THREE STRANDS INC

My wife and I had a very bad experience with Three Strands Construction, and we do not recommend them to anyone for any kind of construction work. We hired them to build a new deck, install a new door to the deck from an interior room, and repair a portion of the roof overhang that had begun to sag due to age. Our problem with Three Strands was that the owner subcontracted this work out to a small time builder who did not read the deck blueprint and built the deck to incorrect specifications. The owner was argumentative when I asked him to make the deck match the blueprint - he incorrectly spaced the posts and incorrectly located and poured an additional concrete footing in our flower bed. The subcontractor was a combative person who also loudly argued with Shonnards Landscaping who was also on our property working on a separate project. Three Strands owner bought incorrect joist lengths for our deck structure, and tried to talk us into a smaller deck size just so he did not need to lose money by rebuying correct board lengths. The builder who installed our deck was very sloppy and left tools and garbage scattered inside our garage throughout the weeks he was there. Our deck is 29 feet long, but he did not cut the deck planks appropriately in order to make the deck appear professional and look nice, and so one of the planks is only 16 inches long. The layout map for the deck plank boards was created very sloppily, and has planks ranging in length anywhere from 16 inches, 48 inches, 64 inches, to 20 feet. A deck built with a mix of long or medium length boards is fine, but NOT with boards as short at 16 inches. Benton County cautiously bought off the deck installation, but made a note that the posts are not spaced correctly per code. They also were away from our house for three weeks to work on another job, and the grand total of time it took them to complete this work was over five weeks which is VERY lengthy, and surpassed their time estimate. They also said they would start work by a certain date, and they did not honor that, and actually commenced work on our property over five weeks late. The owner of Three Strands did not supervise the build process of the deck and he admitted in the end that he should have been more watchful and attentive. We paid him for the everything but have not been happy with the aforementioned circumstances. The owner is a very nice man, but he does not have good time management skills, and is not very adroit when supervising work. We actually chose them despite the fact that their bid was not the lowest in price. Their work is not representative of their asking price. The repair to the roof, and the installation of the door turned out fine, they just took a long time to complete the scope of work, and the deck does not look like what was originally agreed upon. We would not recommend them to anyone who wants/expects a nice looking upgrade to their home. If you have a home or rental that you do not care very much about then this company might work for you, but then Three Strands would still be overpriced.

My wife and I had a very bad experience with Three Strands Construction, and we do not recommend them to anyone for any kind of construction work. We hired them to build a new deck, install a new door to the deck from an interior room, and repair a portion of the roof overhang that had begun to sag due to age. Our problem with Three Strands was that the owner subcontracted this work out to a small time builder who did not read the deck blueprint and built the deck to incorrect specifications. The owner (Jim) was argumentative when I asked him to make the deck match the blueprint - he incorrectly spaced the posts and incorrectly located and poured an additional concrete footing in our flower bed. The subcontractor was a combative person who also loudly argued with Shonnards Landscaping who was also on our property working on a separate project. Three Strands owner bought incorrect joist lengths for our deck structure, and tried to talk us into a smaller deck size just so he did not need to lose money by rebuying correct board lengths. The builder who installed our deck was very sloppy and left tools and garbage scattered inside our garage throughout the weeks he was there. Our deck is 29 feet long, but he did not cut the deck planks appropriately in order to make the deck appear professional and look nice, and so one of the planks is only 16 inches long. The layout map for the deck plank boards was created very sloppily, and has planks ranging in length anywhere from 16 inches, 48 inches, 64 inches, to 20 feet. A deck built with a mix of long or medium length boards is fine, but NOT with boards as short at 16 inches. Benton County cautiously bought off the deck installation, but made a note that the posts are not spaced correctly per code. They also were away from our house for three weeks to work on another job, and the grand total of time it took them to complete this work was over five weeks which is VERY lengthy, and surpassed their time estimate. They also said they would start work by a certain date, and they did not honor that, and actually commenced work on our property over five weeks late. The owner of Three Strands did not supervise the build process of the deck and he admitted in the end that he should have been more watchful and attentive. We paid him for the everything but have not been happy with the aforementioned circumstances. The owner is a very nice man, but he does not have good time management skills, and is not very adroit when supervising work. We actually chose them despite the fact that their bid was not the lowest in price. Their work is not representative of their asking price. The repair to the roof, and the installation of the door turned out fine, they just took a long time to complete the scope of work, and the deck does not look like what was originally agreed upon. We would not recommend them to anyone who wants/expects a nice looking upgrade to their home. If you have a home or rental that you do not care very much about then this company might work for you, but then Three Strands would still be overpriced.

