Five Star Improvements

I have been more than happy with all the work Jason and Five Star Improvements have done for me. Starting in 2008 they were faced with the difficult task of replacing two layers and 80 years worth of old roof from my Park Avenue Duplex. They were on time with starting and finishing the project . This was an extremely messy job but they did a great job and I was impressed by how clean they left the attic and yard. Shortly after I had Jason return to quote me for replacement windows. They may not have been the major local name brands that we are used too seeing advertised but they are great quality and have all the same features at a significantly lower price. Jason also spent the time to help me understand available rebates and energy star savings that were available with certian products he offered. No two windows are the same size in a city house built in 1930 but the installers for Five Star Improvements took their time with each window and placed every window without any damage to the frames or trim. The recent repairs Five Star did for me were small in comparrison but none the less they were prompt, clean and reasonably priced. I will continue to use Five Star Improvements for all my home repairs big or small.

most of the work was completed in a timely manner, efficiently, and quality of work was quite acceptable. However, the finalization of finishing detail was left incomplete. gutters were re-hung improperly, and a downspout is completely missing. a few phone calls to Jason, and the job is still incomplete. This is unacceptable work ethics ,and for these reasons we are downgrading 5 Star. we will not be recommending this roofing company.

After purchase of coupon additional terms/conditions were added and I returned them and received a refund from Angie's List. It was "less expensive" to go with Five Star's current "sale" prices; that is the coupon was essentially good for reducing some inflated prices in hopes of getting customers. I was never notified when windows arrived but I had to call them to get the update, the crew failed to show up multiple times to do the installation without reason, failed to follow up on return call promises for days, and finally showed up un-announced wondering why I was not home to receive delivery about a month after I expected this to be wrapped up. As a result I lost a month of rental income waiting for the windows to complete my renovation. The install crew earned high quality marks for a great, clean job and the windows look good. For full disclosure, I was given a few free car wash coupons as an olive branch with my bill. All in all, bad experience and puzzling how such a poorly managed company remains in business.

My experience with Five Star Improvements was anything but five star. First of all, it took at least 4 phone calls over a period of three months just to get it scheduled. The person I talked with, Jason, said they were very busy from the special on Angie's List and he asked if the work needed to be done immediately or if I could hold off a while. He said he would call me back in a few weeks to schedule. I was understanding about that but after two months he hadn't called so I called him back. This time, he was in the middle of a job and was going to look up my notes from the first call and would call me back. Three weeks later, I called back again and this time got a secretary who was very apologetic but said she couldn't put me in the schedule because the computer was down but she would leave a message for Jason. He did call finally ack and scheduled a date. On the day the work was to be done, I received a call from the person who would actually be doing the work, Joe. He said he was running late and would be there about an hour later than scheduled. He arrived when he said he would at least. He was a very polite young man. I was quite surprised at how young he was, I'm guessing he was 21 or 22 at the most and I'm guessing didn't have a huge amount of experience. He was very pleasant to deal with, he was very neat with the work he did installing the smoke detectors and a doorbell. One of the doorbell parts for the back door had an apparent manufacturers defect. He was nice enough to call the company to ask what could be done and arranged for them to pick up the defective part. At this point, he had used up only 1.5 - 2 hours of the 3 hour handyman special I had purchased. One of the items I had mentioned in all of my phone calls was having a leaky faucet looked fixed. I was told that they could do some "light" plumbing. Joe took a look at the faucet and said he was pretty sure what was wrong with it, that it needed to be tightened. He went out to his truck but didn't have a basin wrench which is a very basic plumbing tool. He called his supervisor, Jason to let him know there wasn't a basin wrench in the truck and asked what he should do. Jason asked to speak with me and told me that there wasn't enough time for Joe to go and get a basin wrench and that I had two options. Joe could go get the basid wrench but anytime he spent over the 3 hours would be at their normal rate of $75 per hour! Or I could just have a plumber come and look at the faucet. Needless to say I was flabbergasted! Half the work I wanted done coudn't even be looked at. Joe asked if there was anything else he could do. He did take a look at a lock that was sticking but wasn't able to fix it and looked at a problem with our windows which couldn't be fixed without new parts. I told him he could leave about 20 minutes before the time was up since I couldn't think of anything else for him to do. I will say Joe was very apologetic about the situation and he did do a good job at what he did but it was only about half of what I wanted to get done. If I could, I would hire Joe to do more work for me but not as part of Five Star Improvements and certainly not at $75 per hour or even $33 per hour for someone with limited experience.//

