Multy Builders

Bill Sinks and his team were so great to work with from start to finish! They were professional and thorough . Bill gave me an estimate and stuck to it. I am so relieved to have this taken care of! I would highly recommend Multy Builders for all of your building / renovation needs!

We found Multy Builders on Angie’s list and did our due diligence in making sure that it was a reputable business. We did find a few iffy reviews, but we had assumed that you just can’t make everyone happy and that there just might be some outliers. We met with Bill and he assured us they did our type of project (jacking up a portion the house and putting a full foundation under it) all the time. He told us his crew would come and get it done in three weeks. We were ecstatic to get the project rolling. Little did we know that his “crew” meant one guy and that the project loomed for FOUR MONTHS. What ultimately caused our frustration was a lack of communication from Bill, not only to his worker but to us. A few examples to name a few… We mentioned adding beams to make it all open instead of having support columns. We asked about costs and said that it depends on if it’s in our budget whether we decide to do it or not. We were never told what the additional costs were, and it was just done anyways. We told him where we wanted our egress window, and it was put somewhere else. There was one point that the worker didn’t show up for a week, which I finally called Bill to find out that a machine they needed was out of order and they were waiting for a part to come. It would have been nice to communicate these things instead of making the customer sit there and wonder what is going on. As for why it took four months instead or three, we are to blame for only a small portion. After seeing how wet the ground was, we added a few extra precautions, however a majority of the blame was that Bill had an unreliable worker and his other workers were tied up in a larger project. He ended up firing this worker after he called out numerous times and we questioned his quality of work. Our project stood at a standstill as Bill did not have the manpower to send anyone. After telling him our frustrations he sent someone who normally works in the office as a project manager. He did his best to help, but again he only knew bits and pieces about the project and basically told me we needed to talk to Bill and he was only there to level the yard and take care of the dirt piles etc. Quality leaves something to be desired. It just seems like things were rushed and not done to a high standard. Some things were not done to code, ie they put the gas line through the concrete and not the sill box. Had they not hit our gas line and the gas company coming to fix it, we would not have known. To be clear, this was never fixed after requesting it to be several times and we finally just gave up. My father who is a plumbing and heating contractor said he will fix it in the spring. They also did the same thing to the water line and we requested that they fix that as well. Drainage was cracked and broken in several areas, which my father had to fix for us. There were also several pieces that were solid piping with no holes. It looks like they had run out of drainage piping and instead of getting some more, they threw solid septic piping to get it done. Bill and I had different opinions on what we considered finished and restored to the way it was means. Our driveway was turned into a mud bog. Instead of putting our crushed driveway rock in a pile before digging, they didn’t even try to salvage anything. Bill said he would take care of our driveway as it was completely destroyed…his idea of that is doing it and then charging us for it. We had thought it was included in the quote as part of putting the house back together as he kept saying he would take care of it. There was no communication that there was an additional cost. We were then surprised to see that on the final bill. The most annoying part was that the rock was not the color we wanted but thought beggars couldn’t be choosers when we thought it was included in the quote. Parts of our siding and our front door are covered in cement and it was left that way. I had told him that we needed stairs to our mudroom back but that he didn’t need to put our portico back together as we are going to build something in the Spring. I did tell him we didn’t need anything fancy..I had meant a small two step stair or something along the lines of that. What ended up happening was propping old, rotten, and warped back deck stairs that we were not going to put back up against our house. They are dangerous to use, and we are afraid that someone is going to fall on them. We requested that we have a price reduction in the remaining bill and gave him the reasons above.. and more for the request. Bill seemed insulted and said that certain things actually cost him more than what he charged us and that he was taking a hit. Not really our problem to be honest with you. He gave us the quote and he chose to reduce certain costs so that he would win the job. He even argued that he threw in the pruning of our tree (which to be clear we did not ask him to do) as one of the justifications as to why he was not reducing costs. He ended up knocking off about $1500 but we wanted more. He refused to budge. He was rude to my husband and treated him like a child when he was trying to express his frustration with the whole project. At that point my husband checked out and did all he could do to not just throw him out of our house. Bottom line, we will not be using Multy Builders again nor will I be recommending him to anyone. Save yourself the aggravation. More than likely he will comment in some rude fashion as I saw him do to another reviewer, but do not be fooled. I have no doubt that it is a legitimized review after having dealt with similar aggravations.

They did an excellent job.

I'm very satisfied. Being a small job, this had to be worked in between large jobs, and so it took a while to get scheduled, but once started, the work was done quickly and with high quality.

I left a message for the contractor and did not get a call back.

