Caldbeck Construction

The painful year of construction gone awry started with the recommendations of a neighbor who appeared to have a successful project with Caldbeck. The success could not be replicated, however, despite interviews, planning, and extreme efforts on our part. Tom means well but simply lacks the necessary skills and attention to detail to act as a general contractor. Work was extremely slow because there is no crew and absolutely no materials or construction progress plan (for example, order the doors before it's time to install them). Tom works only a few hours a day, about four days a week. Subcontractors quit and had to be replaced at least once (electrical, pumbling, HVAC). That was a clue, especially when it came to light that some work was done without the required city permits or had failed city inspections. One subcontractor walked away from open permits, and no others would step in to finish the job. The only sub that didn't quit poured the concrete without ever putting a level on it. Neither did Tom, who was supposed to be acting as general contractor with the knowledge and management skills to supervise the work of others. One problem like that led to another one, all of which cost substantial sums to remedy. As another example, we were stuck with a $3,000 HVAC system that could not be returned and could not be installed (unless we wanted to risk failing another city inspection). Even framing and painting were problems. For example, one installed door simply would not lock for more than one day in a row until the new contractor discovered that the framing beneath it was incomplete. Painted doors were installed, but the top and bottom edges had not been painted. The constant delay and string of problems led to family stress and the eventual decision to cut our losses and hire another contractor to finish the job. We couldn't afford to hire that company to fix all the problems caused by Caldbeck, and we know that certain areas of framing will probably need fixing in another decade. If you ask Tom, he will tell you that we were unreasonable, but it has now come to our attention that Caldbeck is still doing work in our neighborhood without required city permits.