immediately, wasting the least amount of time possible for either of us. $600 per window works out to WELL more than even Home Depots quote. So it is with complete confidence that I say; I KNOW I was VERY SPECIFIC about what I was asking. I am equally certain that Brain said $200 per window. I even went a step further to clarify this with him saying, “So, to be clear, that’s $600 for all 3 then… RIGHT”? Brian said yes, and that’s the only reason I made an appointment. This is not miscommunication. It’s a case of either Brain not paying attention during the conversation, or price baiting. But either way, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS TRYING TO AVOID! Moving on. Keep in mind this quote is just Labor. I was supplying the windows and some other materials. I was to finish the inside trim on all windows. This quote was only to remove the old windows and install/finish the outside. I have included pictures to show exactly what Brian was up against. Getting the garage window down to the rough opening is a 15 min one person job. I know because I did the identical window from start to finish myself, (see picture). Removing the basement windows down to the rough opening is a 15 min job each. I know because since Brains Visit, I have installed the new windows myself. Obviously, the real work involved is the installation phase. So what in the installation is costing $1890? I had to figure out much of the installation process for the basement windows on my own by watching YouTube Videos and trolling DIY forums. There are no less than 100’s of different “Answers” to the question “How”. But even with all of that and a general lack of experience with doing THIS particular job, I was able to install both of these windows to a High Degree of Satisfaction, using all of the best materials I could lay my hands on in almost exactly 4 hours. Materials I used include PVC lumber, (Expensive!), $8 a tube premium silicone caulking, a $20 box of Tapcon concrete screws, a $15 bag of Rapid Set mortar, a $10 bag of Rapid set concrete mix, a $7 roll of sill plate gasket, and a $7 dollar can of Great Stuff for windows which I didn’t even use. I had $188 in materials and 4 hours of labor invested in two windows. And believe me folks; I OVERENGINEERED the living crap out of what turned out to be a relatively simple project. First I laid in the cement so my Rough opening was dead plum. I milled the PVC lumber to the exact dimensions I needed which included ripping, planning and daddoing. I assembled the window frame adhering Sil Plate gasket around all four sides. The window frame slid into rough opening with a good friction fit gasket seal. The window slid into the frame I built like a glove. After caulking it up, screwing it in and mortaring the beveled lip on the outside, the finished product looks EXCELLENT. No contractor anywhere would go to the trouble of milling lumber for an exact fit. They would have used shims and Foam insulation to take up the gaps, and covered it with mortar and trim, which is fine, but my point is the job I did was way more labor intensive and overkill than any contractor would have bothered with. And I did 2 in 4 HOURS! Contractors will tell you that you’re not paying just for labor and materials, but their overhead and for the fact that they have all of these expensive tools for doing these jobs that general home owners don’t have. And that is both true and acceptable. But contractors like Brian are what my Pappy used to call “Shysters”. And there are lots of them out there. They will spin you a tail to justify their outrageous prices. And if you don’t know any better, you might be willing to accept their tail at face value. But sometimes a tail is really just a lie meant to scare people into overpaying for a service. And people like Brian are taking advantage of people that don’t know any better. Making a living is one thing, but if Brian or anyone else thinks that $600 for labor and the MINOR materials HE would have used to install an $80 window is “Affordable” or even fair, they are telling you a bald face lie and trying to rip you off. And for the record, where I grew up, a gross starting estimate for installing windows that cost up to about $500, is about the cost of the window again being installed. But you would not expect to pay 4 times, let alone 6+ times the cost of the window being installed in labor. It took me 4 hours to install my two basement windows. Let’s say because of the unique circumstances, the garage window would take an additional 4 hours, (being very generous). That works out to $225 an hour labor. That is criminal!

It went very well! Brian and his worker Jason worked around my schedule and had the job done in two afternoons. Brian came out very quickly after I called and gave me an estimate. He checked in with me several times and worked around my schedule. Great experience overall! Very often when I call I get no response...especially if it is a small job like this one. I plan to have them back to redo a garage floor in the spring if things go right!

I couldn't be more pleased; this was a very good experience. I had been putting off getting help on things because I thought they were too small. I called Brian (I had read all the very positive reviews), and was impressed with his positive can-do attitude. When Brian and his team of Jason and Kevin came, they worked on everything on the list (the porch roof being the biggest job). Everything looks wonderful; my only regret is that I didn't call them sooner! I am making another list of things needing 'doing' - you can bet I will use Affordable Solutions by Brian again.

They did a great job. They kept me informed every step of the way

We got the materials and his worker put the ceiling off. The guy drove screws and I thought he was going to use nails and then he didn't even do it right. Instead of going the long way where you would attach it to the beams the guy did it horizontally. We tried to get the strips to try to hold it up and he was draining the water tank into the sump and when the sump kicked on the pipe that goes out started shooting water onto my basement. I tried to call him three or four times and he doesn't call me and he doesn't pick up the phone. He was supposed to get a permit and never did.

Brian was efficient and reliable. He was pleasant and professional. Would definitely call him again.

Brian and Jason were efficient, timely, very easy to work with, and they did a fantastic job with our stairs. We will recommend them to anyone needing quality home improvement done at a very reasonable cost.

The guys showed up on time and were very nice. They knew what they were doing and were prepared for the job. There work was done correctly and they consulted me at every step to ensure it was done the way i wanted it. Due to the humidity the mud of the drywall tool longer to dry and spilled over to a second day to finish, but they were more than happy to get it done right than rush it.

Brian's crew did a great job. Even though we they found some existing plumbing issues with the old tub the problem was corrected and the job was completed on time and to our satisifaction