My exceptionally negative experience with Stonecraft Builders compels me to warn everyone to avoid this company; they made so many mistakes and gradually became so unprofessional that I got rid of them after four months into the six-month projected construction period and hired others to complete their contract. I signed contract January 2018 with Stonecraft Builders for $118,500 to add 820 square feet of living space to 2nd floor of my home. The living space included a master bedroom, master bathroom, kitchen, laundry room and office. After more than 28 years working full time as a commissioned officer in the army, I retired in 2017 and decided to treat my 75-year-old mothe and 83-year-old stepdad with free living space so added the addition to my 2nd floor so that mom and stepdad could occupy the master bedroom, master bathroom, kitchen and laundry room on the 1st floor.
Our neighborhood is currently priced at $91 per square foot but I agreed to the enormous $145 per square foot Stonecraft charged because I wanted and expected perfection and exceptional work since my parents and I planned to occupy my home indefinitely. However, Stonecraft Builders blatant mistakes became the norm and eventually were unbearable so I simply was forced to get rid of them by paying them off and hiring others to complete their contract. Below are a few of the many mistakes and I'll leave it up to you to decide whether this is what you want.
During one of my meetings with their operations officer, he told me that they mistakenly cut the space for the master bathroom jet tub larger than planned and he recommended I purchase a larger jet tub from a company that they use so that I get their discount. When I went to that company to choose the tub, there was only one tub available that fit the dimensions of the space they supposedly cut by mistake. He also said they mistakenly added more cupboard to my kitchen. What he did not tell me at that time was that they were later going to charge me thousands of extra dollars for the extra cupboard space in the new kitchen and the larger tub in the new bathroom. I was not given the option to refuse or adjust their mistakes and was charged. I did not care for a larger tub nor did I want or care for more kitchen cupboard space.
Before and during construction, I showed their operations officer countless times the electric washer and dryer downstairs that would be moved upstairs into the new laundry room. He also toured with me the downstairs kitchen and laundry romm that had 100% electric appliances. I followed up later with emails of pictures of the electric appliances for the new addition upstairs. However, they build the new laundry room for a gas dryer and the new kitchen for a gas stove. When I told them about this mistake, they sent someone over to install an electric outlet for the dryer but I hired others to install an electric outlet for the stove. I now have two additional gas lines / pipes in my home that they added for a stove and dryer; I do not need nor will I ever use those gas lines.
I went on vacation overseas mid-June and when I returned and opened my front door, I realized that I did not have access to half of downstairs because Stonecraft added a wall to middle section of downstairs. I immediately told them that this was not correct and provided them with the diagrams and contract that they created to show them that this was a significant error; they did not fix this error until more than two weeks later.
Stonecraft had to remove portions of existing walls in my home to install pipes and wires for the new addition; when they sealed the openings, none of the paint they selected matched the existing paint and they only painted portions of the wall that they removed. In some cases, they painted portions of my white wall with beige paint and portions of my beige wall with white paint. There seemed to be no attempt to match the paint and my home resembled a polka dot painting. At some point, we simply got tired of asking them to send their painter back to redo so we hired someone to match and finish painting the walls they opened and later closed.
Even though we signed contract January 2018, construction began mid-Apri; 2018. Stonecraft Builders contractors removed half of my roof to make space for the walls and new roof for the new addition. This requred that they reroute and adjust my AC and the ducts, dampers, and vents that occupied that space. My AC stopped working on the day they began the adjustments and we could not get an answer from them for more than four months despite countless emails, phone calls, and face-to-face attempts. Finally, we hired another company Septermber 2018 to simply provide feedbak and learned from the other company that Stonecraft's adjustments were the proximate cause of the failure. On the morning the other company was locked to fix the problem, Stonecraft operations officer and secretary responded and provided some feedback. By then, we had zero confidence in them so we allowed the other company to fix. We asked Stonecraft why we did not get an answer in April, May, June, July or August 2018 but instead got an answer from them in September on the same day and an hour before the other company we hired to fix arrived; Stonecraft did not answer whey it took them so long to provide us with an answer. I, my family and my parents occupied my home during most of this period where temperatures exceeded 90 degrees on most days.