Jason came over to look at the damage our roof had and sent us an estimate in the mail. Once we decided on what shingles we wanted to use it took one day for his team to come out and tear off the old roof and put on the new one. They cleaned up everything that same day. To me that was very important because I was worried that my dogs might step on a nail. His team was very polite and professional. Hopefully I will never need a new roof again but if I do I would hire Five Star again.

We had damage to our roof following a bad wind and hail storm. We called Jason at 5 Star Improvements and he got right back to us. He came out to check out the damage with in days. A few days later he met the insurance adjuster at our house and surveyed the damage with him. They discussed what needed to be done. Jason was very knowledgeable about the insurance claim process and worked with the adjuster to assure the best case scenario for us. After the adjuster left Jason sat down with us to go over pricing and options. He was efficient and again very knowledgable. He was able to call vendors to get on the spot quotes for our skylight replacements. He was able to make the project work within our budget. The very next day his crew arrived and began the tear off. They were extremely hard working and professional, especially in light of the fact that we have a 2 year old. They did not play music, did not use foul language and even asked how late we minded them working so that our daughter could go to bed.. They worked tirelessly for 2 days getting the entire project finished. The roof looked great, and they did a fantastic job cleaning up the mess that was made each day. When they left there were no scraps, nails or shingles left anywhere in our yard, they even helped us clean up the debris from a tree we had just taken down! Jason came by each day to check the progress and again when the project was finished. Overall we were incrediably happy with our experience.

They are by far the best home improvement company I have ever worked with. One of the owners, Jason, sits down and meets with you as many times as you would like to discuss options and pricing. He responds to every call personally and is extremely professional. This company also gives you the most competitive prices. And the end product is beautiful! It has improved the value and the look of my house completely!!!!!!!

Jason was very flexible. His crew was very professional and did a great job. I used him last year for windows, and was very satisfied with the work. Highly recommend and would use in the future.

We purchased the company's window upgrade deal though Angie's List in early February, 2012. The measuring and estimate work was done quickly but we were told that we were limited to one option (price point) of window. We then went back and forth for a month as the company tried to sell us additional windows beyond what the upgrade deal would get us. We ended up spending an additional $900 after we purchased the $1000 Angie's List deal and that got us a total of 6 new windows. After a purchasing issue and other delays, the company finally scheduled our installation for late April. On the day of the install, we were notified by the company at 9:00 a.m. that the installers needed to finish an installation before they could start ours because they always finish a job before starting another. Our installation finally started at 1:00 p.m. The installers were skilled and clean and they had the six windows replaced by 6:00 p.m. Unfortunately, they didn't have time to caulk the windows in but promised that it would be done Monday morning. After a couple of rain delays and e-mails asking when our job was going to be finished we were informed that our windows had been caulked in someday in late May (we were never notified). In the end, we are very happy with the quality of the windows and the installation was done well. However, the company's poor customer service and lack of professionalism makes it difficult for us to recommend them as a contractor.

Everything was perfect. replaced old windows, cleaned everything up and installed new Windows.

Jim from 5 Star gave us an estimate and talked to us about the process. The estimate came in extremely reasonable. We had a wide range of estimates. He gave us an approximate date that he expected the work to begin. Jason, the owner, came to the condo during the estimate process to make sure that the work would meet the condo association regulations. In the meantime, I was also arranging to have my kitchen redone. Unfortunatly, the windows came in late and the work overlapped with my kitchen work. We moved the cabinet boxes that were living in my living room and the work proceeded. The primary guy on the job was lazy. He showed up late and seemed to enjoy overseeing his assistant while watching the work proceed. The assistant was very reliable and a hard worker. The job took 2 days longer to complete because of the late starts and lack of organization. We had to have them come back and redo some of the work. Jason, the owner, and Jim were extremely responsive and made the job right in the end. They probably have gotten rid of the primary guy who just was not as professional as I expected on a job like this. They were extremely proactive in monitoring the situation and making sure that the job was performed correctly. I am very happy with the quality of the windows and my furnace was working a lot less hard after they were installed. The windows look very nice. Because of the reasonable cost and how responsive Jason and Jim were and how hard working the assistant was throughout the entire job, I would ask them for a quote to do another job.

