Alex underbid the projects severely, and we chose to go with him because his bid was the lowest and they had a perfect 5 star review everywhere we looked.
Two stars rather than one because the back door installation went smoothly and looks good.
The guys Alex sent out did work of varying quality. We asked for 2 gutters to be fixed. One of them is fixed and functions properly. The other one, less than a year later, is leaking in the same place as before.
We asked for am old electrical post to be removed and siding replaced to cover up a hole where birds get in to nest. They removed the post, fixed the siding, and left a small hole where birds came back to nest this year again.
We needed our trap door for our crawl space repaired and made safe. During the bidding process, Alex was confident that he could take care of the issue and had a plan. During the project, it became clear that he did not communicate to his guys what the plan was, and they had never done such a thing before. The spent a lot of time shopping for hydraulic hinges that are a specialty item I could have ordered since their boss hadn't thought ahead to provide them.
Our new steel front door became scratched at some point during the work, and there was not really a solution offered. Also, the door jamb does not meet the flooring on the inside. There is a huge bare gap there. Where a hole was drilled to install the doorknob, the door is cracked.
The front door is another area where the project was very poorly managed. The trim that came with the door was a different width than the trim previously around the door. I was given the option of putting old rotten trim back around the door or have them replace all of the siding around the door. I told them I didn't want rotten trim put back on the house, and they went ahead with replacing siding in the small area surrounding the door.
We asked Alex to replace the aluminum corner pieces on our house. The product provided was a different size and texture from what was on the rest of the house. We were told they no longer made the smooth corner pieces. Then somehow they found some smooth corner pieces. They replaced all but one of those, which is really high up on the house, and that one is still missing. I don't know why they didn't replace it.
We stopped asking them to fix things that were not properly done on the job because the bill was already out of control, and we couldn't afford to pay them any more than we already had.
The bid for the work done was $2,527.11.
We ended up paying $4690.22.
That is 196% of the original estimate.
I talked with Alex numerous times about the bill, and how I felt taken advantage of. He said he had gotten really busy and overwhelmed and the project had gotten out of control. He asked me how I wanted to handle things and said they were already losing money on the project because he had decided not to charge us for some things. We paid the whole invoice that he sent over, and I felt terrible and taken advantage of. That was our whole amount of money we had to finish all repair projects, and they did only some of what we had originally asked for since we could not afford to pay double on everything.
I was given change orders to sign after work was done. Change orders are supposed to be signed before work is done. I did not agree to sign them. I am not a contractor, and I do not know what is involved in all of these projects. That is why we hired a company to do the work. My son was 12 months old at the time, and I also was unable to be project manager because of that. I expected Classic Handyman to handle project management, and they did a very poor job of that.
I tried to be patient and I sat on this review for almost a year to make sure I didn't post it while I was still furious, but this really needs to be put out there. I hope to prevent anyone else from being taken advantage of by this company.
Now we will have to pay someone else to come out and fix what I was afraid to ask Classic Handyman to finish.