Three Rivers Mechanical Contracting

Update on the court case against Three Rivers Mechanical. I prevailed in all aspects of the case. I was awarded my full amount of almost 2000.00 which included repairs of damages by the contractors. As I see form the other review posted here about a paint job done badly should now give some perspective that these guys are not good contractors and should be avoided and not waste your money.

Hired this company to spackle some dents on the walls and paint one bedroom. The first day Jason worked about 8 hours and forgot to sand the areas that were spackled before painting over them. I noticed it and had him re-spackle those areas and sand them again. He had to come back the next day to finish the job. After working half a day to complete the work, the paint job had a lot of uneven areas on certain walls, he forgot to sand two of the areas that he spackled in addition to not finish painting the trim in the bedroom. I called Jason and he told me that he would have to come back a week later to finish the job as he had another job to start up. I could not be inconvenienced any further so I went out and bought another gallon of paint and finished the job myself. I had to sand the two areas that he overlooked and put a third coat of paint on all the walls. I also had to complete the trim work in the bedroom as well. I tried asking for some of my money back for the work I had to complete on my own but the Jason stopped responding to my calls or voicemails. This guy is supposed one of the owners of the company and this is how he decided to handle a disgruntled customer. Overall it was a bad experience hiring this company and I would not recommend them to anyone that I know because they were very unprofessional.

Initial project timeframe given was 7-10 days. Took over a month to complete. Contract payment arrangements were made to pay half in beginning and half upon completion. We paid half up front and he insisted on the other half of payment in the middle of work and we gave it to him. Then it took weeks later for completion. We have had 5 leaks in the walls since the work was done. This last leak we decided to call a new plumber because we really don't trust their work. The wall will need to be ripped out and pipes fixed. The other leak was in the other side of the wall and happened twice. Then when they hung the medicine cabinet they must of hit a pipe and that wall was leaking.

Under no circumstances should anyone hire this contracting firm to do any work. I contacted them based on the reviews here and met with Jason to discuss in detail my bathroom remodel. After an extensive detailing of the work I wanted done Jason provided an estimate of 5000.00 to do the remodel for labor with my providing all the materials that I had already purchased. A Jacuzzi tub and a new Toto toilet and vanity and sink and a fan/light/heater combo. the room was to be tiled and painted and all tile had been purchased. The bathroom is off of my familiy room which was recently remoldeled by my nephew who done all the wood woorking ,trim and installation of a new hardwood floor. I told them the floor needed to be covered to protect it and they laid down one strip of brown paper to walk on leaving the tile/ wood floor entrance way and thresholds (also wood) exposed) after a couple of days the area around the paper and the entrance way tiles and floor were filthy with tracked in dirt. I cleaned the entire floor and spent the time necessary to cover and protect the floor and tile as it should have been from the beginning. Next comes the problems with the work as none of the instructions I told Jason were carried out. I have a pump system for water that was to be moved into the utility room and a section of the bathroom wall was to be extended to accomodate the oversize jacuzzi tub I had purchased and the hot water tank was to be moved to a new spot in the utility room to make room for the expansion. The wall was extended but there were switch boxes that needed to be moved but they just cut the framing in around the switches. The wall wasn't extended to the point I had indicated by several inches. I questioned this as there would have been almost no surround around the tub by more than just a couple of inches When I could have had a proper surround to hold soaps and things. The hot water tank was moved to the wrong location. After pointing this out they re-did the wall to where I had originally specified. Jasons brother John was doing the plumbing. He relocated the hotwater tank to where I had specified but installed the tank backwards with the electrical access panels and the tank drain against the wall and 180 degrees away from the floor drain. I had no access to the electrical hot water tanks panels to adjust water temp or replace heater elements if I needed to. The electrician they hired came and remounted the switch boxes in violation of code next to and just above the hotwater tank and installed another switchbox to the pump when there was already another identical switch box already in service for the pump so now there are two switch boxes in line for the pump. The electrician also somehow disconnected my lights in the utility room and the hallway outside of the utility room and currently are not working. In addition when he left I had no hot water as he had installed a fuse box to the hot water heater and did not screw in the fuses. I had to trace out the power to find out why I had no hot water. After moving the pump , John tried to get the pump system to prime and had wasted over an hour before realizing that he had plumbed the feed line into the pump the wrong way and the pump would not pressurize the system. I had to point out his mistake in that he did not know how the pump system worked and if he had consulted me before moving the line he would not have done it wrong. During the sunday I was cleaning the floor and recovering it with some help I started to look at the whole project again and realised that they had planned to install the tub in backwards with the pumps and heaters against a concrete block wall which would have provided no access to those items in the event of needed repair. I then saw they had drilled holes in the floor to tie the tub drain into a drain pipe that had no trap because it was the closest drain to where the drain in the tub was located. There was another drain in the floor that was part of the old shower that should have been used as that drain had a trap but was further away and they would have had to do more work to the floor to get to that drain. The electrician had run the power to the tub to the side where the pumps on the tub were going to be had they installed the tub backwards. I talked to Jason about the issues and he said that we would have to meet because there were too many thing being changed. I wasn't changing anything from my original layout. They were executing the work totally wrong and had to keep correcting it. When Jason and his brother John showed up I covered the problems and John said that he never intended to put the tub in backwards. This was an outright lie as the electrical was in the wrong place and the wall that he extended was framed to the floor with no access panel for the tub had it mounted the correct way. In addition John ran the feed line for the pump on the extended wall right across the area the Jacuzzi tubs pumps and heater would occupy thus making it impossible to reach those items or have a removable access panel for the tub. I had given them a deposit of 1000.00 down when they started the job and Johns brother wanted more money that morning. I told them that there would be no more money paid untill all the errors were corrected and was told "That doesn't work for us." Jason was totally silent while his brother and I argued. I never dealt with John for this deal only Jason who seemed like he knew what he was doing but apparently doesn't and his brother John is an arrogant idiot that knows nothing about proper plumbing or the way to deal with customers who know screwed up work when they see it. So he pulled his tools and left the project with holes in the floor, the hot water tank in backwards, pipes in the wrong place and no lights in the utility room or hallway, and the framing done incorrectly. I called my previous contractor who had done several projects for me at the highest standards but was retired due to bladder cancer and he agreed to come out and look at the project. His words were that these guys were a total F-Ups. They had not framed the corners of the wall out properly to accept drywall or access panels in addtion to all the other mistakes. He has agreed to oversee the project to make sure it gets done right with other people doing the work. I will be going to the magistrates office to file against them for the 1000.00 dollars and whatever costs incurred to correct their mistakes. This would make an excellent episode on Holmes on Homes showing bad contractors and the mistakes they made. I was fortunate enough to know screwed up work when I see it and stop it before it got covered up. If John even begins to say that I kept changing things on him and if it was so important for him to do it right the first time he should have been here with his brother when we negotiated the deal and looked at the project so that we were all in agreement to what needed to be done. I'll update this review after the hearing at the magistrates office.

They did a great, neat job. They responded immediately to my inquiry, came quickly to give an estimate, booked the work very quickly, and completed the work in a highly satisfactory way. My house has solid walls (brick lined with clay blocks), so it is a real pain to make holes in the house, but they did a neat and effective job. They were very careful inside the house and cleaned up after the work well. Since they do a lot of kinds of work, I'm looking forward to working with them on more projects in the future.