My wife and I had a very bad experience with Three Strands Construction, and we do not recommend them to anyone for any kind of construction work. We hired them to build a new deck, install a new door to the deck from an interior room, and repair a portion of the roof overhang that had begun to sag due to age. Our problem with Three Strands was that the owner subcontracted this work out to a small time builder who did not read the deck blueprint and built the deck to incorrect specifications and dimensions. The owner of Three Strands (Jim) was argumentative when I asked him to make the deck match the blueprint - he incorrectly spaced the posts and incorrectly located and poured an additional concrete footing in our flower bed. The subcontractor Jim hired was a combative person who also loudly argued with Shonnard's Landscaping who was also on our property working on a separate project. Three Strands owner (Jim) bought incorrect joist lengths for our deck structure, and tried to talk us into a smaller deck size just so he did not need to lose money by rebuying correct board lengths. The subcontractor who installed our deck was very sloppy and left tools and garbage scattered inside our garage throughout the three weeks he was there. Our deck is 29 feet long, but he did not cut the deck planks appropriately in order to make the deck appear professional and look nice, and so two of the planks are only 16 inches long. The layout map for the deck plank boards was created very sloppily, and has planks ranging in length anywhere from 16 inches, 48 inches, 64 inches, to 20 feet. A deck built with a mix of long or medium length boards is fine, but NOT with boards as short at 16 inches. We now have a redwood deck that looks like it was built by an amateur. Benton County cautiously bought off the deck installation, but made a note that the posts are not spaced correctly per code. They also were away from our house for three weeks to work on another job, and the grand total of time it took them to complete this work was over five weeks which is VERY lengthy, and surpassed their time estimate. They also said they would start work by a certain date, and they did not honor that, and actually commenced work on our property over five weeks late. We rushed a 30% downpayment to him so he could get his blueprint completed, and through the County approval process, so they could start building six weeks thence. The owner of Three Strands (Jim) did not supervise the build process of the deck and he verbally admitted in the end that he should have been more watchful and attentive. We paid him for the everything but have not been happy with the aforementioned circumstances. Jim is a very nice man, but he does not have good time management skills, and is not very adroit when supervising work. We actually chose them despite the fact that their bid was not the lowest in price. Their work is not representative of their asking price. Note: Jim hired a subcontractor to do this work for him because Jim is now older and his body cannot handle this type of hard labor. The repair to the roof, and the installation of the door turned out fine, they just took a long time to complete the scope of work, and the deck does not look like what was originally agreed upon. We would not recommend them to anyone who wants/expects a nice looking upgrade to their home. If you have a home, or rental, that you do not care very much about then this company might work for you, but then Three Strands would still be overpriced.