Bill said it would take 4-6 weeks, they were there for over 13 weeks (additional work early on took 5 days). In late July, I asked that it be wrapped up by August 20 (would have been day 49). They left mid-September (day 66). Bill assured me that once they started, they'd be there every day. They weren't. I asked for him to just call me to let me know if they needed to be on another job for a day. And asked. And asked. And asked. One week they didn't show up at all; I finally received a response voice mail from Bill late in the week. Bill was rarely at the site after the first week or so, yet from day one asked what else I wanted them to be contracted to do. He apparently assumed his head worker would act as contractor (which he didn't want to do and I hadn't agreed to.), His head worker and novice son were very nice and helpful. As were the other people who showed up now and then to assist. The cement work is decent, although the floor is cracking in places. I was assured holes and cracks between the foundation and house would be filled. Some were, many weren't. The stone drip zone around the house is irregular in depth and width. The re-installed window well is about 5" higher on one end than the other. The front porch steps are irregular in slope: one at about a 35 degree angle on one end, which makes them difficult to navigate in icy weather. There were two windows in the cellar when they started. Although instructions were provided to Bill about where to install the one they had to remove, it wasn't installed. The site was left a mess often. Early on I told them I didn't mind the construction debris but didn't want to clean up other items before or while they were blown about or attracting critters. I am still finding stirrer/straws. A worker was fired while working on my house for for taking a utensil of mine -- fired not for theft but for not admitting to it. This was the same worker that, although Bill admitted he knew his truck was having issues, asked him to drive it back to the shop, while pulling a trailer. The non-responsive truck steered them off the road (fortunately no one was hurt). Since Multy Builders left, other contractors have come through and all have the same comment: the cement work is decent, but everything else was left incomplete or seemed to be rushed. Metal supports are still supporting the house when they were supposed to be replaced by wood pillars. One support beam is twisted while another runs about 3/4 of the distance. I severed the relationship with Multy Builders when I had had enough and realized that little of my punch down list would be attended to. I asked for a final invoice before talking agreeing to possible other work, and asked, and asked. Bill wanted to meet and discuss it. I didn't have time to do so -- and admittedly no desire to do so at this point. Eventually, I was e-mailed the final invoice, I was astonished. I was billed for things that weren't done such as extending the front porch ($1,600) and double-charged for different amounts on the same work ($150 vs $200). I was charged double than quoted ($800) for the stairs, claiming they had been built three times (they were built once). The original quote covered removing a chimney from the middle of the kitchen, one would assume this covered NOT leaving a hole in the roof, but one would be wrong. Upon final payment, I asked the yard be cleaned up. Bill let me know they were done: full trash bins and debris left around, including things obviously shoved under the porch, were left behind. He did, eventually, send someone to pick much of it up.

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It was a very, very bad experience. The cost was supposed to be $280,000; it is going to end up costing $450,000 because of errors in the construction. We met at different places to discuss building the house. I gave him drawings to build the house. They were not complete drawings but he said they were more than adequate to build the home. He basically used the information and said that he had enough information to build the home. A plumber contacted the architect who in turned called me to tell me that the builder had used a different plumber and that he was called in because things were not working. The new plumber called the architect because he found there were many problems with the home and he had been a general contractor. I talked to the general contractor and he denied that there were issues. I contacted a home inspection company and was referred to a structural engineer. The structural engineer and the architect both gave assessments on the project and found many problems including the structure itself. The framing wasn't properly done and there were gaps. The weight loads weren't calculated correctly so the beams had to be adjusted and the posts had to be moved. They had to reinforce the subfloors because the builder had put holes in the subfloor for radiant heat which he didn't do correctly. The plumbing all had to be taken out and completely reinstalled because he did the plumbing himself which isn't allowed according to Vermont state law. He put drywall on top of the insulation and the insulation wasn't done properly. There was mold before the insulation so the drywall and insulation had to be removed to do mold remediation. They had to re-excavate the entire basement and put in drains because he didn't do it correctly and it caused the house to become all wet. He didn't put in retaining walls. He took money for the driveway but he didn't make a driveway; it was basically a dirt path.

We were not only pleased with the work but with contractor and workers as well. Contractor was the only one of three we contacted for estimates to return our call in a timely manner. He helped us think through a couple of options and we then settled on the 4' crawl space as the one we could afford. His estimate was thorough and a payment schedule was agreed upon by both parties prior to the work. The work was scheduled and performed according to agreed upon time table. Contractor and workers were knowledgable, helpful and respectful. The project was completed with minimal disruption to our daily routine. The estimate from Multy Builders was the only one we got so we are not certain how it would have compared to others. Multy Builders was recommended to us by another contractor we used for a small job and they were the only one to respond to our intiial phone call in a timely manner so we went with them. We have had no reason to doubt our decision. The work is quality. We know this because we have lived with it for the past 8 years and have never had an occassion to regret our choice of contractor. Cost wise, we feel the outcome was well worth what we paid. We would recommend Multy Builders without reservation. As a matter of fact, we had them return to do the same work under a smaller portion of the house not covered in this project 3 years later.

Bathroom came out nice and I gained a much needed linen closet. They were able to work within our limits, making necessary modifications. We were very happy with the results. We also had them do some odd jobs as part of completing a larger project.

They are very professional, neat, clean and they are really good with our tenets. They are a small business but they are very consciences and we have had really good luck with them.

I was very impressed with Bill and his team. They were professional, timely, communicative, friendly and did excellent work for exactly the price that was quoted. I look forward to using them again in the future.

They jacked up the barn, tore out all the old stone walls and buckled concrete flooring. Poured a new concrete footing and wall with a drainage system to divert an underground spring. Installed new post and beam system. Rebuilt stone retaining wall with reclaimed original wall. Poured new stone floor in barn and car port. Repaired and repointed existing stone walls. Regraded entire site. Spread top soil and planted grass. The crew worked their butts off in some pretty nasty heat and muck and never complained. Very respectful of the property and eager to help.