Customer ReviewsforRoyal Construction

So tried to understand about product delays during Covid. Chad T**** was hard to get ahold of and didn’t return calls or texts most of the time. In February 21, 2023, I 1st contacted Chad T**** about our new flooring peeling & tearing between boards. He Finally came out on March 7th. To look. He tried to make a joke of it on March 28, 2023. Tried to call Chad again On May 17, June 6 & finally on June 1, 2023. We never heard from him again. Royal construction is now out of business and no way to collect Anything for the replacement of the flooring. It is now costing us another $6000 to get a new floor. It’s sad when you pay tens of thousands of dollars to remodel your Kitchen and the contractor could give a rats butt about their poor products or customers . They could care less about other people.

We hired Royal Construction to do a kitchen remodel. We signed said contract on August 6, 2020. The entire project start to finish was to be done Sept. 25, 2020 ( 5 ½ weeks) Demo was delayed until August 24th-not a big deal (or so we thought). In that first week, the worker only showed up 2 ½ days that week and even though our Project Manager told us the area between kitchen and living room would be blocked off by a tarp to keep dust confined to the kitchen there was never a tarp put up until we asked a second time- was added finally a week after demo started. After demo and a little framing was done it was time for drywall. Again, we had 4 days of drywall work followed by again no one showing up to the house to work. No call, no text, just no one working. And not only that but they left a mess on my floors that Thursday and thus made me clean it up for the weekend. The initial timeline showed demo & drywall install to take 5 days. By the time the drywall was sort of complete they'd been on the job for 18 days! Finally, cabinets went in on Sept 16th. The cabinets are beautiful (probably the only good thing Royal has going for them is their partnership with the cabinet maker). Unfortunately, one cabinet was made a ½ in to short so we requested that cabinet be remade. The new cabinet arrived on Sept. 22nd. Cabinet trim started to go up but one area the cabinet trim wasn't correct so we requested it be fixed. Fixing a 5 inch piece of trim resulted in having the kitchen completely stall out for 2 weeks. During that time Chad demanded he be paid the remainder of his money. We didn't agree and said we'll pay you half so countertops can be ordered but you will get no more money until cabinets are painted, flooring is installed and electrical work is lined up. He agreed to that. By this time it had been 7 weeks since demo. During week 9 Cabinets were painted only to be determined that 3 doors had to be remade. Countertops were measured, ordered and installed. Next came the floor. They had to level out the floor with leveling concrete. It took 3 times putting in and removing the LVT to get it flat. At one point, Chad told us "it just has to settle and the manufacturer has a variance". Well no variance was met because up until they were finally leveled correctly, the floors had dips and valleys and one of his guys even put a piece of cardboard from the flooring UNDER the floors to try and level it so we wouldn't notice! (Yes I have pictures of that too!!) Next was subway tile backsplash. First the tile shows up but with none of the material to install the tile. The guy sent to install the backsplash asked us if the tile should be spaced out with spacers. After a little research on our part, all backsplash SHOULD be spaced out and all subway tile SHOULD be started at the center point of the wall. Not at a corner. We had to tell the worker that as he'd started in a corner to begin with. EVERYTHING they did had to be done 2-3 times. Nothing could be done correctly the first time. The work on the kitchen didn't finally wrap up until January 2021. But we had asked for things to be done (Under cabinet lights, Microwave vent installed, take off painting from bill) that didn't get done so we asked for an itemized bill showing what items were removed. Chad stated in an email when inquiring for these itemized deductions "I do not nor have to provide you or any of my customers with itemized breakdowns. The final bill is final either pay it or we will take necessary ways to retrieve it." It took working with his wife Amanda to get to the bottom of the bill on the remainder of the money owed. Finally Sept. 3, 2021 she determined she was going to waive the remainder of the bill (About $500) and project called complete. As she stated in her email we learned a lot from this project and made improvements in the areas we did not do well in. A year and 10 days after it all started we finally can say the kitchen remodel is done!

To the Better Business Bureau,
We are writing this letter to inform you about our negative experience with Royal Construction, *****************************************. We chose Royal Construction partly due to their A+ rating by the BBB. We want to share our experience so that other homeowners can avoid the financial and emotional stress that this experience has caused us.

Below are just a few of the facts of the remodel. These points can be substantiated via text messages, pictures, ************* (their preferred app), etc. We do want to point out that we were generally very happy with the RC workers who came to our house. They were friendly, gave updates if they had any information, and always left the area cleaned up. There were, however, obvious competency issues with some workers and management, as outlined below.