I picked Jim Tevlin of Three Strands because he communicated well during the bidding process. Sadly, that skill did not carry through the project. All went well during the siding replacement, until the deck needed to be removed. I thought it was their choice, and they would be responsible to replace it the way it was. They seemed kind of sneaky in trying to get my permission to rebuild it without giving me complete info, like the price. (They sneaked in other price increases too.) I was shocked to finally get the estimate at approximately $3,400. Jim was unable to explain this to me to straighten it out. The weeks turned into months without reconciliation. The window replacement went fine, as far as I know, but they were not caulked correctly. We re-caulked ourselves. They also did not haul away the shutters. But those weren't the main thing that went wrong. It was the plaster nightmare. The plasterer refused to transition the entry ceiling to the living room ceiling with a "feathered in" transition, as written in the contract, and Jim refused to require him to do so. During the process both Jim and the plasterer were rude, blaming, disinterested in my satisfaction, and unprofessional. Jim uses backhanded blame to excuse this by stating that having work done is always stressful to the homeowner. Here are the details: I also had picked Jim because he claimed that to fix my cracked ceiling, plaster would be more professional-looking than just patching the cracks. The plasterer started his work, and I liked the sweeping texture he was doing. I had to be gone part of the first day (my adult son was home), and when I got home the plasterer was gone already. I found a ?curb? transitioning his new entry texture to the old living room texture, instead of the seamless, smooth, ?feathered in? transition I had asked for. (Re-plastering the ceiling consists of adding two layers of plaster, one the base, and the other the "topping" for the finish texture. These layers add about 3/8 inch to the existing ceiling. This plasterer rounded off the 3/8 inch edge and it looked like a curb, like the curb from the sidewalk to the street, only upside down on the ceiling. He calls this a "line," which is poor communication because it is misleading. I describe it as a "curb." The curb was about 4 feet long. To me, ?line? means the place where the new texture A meets the old texture B.) I discovered that the plasterer?s vocabulary is ?line,? meaning both ?curb? and ?the place where the new texture A meets the old texture B.? For him, it seems you can't separate the two. I told him I was fine with the two textures coming together there (the two textures aren?t noticeably different to me), but he argued with me and said I wouldn?t like it. When I saw the curb, I tried to see if I could live with it. By the next day I had determined I couldn't. I told the plasterer that it wasn't what I had wanted, and asked what he could do to finish it off smooth. He got mad. He talked a lot and didn't listen. He had a lot of excuses like "all plasterers do it this way." He said my way would be "uglier." (!) I was pretty upset that he wouldn't make an effort to finish it the way I wanted. At that point I didn't remember what the contract said, I only remembered that I had never even considered anything but a smooth transition, and I was willing to pay extra for a change order if it came to that. It was such a simple thing to fix. I called Jim about it, who was equally disinterested in my wishes, insisting I had verbally agreed to that transition. I went downstairs (daylight basement) for the rest of the day to get away from the plasterer and let him cool down. After he had left for the day, I came back up and noticed he had scraped the curb down a little, but there was still a lump across where the curb had been. It looked like a bad patch job. Later Jim called to blame me because "[the plasterer] was really p***** off." It sounded like Jim was really p***** off too. He just ranted and made no attempt to reconcile or resolve the situation, other than ignoring my request. Later, I suggested to Jim that the plasterer come back and chisel the rest of the curb out and re-finish it smooth. Jim called me back and said that the plasterer would come over early the next Saturday. (He didn't try to find a time that would be okay for me too.) When the plasterer showed up for that, he was still angry and blaming me for agreeing to the "line." He scraped a little but refused to chisel it out. He said that if I insisted on having him chisel it out, he would, but he would "guarantee" I wouldn't like it and he would not come back to fix it. I took that to mean he would deliberately do a bad job, and I sent him home. Jim never asked if I was satisfied. Later when I looked at the contract, I found it said "feathered in" in Jim's handwriting. Jim and the plasterer claim I made an oral agreement when Jim and the plasterer came to look at the job, before Jim wrote and submitted the bid. I do forget things sometimes, but not when a seamless transition was so important to me from the beginning. I certainly didn't agree to a ?curb? transition, since I have never heard of that before this, and the plasterer only used the word ?line? which doesn't really convey ?curb.? I have seen transitions where one texture meets another, but it is still smooth. I was a Realtor for a while, and I have never seen a ?curb.? I kept waiting, ultimately 3 months, for Jim to cool down or try to reconcile. It was such a simple matter. I'm not sure if he ever did. The resolution: I had to call another plasterer (found on Angie?s List) to chisel out the remainder of the curb and finish it smooth. Now it is completely seamless, and I am very happy with it. I paid the new guy about $200 for the job, including mileage from Salem, and docked Jim's final payment by the same amount. It boggles my mind that any contractor can stay in business if he acts this way. Jim didn't care about my satisfaction, didn't honor the contract, or require the plasterer to comply. It is weird that Jim never corrected himself about the contract?or maybe he still hasn't looked at it. Look up the Ecclesiastes verse about three strands that Jim has on his website. I wonder if he thinks it entitles him and his buddies to gang up on a customer. He knew I am disabled and low income. I found out from a lawyer that it is a lot of work to complain to the Construction Contractor?s Board (CCB), and they don?t have any enforcement anyway. Jim had a squeaky clean record on their website, but it doesn?t mean anything if it doesn?t have any teeth. I?m sticking to Angie?s List from now on.

It turned out beautiful and I was impressed by their work