Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. 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.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/16/2023

  Type:Order Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Contract was signed in Feb-2022 Amount paid is $18,000 Basement finish work was committed to be complete in 180 days Work is not even 25% complete and payment has been taken Business has not considered repsonding to text or calls

• Initial Complaint

  Date:09/01/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  ***************************, who owns top notch home improvement was working on our house for four months (November 2021-Feb 2022). There have been several things that were not done correctly and needed to be fixed. He removed a wall that divided our living and family room. HVAC work was rearranged; however, it was not done correctly. *****'s son (who is hvac certified) didn't do the work properly so we had someone else to come out and take a look at what he could do. He said he could not fix without seeing everything which means we had to open the finished work so he can see what he can fix. All of our cold air returns had been eliminated from upstairs, and the supply runs were not run correctly. All of the duct work had to be redone in the basement. There was not sufficient support for our second floor either. We had a structural expert come out and fix what wasnt completed properly. We are not satisfied with how crooked our soffit is and also, we are not happy with the ceiling work because it doesn't match the existing pattern very well. While all of this need to be fixed and re-building the beams, trim and structural work have cost us around $2,000 so far. We have reached out to ***** four times regarding refund for the work that was not done correctly and he hasn't returned any of our calls, emails or texts.

  Business Response

  Date: 09/22/2022

  [BBB Transcription via Phone]

  He ok'd everything after the work was done. I think the complaint is ridiculous. 

  Customer Answer

  Date: 10/12/2022

  [BBB Transcription via Email]

   I am rejecting this response because:
  
  

  ************************* <********************>
  1:49 PM (14 minutes ago)
  to **
  
  Hello ********, I wanted to follow up on our phone call regarding the complaint with Top Notch Home Improvement.  The *** is ********.
  
  You told me that you spoke with the contractor and he said my claims were ridiculous.
  
  I would like to add some detail to the complaint, as my wife submitted the initial report.
  
  I paid *************************** to remove a wall between my living room and family room, take down kitchen cabinets and install new ones and remove a soffit in my kitchen that was above my old cabinets.  The new cabinets turned out great and were happy with the result.
  
  The problems were with the wall removal, lack of correct structural support, HV** problems, drywall work and a soffit that had to be built above our patio door.  I would like to detail these issues below.
  
  Ill start with the lack of correct structural support.  The first problem I noticed is that the bedroom door above the wall that was removed wouldnt close anymore.  The ceiling had started to sag about 1/2 already and the door was binding badly.  There is also a sizable crack near the same door that occurred from the sagging below.  I did address this with *****, and he said we can trim the door so Itll close.  This is not going to fix the problem of the lack of structural support.  I had to have a structural support specialist come out and fix the problem, which I had to of course pay for.  What he found was that Top Notch Home Improvement had used only 1 LVL to carry the load of my entire second floor.  This is not sufficient to support that much weight.  We had to add a column in the center of the room and also add another beam in the ceiling the add support.  We also found that the column on the outer walls that ***** used to help support the beam were secured to the walls using cabinet screws.  The issue here is that cabinet screws are rated to hold cabinets up, not carry the load of half of a house.  They dont have the shear strength for this application and would eventually fail and break.  Furthermore, those columns were just sitting on the plywood subfloor.  They were not secured to the floor joists below like they should be to carry the weight and load of the house down to the metal beam in the basement.  So essentially, the entire second floor of my house was being help up by cabinet screws and sitting on unsupported plywood.
  
  Next I had many HV** problems after *************** certified son re routed the ducts that serviced my upstairs.  This was necessary due to the wall being removed where the ducts used to run.  One of the problems was that a new duct was pulled from the end of the trunk line in the basement.  I learned that a duct can not come off the end of that trunk line due to needed pressures and airflow that is lost if you have a duct right at the end of that trunk line.  Then we had two places where one duct was split into two ducts using a T.  This is something that is avoided with ductwork because you will not get sufficient flow out of your registers.  This was addressed with ***** son ******* who seemed to look for shortcuts to fix the problem.  They installed a duct fan to boost the airflow but this never resolved the problem and resulted in very cold rooms upstairs due to lack of heat.  This problem was only amplified in the summer because they also eliminated all cold air returns from upstairs.  They did ask before removing them, but I advised them several times that I dont know much about HV** and thats why Im paying them to do the work.  ******* assured me that the furnace has plenty of air to breath and I dont need them.  I learned this is not true .  The returns are essential to exchange hot air in the summer and make the ** work.  I had to pay an HV** expert to undo all of their mistakes and rerun my duct work to make it work properly.  Another modification was necessary to get those cold air returns working from upstairs again.
  
  The drywall work that was done was also subpar.  The pattern does not match my existing ceiling pattern and there are now cracks where all of the seams are where they put in new drywall.  I will have to get a drywalled out here to fix those problems.
  
  The soffit that was made to cover mechanicals above my patio door is grossly out of square.  Within one fool, the soffit drops down about 1.  It looks terrible and unprofessional.  This was also addressed and photos were sent.  We were told the problem could not be fixed.
  
  I got along with ***** very well while he was working here.  He did stop showing up at the end of my project and left it in his other son, ***** hands.  I like **** a lot too, but felt he was still learning and would have benefited from his father being here to oversee things.  When I would reach out to ***** at the end of the project, he would not answer his phone or return my calls.  He would pass the message on to his son, but I believe things could have been handled better if ***** would have taken a part in concluding the project.  I believe he wanted to move on to other jobs and wrap mine up, which is fine, but there are many issues with the work that still had to be addressed.
  
  My wife ******** also reached out to ***** twice via email detailing these issues and asking him to meet up with us to try to resolve the problems but he never responded to her.  
  
  Please let me know if you have any other questions or if anything further is needed from me.
  
  Thank You
  *************************
  ************