Forrest Trumble General Contractor

I contacted Forrest Trumble for an estimate on remodeling my home. Though Forrest usually works in Orange County he agreed to come to Jasper. Forrest gave me an estimate of about $40,000 for all work planned. The work included several projects outside for $20500 and a kitchen and master bath remodel inside for another $20000. Forrest said the work outside would take about two weeks to complete and then he would be ready to begin work inside. I decided to split the contract into two separate jobs due to personal financing. At the time I explained to Forrest we may or may not immediately go forward with the second part of the project but I definitely wanted to complete all outside work as we discussed. I signed a contract with Forrest on 1/17/2013. Painters arrived at my house first. The painters did a terrible job. They did not cover my windows and sprayed paint on the windows (this was not discovered until recently). They replaced little of the rotten cedar on the house and did not paint a large portion of the house. In addition they did not show up for work the majority of the time. The painters tried to tell Forrest they were finished with the work so they could collect their money. Forrest came to check completion and found the work was not completed. The painters were fired when Forrest found out the work was incomplete. None of this was communicated to me until the new painter showed up. He told me Forrest had fired the other painters and hired him. This person began painting my house. He worked hard ALONE. I was under the impression that I had hired a general contractor with a crew. As stated earlier, work was supposed to be completed in two weeks. My contract stated I would pay 1/3 at the time of signing contract, 1/3 halfway thru project, and 1/3 on completion of project. As stated above I signed the contract on 1/17/2013. I included 1/3 of the cost of the project in a check enclosed with the contract. On February 4, 1013 Forrest came to the house with a crew and began framing the pole barn. He asked for the second check because he needed to "order materials to finish the pole barn. Nothing was completed on the house at this time. Painting was still incomplete, no work was completed inside the garages, the mudroom was not started. I did not want any delays or problems with work so I wrote Forrest the second check making a tragic mistake. Forrest told me he would return the next week to complete the pole barn with his crew. They would also begin work on the mudroom. He would not be able to be on the job full time but planned to stay in Jasper a couple of nights per week so he could "be there to oversee the work." From this point forward a crew never showed back up at my house. The second person hired to paint my house finished almost the whole project ALONE. I could write a novel with complaints so I will summarize instead with the following: 1. Communication: I asked Forrest to come meet with me about my dissatisfaction with the work pace. The arrangements I made were after school (I am a teacher). He showed up at my house at 11:00 knowing I was at school. Several times I tried to talk with Forrest to explain how I wanted the mudroom designed. His answer was always later. I finally managed to get a meeting with Forrest. During this meeting he was very defensive and aggressive. We did seem to resolve our differences, however. The meeting seemed to end on a decent note. He told me the painter, Coy, could speak on his behalf. If I had problems, speak with Coy because he could not send a crew to Jasper. I was very frustrated with the pace of the work and with communication. This became a tremendous problem. When I would request something I was told, "Forrest said no." Forrest was never available to come back to Jasper and address problems. The answer was just no. I finally refused to speak with Forrest because of his confrontational behavior. My husband tried to communicate with him and had problems. My husband and I both work and did not have time for arguing with a contractor. My son took over trying to get the work finished. Forrest hung up on my son and behaved very aggressively with him as well. 2. General Contractor Guidance: I thought by hiring a general contractor I was hiring someone who could direct me in making construction decisions. Some of the things Forrest failed to put in the bid and I overlooked: air conditioning in the mudroom (this is a place we included a shower, washer, dryer, and closet for storage). This was a "finished mudroom/utility room." I wanted it to "look like part of the house. Not a closed in garage." Forrest claimed he did not know I wanted an air conditioner. When we were doing the walk through estimate he told me he would be able to vent from the house into the mudroom. According to him, this wasn't included since I was not doing the kitchen renovation. According to my air conditioning company venting across the kitchen was never a possibility. I wound up with a window unit, not something I wanted for the room. No garage door opener was included in the bid. Forrest knew my plan was to park my trucks in the garage. This should have been included in the bid. There was a window in my kitchen looking into the breezeway. When we talked about kitchen renovations the window was to be closed. Forrest did not include this in the bid for the mudroom and planned to leave a window looking into the mudroom. Definitely not something someone wants to look at from the kitchen table. I paid an extra for this to be closed. I did not mind paying the extra but I do feel this is something that a professional contractor would have pointed out to me. 3. Samples to choose: Forrest told me his foreman would come to my house with "a truckload of tile samples and paint samples for me to choose from that would be in my budget." When it came time to pick paint samples, nothing was planned. There were no samples for me to choose. The painter said to give him an idea of what I wanted and he would go to town and pick up some samples. It was 7:00 at night when I was told this. My "truckload of tile samples" I could choose consisted of five cheap pieces of small tile (I requested the large tile) left on the floor for me to select. I told Coy none of the samples were acceptable. I went to Lowes and picked out tile in Jasper. Coy was supposed to pick up the tile for me and I would pay for it. Forrest said no as usual. He had tile very close to what I wanted. He did not. Several days passed. By the time he returned to Lowes there was not enough tile for the room. Another cheap piece of tile that I did not like was left as a sample for me. The tile was needed the next day. Nothing like last minute and no planning. I was forced to drive to Beaumont to pick tile. My husband had to leave work in Beaumont to follow me home to unload tile at 10:00 at night so we did not slow the project even more. 4. Timeliness of work: This contract for work was signed on January 17, 2013. Work was not completed until April 27, 2013. Most of the work was done by ONE person. This is a far cry from the two week project promised. 5. Listening Skills: I tried several times to explain where I wanted lights placed and even drew a picture. This was ignored. Forrest installed the lights according to how he wanted things done. Switches were placed where the outdoor lights were on the same switch with indoor lights making outdoor lights on during the day. I paid an electrician to come after Forrest left to correct his poor judgment with lighting. It was worth it to pay extra instead of having him back on my property. I tried multiple times to explain a bench I wanted in the mudroom. Again this was all done according to what Forrest and Coy envisioned instead of what I said. 6. Payment to Subcontractor: Forrest refused to pay Coy at the end of the project. Coy had to drive to Orange to pick up his last check. This man worked very hard for his money and did a very good job on this project. His excuse to Coy was that he had not made any money on the project. Coy finally received his money after driving to Orange. 7. Quality of work: I am very pleased with the quality of work from Coy. He worked hard and did nice work. This is no reflection of Forrest and his company. This was the first time Coy had ever worked for Forrest. I resent the fact that he sent a new employee with no supervision to my house to work with no one home. Both Coy and Forrest lied to me and said they knew each other before and that Coy had worked for Forrest in the past. This is a safety issue that worked out for the best fortunately. These are the highlights of my experiences with Forrest Trumble General Contractor. Under no circumstances would I recommend this company or use them again. Should you need additional information, please let me know.

