Smith Construction and Floor Covering

In april 2013 Trey Smith/ John Smith/Smith Construction and Floor Covering was contacted about putting a handicapped accessible bathroom into a disabled grandmothers home.Trey said they would do it for $3200.00 and could start in 2 weeks and that it would take 2 days to complete.He took the money and never came back to do the job.After several months of saying he would start in 2 weeks or he would be done by mothers day,her birthday in july,labor day,thanksgiving and finally Christmas and he still did not come out.I contacted the better business bureau of south Carolina and see that he has had several complaints against him for doing the same thing to other people then I contacted the south Carolina residential builders commission and was told he doesn't have a contractors license and can not by law be doing contractor work. http://www.counton2.com/story/23466322/orangeburg-man-wanted-after-receiving-payment-for-job-never-finished go to http://www.judicial.state.sc.us/casesearch/ click on orangeburg county then search for john w. smith

John W. Smith III, aka "Trey" Smith of Smith Construction and Floor Covering, started a home garage addition for my wife and me in November of 2011 which included a finished room above the garage. Smith indicated the job would be completed in 4 - 6 weeks, weather permitting. The project agonizingly ran for 6 months before I received a final invoice from Smith on which he documented the job had passed final inspection. Upon checking with the county building inspector, I found my home garage addition had not passed the final inspection as Smith indicated it did on the invoice he left with me. Also, on the same final invoice, Smith indicated the installation of my new composite roof had been performed properly. I had previously challenged Smith that I had reason to believe the roofer he used to install my new shingles had failed to properly apply the required underlayment on my roof sheathing before the shingles were installed. I found that Smith's written comment about the roofing being installed properly did not square with what was found when, subsequent to receiving the invoice, I hired a licensed and bonded contractor, vetted by the South Carolina LLR, to perform destructive testing on my new roof. Where the shingles were removed for inspection there was no underlayment found beneath the new shingles at all. The absence of underlayment voids my new shingle warranty because the shingle manufacturer considers shingles installed without the required underlayment as being improperly installed. One more thing I can expect from Smith's shoddy installation of the new roofing is that the service life of my new architectural shingles in the areas where there is no underlayment will now likely be substantially reduced. Then, I found other surprises that Smith left me after he indicated on his final invoice that my job had passed final inspection. I used a bore scope to non-destructively peer into areas which had been covered over by sheetrock and wood paneling and found that Smith had taken short cuts on my project by improperly installing the insulation there, as well. An even more disappointing discovery is there were locations in the ceiling of the finished room above the garage which had absolutely no insulation installed there at all, and this area is above a conditioned air space! The areas in all my walls and ceilings where the insulation was found contained material which was installed of an inferior R-value. (R-11 found where R-19 and R-30 is required.) A very small amount of correct R-value insulation was found installed in the frog knee walls, but it was installed backwards with the craft moisture barrier side facing the unconditioned airspace. To go about redoing the roof job because of the absence of underlayment and then ripping down custom made pine paneling and finished sheet rock to get insulation correctly installed behind these coverings would be disappointing and expensive tasks, both of which could have been prevented if the job had been performed right the first time. Same thing with my exterior cypress siding as the insulation behind the siding, which is adjacent to a conditioned air space, is of an inferior R-value with no kraft backing paper being found on any of the insulation there at all. Getting the cypress down and reworking the wall such that the correct insulation can be installed there is, again, a disappointing and expensive undertaking. I'm sharing just some of what my wife and I experienced here with Smith Construction and Floor Covering. There were actually many other disappointments which occurred that ranged from general shoddy work practices and performance, to extended disappearances occurring (sometimes for many weeks on end) after Smith received any money advance which caused extended delays and our personal frustrations to mount, to material/ labor coordination and planning being poorly executed, to a simple lack of personal integrity being demonstrated by Smith, who was the general contractor leading this job. The examples that have been shared here will hopefully provide anyone reading this review a sense of what can be expected if Smith Construction and Floor Covering is engaged in doing a home project for you. Based on the thorn of experience my wife and I received, we recommend others to stay away from this construction entity.