We paid for a proposal on 1/26/21 and hired RC on 2/10/21 to complete a master bathroom remodel. It was to be a 4-6 week project and the original target completion date was 4/9/21. Demo started 3/31/21. By 5/9/21 we had paid Royal Construction 95% of the $30,076 bid.

Chad *****, the owner of Royal Construction (RC), is currently the third project manager for this remodel. The first 2 Project Managers with RC either quit or were fired. When we brought concerns to Chad, he always had a sympathetic ear and promised improvements, but no tangible changes were made, either in communication or in rate of progress. Between April and October there were workers at our house an average of 4.4 days per month (range is 7 days in July to 1 day in September).

HEATED FLOOR:
May 17 - Workers laid the heated floor element. Even though they had exact measurements for the floor they ended up 30-55 feet short (my husband and I were given different estimates, but it doesn't really matter. The elements cannot be spliced, so we had to wait for a longer wire to be ordered.)
June 15 - The new wires were in, so workers pulled up the old wires and laid the new wire for the heated floor. The wires later had tile placed over them for the new bathroom floor.
Oct 5 & 6 - workers tore up the new tile floor because the sensor wire was not laid with the element wire upon original installation. Tile was reinstalled, however, there are now flaws in the leveling. We were told an electrician was coming twice, but he has not yet come, so the thermostat has not been installed and we do not know if the heated floor will actually work.

ACCENT TILE:
July 6 - We received a message on ************, "The mosaic is in and we plan on being there 2nd thing tomorrow to continue the tile installation"
July 16 - We received a message on ************, "I just got an email from (tile company). Your mosaic is on back order until 9/14." No explanation was given about the conflicting information.
Aug 3 - I messaged Chad with the info about our new accent tile selection. (We were instructed on 6/9 to use ************ for all communication, especially material selections, so I sent the message to Chad, the project manager, via ************.)
Sept. 1 - We received the message, "I apologize, I didn't read this email as I was to order the mosaic. I knew you had been emailing Name (at the tile store) about the order, she had requested at the end for you to let us both know what you decide. Anyways, I went ahead and ordered it and paid for an overnight." (Editorial comment: Even if Chad thought the tile company was going to order the tile, he should have followed up after 2 weeks to see if it was in as the timeline was 1.5 to 2 weeks. As it was, not only did he not follow up to check on the order, he did not even read the message sent to him for a month.)
Although Chad said he paid for the "overnight", the tile was installed over a month later, on 10/6. As of the writing of this letter on 11/11/21 the accent tile has not been grouted. By the time it was ordered and installed we could have ordered the mosaic tile that we originally wanted.


SHOWER GLASS:
10/15/21 - We got a call from the shower door company that they wanted to come measure that same day. We were out of town and told them we had received no notice they were coming so we had locked up the house. The shower door employee said they had called Chad and left him a message, but that Chad had not called them back.
10/19/21 - The shower door company came to the house to take measurements for the shower glass/door. We were told the shower glass/door would be here in 1-2 weeks.
11/8/21 - We received a "Change Order" from Royal for the shower glass/door.
11/9/21 - We called the shower door company to find out if the glass and all of the components had arrived. We learned that the shower glass/door had not been ordered yet because they require payment-in-full from RC due to issues they have had with them in the past. So even though measurements were taken on 10/19/21, Royal did not send the Change Order needed for payment and forward progress for another 3 weeks.

One typical example of Poor Communication: Sept 18 - I re-sent Chad a message from 8/3 asking why workers have only been here a couple of days over the past several weeks.
Sept 19 - received message from Chad, "I'm being told that nothing can be done until the tile is in. I'll be stopping by today or tomorrow to look for myself." At that time there was still plumbing, electrical, trim and paint work that needed to be done, as well as other tile and grout work. As of 11/11/21 Chad has not been out to the house, and the only work done on the project since Sept. 1 was the 2 days to tear up and (hopefully) fix the mistake with the heated floor wiring.

This is just a sampling of the many frustrations we have faced, including painters coming to paint before towel racks, etc. were removed and mudded, missing cabinet drawers and shelves, and many other examples of incompetence.

We have had multiple conversations with Chad at Royal Construction about keeping us up to date with what is happening. We would rather know the status, even if it's bad news, than to wonder what is going on behind the scenes. With this project currently 7 months behind schedule, no forward progress over the past 2 months, and no information from Royal about the causes of these delays or the schedule for when we can expect work to continue, we have found it necessary to terminate our contract with Royal Construction. We have decided not to sue to get money back as we feel this would be futile. We would be happy to provide you with additional details or documentation if that is needed.
Shelly & Brian ******, Plattsmouth, Nebraska