Overall remodel of the bathroom was successful as far as looks are concerned. Mr. Trumble had some excellent ideas and went out of his way to insure I was pleased with the bathroom. During the process of remodeling the bathroom, old termite damage was discovered and repairs also had to be completed in the dining room in the form of removing fireplace and chimney and replacing with french doors. During the process of completing the dining room, they contracted other jobs. They completed installing the doors but never painted the outside of the house which was included in the estimate. There were also several punchlist items that did not get completed in the bathroom. About a week after they left I had problems with the plumbing in my new bathroom. As the water was draining from the tub it actually backed up and came out from under the toilet. I called Mr. Trumble and he came and checked it out and told me to let him know if it happened again. That was towards the end of February. I had no problems in March or April. They still had not finished the outside of the house or the punchlist items but I had several things going on that was keeping me preoccupied so i didn't think much of it - Also, Mr. Trumble had previously done work for me and had always been true to his word so I had no reason to think things had changed. I would also like to mention here that Mr. Trumble had been paid in full for all his work, both completed and remaining to be completed. In May,I started having problems with the bathroom flooding again. I could not stay in the shower long enough to wash my hair or anything other than a quick jump in and out of the shower. At one point, it even backed up under the toilet seal when I flushed the toilet. In an 11 day period this happened 6 times. I contacted Mr. Trumble by text the first time and received no answer, so I called him and left a message. I finally received a text from one of his associates on May 30 saying he would be back in town on Friday (the next day). I asked him to call me re: plumbing issues and punchlist items. He responded that Mr. Trumble would bring plumber with him and asked me to send him a list of the punchlist items. Never heard from anyone - no one showed up at house or called me. I contacted his associate again (again by text because no one will call me) and was told that Mr. Trumble would be in that Thursday night, 6/6 and they would be at my house Friday morning. I still haven't seen anyone and now no one will respond to my inquiries.

Overall experience was positive. Ran into an obstacle during the house painting that was beyond Mr. Trumble's control (love bugs made it next to impossible to paint more than a few hours a day). Mr. Trumble goes out of his way to make sure his customers are satisfied. I have no complaints.