The estimate was a free estimate. We did not end up using them. We would consider using them in the future.

The people were generally nice, although there were a few setbacks and miscommunications regardig some details of the project.

I took the 99.00 deal to find out how I would like this company---Sure glad I did. Have had them do some work since and will continue to use them in the future. Nice company to work with and the workers are great to have inyour home.

Actually we didn't have good luck with them. They were very nice but they just were not able to do the job and they didn't have the knowledge on how to do it. They tried but it took them 3 hours to figure out that they didn't know how to do it so they never accomplished it. We were just getting some faucets replaced and they definitely knew what the job was. We even sent them pictures of it but they just didn't know how to do it. The deal we got from Angie's List was 3 hours of work for $100.00. They sort of casted one sink and it's still not right. They were to replace faucets and they did get a new faucet in but the pipelines still aren't quite connected right. They weren’t able to put in the new drain and when we saw that they were having a hard time we didn't have them attempt to start the other 2 sinks. It took them 3 hours of work just to get as far as they did. They were really nice guys and really good about calling and setting up the appointment. I would just make sure they are sure they know how to do the work because they are handymen, not plumbers. We were upfront on what we wanted done. I would advise people to make sure they have the experience on the kind of work they need.

I'm very satisfied with the product. They were not as timely as I would have hoped. They were polite and they always answered my questions.

Great. Replace/repaired roof and siding.

They were quick to respond and follow-up. We decided to go with another contractor that had the same quality but just slight less cost

They were referred to us by our parents and Aunt. We had an estimate done (for the windows) within a day, and the job was done a week ahead of the promised time frame. Great company to work with!

i sat through 8 estimated from companies listed on angieslist. the estimates fell between 10,500 and 16,200 without cutters. Five star did the job for 2,300 less than the lowest bid and this included gutters. Five start used Owens Corning material, installed galvanized aluminum flashing, installed new chimney counter flashing, installed Ice and water shields 6 feet up all along the eave edges.five star also used starter shingles for the first course and used lifetime hip and ridge shingles to the peak of the roof. And they also instulled 6 roof box vents., and installed all new gutters. Warranty is a 50 year labor and material non prorate TANSFERABLE Preferred Pride warranty. A Dumpster was provided and was delivered one day before construction started. The crew was very professional and claned up every night before they went home. The job was done in a timely mannor and payment was not expected until all work was completed. I would highly recommend Five Star to anyone and I would use them again on any future home improvements.

We like that it is an independent company. He was a younger guy and he did a nice job.

For the original estimate, Jason from Five Star arrived promptly and was very articulate and informative. He did not give us a hard sell, which was a welcome change of pace. We got several other estimates, but (based both on price and Jason's presentation) we opted to go with Five Star. On the day of the install, two technicians (Joe & Joe) arrived about 9:15. They were very professional, worked quickly, and had all the windows installed by about 2:30 that afternoon. No issues with the install; all the windows had been measured correctly and fit perfectly. They did a nice job with debris removal as well, leaving no traces of the old windows they had to knock out (I've seen plenty of contractors leave screws, plaster debris, etc.). The vinyl windows themselves are nice. They slide up and down easily with one hand, they lock easily, and they clean easily. Overall we're very happy with the work Five Star performed.

While the presentation at the sales call was fine, the quote itself was unacceptably vague.

I spent a total of $8000 on that work. I felt that they offered a good value and that was primarily it. I was impressed with the sales presentation and they offered a price point and a quality level on the product that I was comfortable with.

They tore off the old roof and replaced some of the plywood. Put on the new roof. They were punctual and cleaned everything up well. Appears to be a professional job. Also cleaned the gutters on a prior occasion which again went well.