Phoenix Painting LLC

They were super nice people, just unprofessional.  They sent in some workers that were unsupervised and starting "patching" my walls.  I'm a building inspector, they were doing a horrific job.  I basically paid them off and asked them to leave.  They were doing stuff I didn't ask them to do and they weren't doing a good job.  They really didn't know what they were doing.  I'm not trying to give them a hard time, I just want others to know about their work.  I'd give them all "C's".

unknown

We hired Phoenix Painting LLC to complete some stain, paint, and carpenter work at our condo. We've used Phoenix before, and recommended him to other family members and friends of family with the conditions that sub-par work should be expected, but you can't beat the price. They used him, and were unanimously unimpressed with the results, even factoring in the price.
A representative set of issues we had with Phoenix are below:
1. Subpar skill level of employees - Many issues stemmed from the way the stain was applied:
A. The can of stain was not shaken before application - This lead to severe variations in color among the steps. Some were orange, others red, and others black.
B. The stain was left to 'pool' in the corners of the steps, causing color variations within the same step
C. Evening out? the color variations - After the color variations in the steps occurred, we needed a way to even out the color. A darker color stain was purchased to take the red and orange out of the discolored steps.
D. Match the new rails to the steps ? the painters didn?t use the same application process when staining the rails, resulting in
noticeable differences in the color of the rails vs steps
E. Spotting on the steps due to a dripping rag
F. Rag marks (outlined) on the steps where the
painter left his rag on wet stain
G. Stain, polyurethane and paint spilled, dripped,
sprayed on brand new flooring
2. Systematic deception - Phoenix's painters systematically deceived us when we were not at the property to watch over them
(removed tape to mark defects, directly lied, applied stain to laminate floor to get approval to move forward)
3. Stain existing handrails - stain was applied directly over top of the polyurethane on existing handrails
4. Bogus change orders - the invoices received from Phoenix after we fired them were inconsistent with the work performed, and bogus change orders were identified. Some examples are:
A. Misc. dishwasher work performed - nothing was done to my knowledge
B. Painting of the baseboards - work wasn't completed. Some were painted, others weren't
C. Kitchen island touch up - this change order was because Phoenix damaged our cabinets. We had to purchase a board to cover up the holes, and they charged us to stain it.
D. Carpenter work ? Phoenix agreed to pay for one day of carpenter work. Also, we were charged for an additional day which
resulted because of rework
5. Unethical collection techniques - Phoenix had his employee call us directly for payment of carpenter services.
6. Unprofessionalism - numerous examples of belittlement, name calling and offensive language have been observed by Steve
Ryan throughout the construction project. After several attempts to settle charges, an email was received by Steven Ryan, stating: "I dont know what makes you an entitled a**hole. You got it coming". Having questions about bogus charges does not make me entitled. 
Keep in mind this is a subset of issues we encountered. This doesn't include other examples related to the significant overrun in costs (for carpenter work), and unreasonable timeline to complete the job without communication of the new estimated completion dates as the schedule was pushed.

Did not complete job. Needed to replace deck footers; opened holes, poured concrete; never filled holes completely -- called them several times to return and fill holes with dirt and replant grass. They said job was done and refused to return. They were paid.

They did everything correctly and they were easy to work with.

The owner was very helpful and friendly at first when the work was done in August 2010.  He came out before the painting started and power cleaned most of the areas to be painted.  I also thought the painters seemed to know what they were doing as they were polite and punctual.   When the job seemed complete I thought the stucco areas that were painted looked fine and payed the bill.  About a year and a half later, in April 2012, my wife came in and asked if I knew that the stucco has two colors on the front of our house.  I asked if she was talking about the white trim.  She said no, the stucco is pinkish on one side of the house and yellowish on the other.  I went outside and looked at the stucco and sure enough the highest part of the stucco and a section on the right side (house is a 2 story with fairly steep roof) was a different color than the stucco color on the main area and left section of the house.  The two colors appeared to be  generally in the same family, but different enough that if I were to put my house on the market a buyer would have a problem with the two colors.  I contacted the owner and he sent out a salesperson in May 2012 to look at the house.  She agreed that the colors were different but provided me with a proposal to repaint the stucco as if it were a new project.  
I contacted the owner by email and he said that he would do nothing to fix the problem and insulted me by implying that I must be lying, as he was sure I would have noticed the problem right after the house was painted.  I told him that either the painters did no paint a section, maybe because it was too high, or if his painters did paint the high and  right side of the house they painted it with a different color than the left side, but the owner did not respond.  As I have not heard from the owner again, I assume that the painters used old paint and ran out of it or tried to mix colors in some way--or just didn't paint the areas that were difficult to reach.  The only paint they left that may have been used on the stucco did not appear to be either color.  Since it had been over a year since the painting was done and the owner of the company was not going to help, I let it go and decided I would just have to have it repainted, but certainly not by this company.  
Then, when I jointed Angie's list I realized I had an opportunity to comment on this project where others would be warned of what happened in dealing with this company.

All the work was done on schedule, professionally, and thoroughly.  We had hired them previously to hang drywall, mud, and paint in the basement.  All services were performed beyond our expectations.  Steve is very patient and listens well.  He and his crew are extremely easy to work with and be comfortable around. If you have any issues at all, Steve responds very quickly, even on a holiday weekend.

