ComplaintsforPaul Davis Restoration of the Triad-East

• Initial Complaint

  11/20/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We hired Paul Davis in sepetember for a kitchen restoration from a water leak that damaged the kitchen. We was told that it would not be a problem and that it was usually a 3 or 4 day job and they would be done. we met with one guy who we was told was going to do the project and picked out flooring and then was contacted by paul davis and told we would have a different contractor come out and pick flooring with him and go over everything again. we met with him and he didnt have the flooring so we had to wait until he came back to pick out flooring. a day or so passes and he drops off samples for us to look at and pick and came back about a week later to go over everything. Once he started working he only worked an 2 or 3 hours and left. i had reached out to the project manager who just called the contractor and told him to get in touch with me about the issue. i only spoke to the project manager twice in the month they had my job and i had tried reaching out multiple times. We never seen the paperwork showing us exctly what was to be done it was always the contractor was asking the project manager. We recieved the estimate from our insurance from what paul davis had quoted and there was a charge of like $3,600 for cabinets and $1400 for countertops, I know for a fact they came from home depot and lowes and was no where near that cost. i have tried to find out if we have money left over and no one will return any calls, texts, or emails. There have been several places in the estimate where the measurements were wrong and the price was higher than it should be. Paul Davis had got another company to come in and finish what they started and i do have my kitchen back but after the run around from paul davis and their contractor for 4 weeks.

  

  Business response

  11/29/2023

  Dear Better Business Bureau Staff, 
  
  At Paul Davis our vision is "To provide extraordinary care while serving people in their time of need." We take this very seriously as we know that the people we are serving are working through property losses that are very disruptive to their normal lives. 
  
  The original loss occurred on 21 August and was addressed by a plumbing and water mitigation company. We received a referral for this job on 11 September and inspected the home 2 days later. Our initial inspection entailed detailed sketches, photos and scope notes sufficient to support a very detailed reconstruction estimate. Our initial estimate was sent to the insurance carrier on 15 September, only 1 day after having inspected this job, which is an exceptional turnaround time.  
  
  We continued to call the insurance adjuster for updates and on 19 September we were advised that a new adjuster was being assigned to this claim. We sent our estimate again to the new adjuster and on 5 October we were advised that our estimate was approved. 
  
  Our Project Manager called the homeowner and left a message on 9 October and followed up by text. We have time stamped job notes in our Operating System to support this. We did not get a reply. On 16 October, we called again and left another message. The homeowner, Ms ****** *****, responded and we scheduled the job to start on 23 October, which is one week after we received the homeowner's acknowledgment to proceed.  The homeowner of record on the tax records is Ms ****** *****. The complaint was filed by ***** *******, who we understand is the husband of Ms *****. 
  
  The homeowner would not allow us to put a lockbox on the door (which is our preferred and standard practice) so that our trades could access the property without needless delays. We were not permitted to place a lockbox and that caused several delays. We have text messages from trades that waited outside the home for more than 2 hours after arriving at an agreed appointment time. 
  
  Unfortunately, we also had a delay on this job that was due to a change in cabinetry. We installed a corner cabinet that did not have a blind corner, so we had to remove and then re-install a new cabinet. We also had a subcontractor initially on this job that did not keep a few of his appointment time commitments so we replaced him with another trade to complete the work. That happens at times, but the important thing is that we corrected it. 
  
  We started our work on 23 October, but at that point in time the insurance carrier still had not agreed to pay us our General Contractor Overhead and Profit. As a rule, we would not start work without O&P because technically in that scenario we are not being hired as a GC on the job, meaning we would not be paid. We continued to work with the carrier on getting our O&P added to the job because clearly this was a complex job requiring a General Contractor. Our O&P was eventually granted by the insurance carrier on 19 November and the job was completed one day later on 20 November. 
  
  Mr ******* reached out about a week prior to completion expressing his frustration. The job had been going on for a long time but we had only been on this job starting on 23 October. As owner of Paul Davis Restoration of the Triad-East, I spoke with Mr ******* and advised him that were taking additional steps to complete the job, which we did.  That included replacing a sub-contractor we had hired for this job with another sub-contractor. We did everything we said we would do, and we completed the work, but Mr ******* filed his complaint anyhow. 
  
  Mr ******* also brought to our attention a few discrepancies in quantities of materials. The original estimate included replacement of all of the cabinets, but the homeowner made a few changes that eliminated about 6 linear feet of base cabinets. We also had an error in the countertop area. Counter tops are typically estimated in square feet but this specific type of counter, Flat laid plastic, is estimated in linear feet. That was an easy to make estimating error made by an outside 3rd party estimator that wrote the original estimate. The important point is that when this was brought to our attention, we corrected it and had sent a revised estimate to the homeowner even before this complaint was filed. We subsequently further revised our estimate to align on the amount of countertop actually installed. The result was a reduction in our estimate of $2,732.94. Note that we did additional drywall repair work that was not included in the estimate and which we did not charge the homeowner for. Please note that at the time of this writing, we have only been paid the deductible of $500.00 and the homeowner has a balance owing of $17,486.15. 
  
  In summary, we worked on the homeowner's behalf throughout this entire job. Normally, we would not have started this job until after we were granted our GC O&P, which occurred only last week. In this case, we started early on 23 October and actually completed work on 20 November, the same day this complaint was filed. This is a job that admittedly should have completed faster but we had a complication with cabinetry and a number of other delays, some attributable to lack of access to the property and some attributable to our sub-contractor. We did start early even before establishing our GC O&P and we did take steps that cost us additional money to expedite completion of the work. The homeowner signed our completion certificate on 20 November and was very happy and complementary of the work performed as well as our workmanship. We also did extra unbilled work that was not paid for in this claim; namely that entailed drywall patches/repairs cause by dog damage, replacement of door trim due to dog damage, and heavy cleaning on all repaired floors due to excessive dog hair. The homeowners have a balance owing and the homeowner has only paid us their $500 deductible, while we wait for the mortgage company to release the funds owed to us. 
  
  I'd be more than happy to get on a phone call to explain the situation further or to address any questions. 

  Sincerely,

  Mark G*******, Owner

  Paul Davis Restoration of the Triad-East

  
  
  

  
  

  Customer response

  11/29/2023

   I am rejecting this response because:
  paul davis is accusing us of not allowing them to put a lockbox on the house is 100% false. they asked and then seen my dogs who are not able to be left outside and was told they didnt want to have any issues with them so that if i could have someone there to watch them that would work. My sister was there every day monday thru friday between 8 and 9 daily only one day was she late and there was days no one showed so for paul davis to say the delays were due to access are completely false. Also the delay for cabinetry is false as well as i drew the original contractor a sketch of my kitchen of exactly what i had and where everything went and he still shows up with 5 cabinets and i only needed 3. the delay wasnt on my end i tried to help any way i could by providing the information as to what we had as well as having someone there at the times we was told they would start. 
  
  

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