Problem with the project started when his subcontractor who did the tile work in upstairs bath and did not put in the toilet's plumbing (I do not know who installed the toilet as this was based on Mr. Ryan's words) properly and the toilet leaked all the way down to the basement. The water damaged the ceiling in my family room, hard wood floor extended to the kitchen area, and ceiling tiles in the basement. Mr. Ryan said the damaged wood floor can be fixed by sanding and staining to get rid of the water damage. After sanding/staining the floor 3 times, the floor looks horrible with splotchy spots and lines from uneven sanding in the wood. His workers have thrown things out from my house while painting the interior that he had to replace and damages done to my house while working on my house. As the cost ran up for renting sanding machine 3 x and stains, Mr. Ryan refused to go through his insurance company to pay for the damages to my hard wood floors. After some attempt at doing plumbing in masterbath, Mr. Ryan was unable to figure out how Kholer faucets are to put together and he went to Craigslist to find plumbers. The plumbers he hired from craigslist then cracked my tub in 3 places and burned it that it will now need to be replaced. I have pleaded with Mr. Ryan saying that a couple of his workers were (Eddy and Alex) not doing a good job and damaging things in my house and requested him to send someone else instead, but Mr. Ryan ignored my plead and continued using the same individuals which resulted in unsatisfactory work. This led me to doubt his claim for having 20 employees working for him. Over the last week of June, he gave one excuse or another about getting my master bath done and demanded that I pay him $5000 progress payment or I'm on my own. Mr. Ryan told me that I will need to purchase a tub as he is strap for cash and is going on a weeklong beach vacation at Ocean City. He came to my house on Monday 6/27 to take out the vanity that he installed with dents and defects to have it exchanged at Home Depot (I paid $2000 for 2 vanities and did not want to accept damaged goods) and when he returned the vanity he asked me to go purchase another one as he only got a 99 dollar refund for the clearance item. I told him I paid him a lot of money for the vanity and can’t pay double for something I already paid. He didn’t get a replacement vanity for my basement vanity/mirror and took all the faucet and plumbing with him. On 6/28 he said he’s coming over to my house at 6pm and I thought he was coming to replace the basement vanity but instead I got message that he’s compiling receipts and demanding for $5000 progress payment. I called him back saying that he doesn’t need to come to talk to me about the receipts as it was getting late and past 7pm. Furthermore, I told him that I can't give him anymore money until my project is done (I owe a little over 6k remaining upon completion) and in addition to the master bath vanity and tile work, he needs to replace my damaged hard wood floor and replace my tub and damaged windows and poor work on my deck (not to mention the vanity he took out from my basement bathroom). In a raised and mean tone of voice, Mr. Ryan then threatened me to put a lien on my house if I don't give him the $5000 when he arrives. I felt threatened and told him don’t come or I’ll call the police after consulting with my neighbor. Mr. Ryan still showed up at my door and demanded $5000. I repeated what I said and told him not to come back or I will call the police. I consulted with fairviewinspections (where I found phoenix painting's #) and they recommended that I look up his license in DPOR. I found out he's a class C contractor who's not allowed to do more than 10k on any given project. I am now left with multiple damages inside and outside of my house that will require a lot of money to repair and replace. The paint job they did was poor and has multiple nail pops and the leaking ceiling drywall that they patched up now has a brown spot with mold growing which I don’t know what to do with it. I have obtained a couple of estimate for the damaged wood floors, redo the family room ceiling with the mold stain and spot, repairs for the poor plumbing work, replacing the tub, vanity, and finishing the master bath will cost well over 13k. This is not counting on the windows that will need to be replaced and repairing the flashings around the window frame due to Mr. Ryan’s workers’ poor craftsmanship, the sidings are damaged. The deck wood replaced/painted by Mr. Ryan also is splitting and not painted completely and will require replacement. I strongly discourage anyone to use this dishonest contractor.

Wonderful.  We were so pleased with the work they did.  They were polite, respectful, efficient and hard working.  I would recommend them to anyone.

The wood and weather conditions weren't ideal, and the stain didn't absorb into the wood uniformly. I didn't have to point it out, though. Steve Ryan performed his after-job inspection before I got home to look at it. Without prompting, he told me the quality wasn't acceptable to him, and went in detail through the problems he had with the finish. He scheduled his team to come back out and spent nearly two additional days re-doing the finish job at no extra cost to me to make sure I was happy with it. I doubt he wound up making much (or any) money on my job, but he was determined to do the job right and leave me as a happy customer. He definitely succeeded in doing that. The deck looks great, and I only paid the original estimate cost, despite the extensive amount of additional work that was put in. I was really impressed with Steve, his team, and the end results. I had previously used Phoenix Painting to do extensive exterior and interior painting. (I don't have the dates and cost info, so I'll just briefly mention it here in this report.) I had extensive wood damage around my house and they wound up replacing a large percentage of the external wood, including one entire porch column. They did fantistic work on the wood repairs and the painting. It has been a year or two since that work, and the house still looks great. I highly recommend them.

I was really pleased with the quality of work they did. They showed up on time, were polite, did a good job and cleaned up after themselves. Overall I was very happy with them and that is the reason why I have used them multiple times.