Stonecraft added a new AC-heater unit to the new addition. When they were "done", they asked me to check the unit. When I checked for heat, there was no hot air when heater option was selected. At this point, they had already made so many mistakes that I was not surprised when I learned that the problem was them forgetting to add / connect the gas line to the unit. Even worse, when I told them gas line was not connected and thus installation was not complete, their reply was that their AC guy told them that it was connected. We took / sent pictures and waited through another countless number of emails and phone calls before they sent someone to connect the gas line to the heater. We tried to get another company to connect this initial line because we did not want anyone from Stonecraft in our home any longer...however, the other company said Stonecraft had to connect the gas to the new unit because they were the plumbing contractor that issued the certificate of occupancy and that they had to legally complete the initial installation for the gas connection to the new unit.
There is so much more I could add but will stop now and simply let you decide whether this is the experience you want for Stonecraft's titanic charges. EVen though I could fight more to recover some of the extra $12,000 I paid for their mistakes, I have considered this a life lesson and simply sharing this with you so that you are armed with this warning. Their operations officer and secretary seemed nice and knowledgeable at first but I realized over time that this was only a facade. It was too late when I realized the rip-off and warn you to look elsewhere.
Stonecraft Builders Reviews
My exceptionally negative experience with Stonecraft Builders compels me to warn everyone to avoid this company; they made so many mistakes and gradually became so unprofessional that I got rid of them after four months into the six-month projected construction period and hired others to complete their contract. I signed contract January 2018 with Stonecraft Builders for $118,500 to add 820 square feet of living space to 2nd floor of my home. The living space included a master bedroom, master bathroom, kitchen, laundry room and office. After more than 28 years working full time as a commissioned officer in the army, I retired in 2017 and decided to treat my 75-year-old mothe and 83-year-old stepdad with free living space so added the addition to my 2nd floor so that mom and stepdad could occupy the master bedroom, master bathroom, kitchen and laundry room on the 1st floor.
Our neighborhood is currently priced at $91 per square foot but I agreed to the enormous $145 per square foot Stonecraft charged because I wanted and expected perfection and exceptional work since my parents and I planned to occupy my home indefinitely. However, Stonecraft Builders blatant mistakes became the norm and eventually were unbearable so I simply was forced to get rid of them by paying them off and hiring others to complete their contract. Below are a few of the many mistakes and I'll leave it up to you to decide whether this is what you want.
During one of my meetings with their operations officer, he told me that they mistakenly cut the space for the master bathroom jet tub larger than planned and he recommended I purchase a larger jet tub from a company that they use so that I get their discount. When I went to that company to choose the tub, there was only one tub available that fit the dimensions of the space they supposedly cut by mistake. He also said they mistakenly added more cupboard to my kitchen. What he did not tell me at that time was that they were later going to charge me thousands of extra dollars for the extra cupboard space in the new kitchen and the larger tub in the new bathroom. I was not given the option to refuse or adjust their mistakes and was charged. I did not care for a larger tub nor did I want or care for more kitchen cupboard space.
Before and during construction, I showed their operations officer countless times the electric washer and dryer downstairs that would be moved upstairs into the new laundry room. He also toured with me the downstairs kitchen and laundry romm that had 100% electric appliances. I followed up later with emails of pictures of the electric appliances for the new addition upstairs. However, they build the new laundry room for a gas dryer and the new kitchen for a gas stove. When I told them about this mistake, they sent someone over to install an electric outlet for the dryer but I hired others to install an electric outlet for the stove. I now have two additional gas lines / pipes in my home that they added for a stove and dryer; I do not need nor will I ever use those gas lines.
I went on vacation overseas mid-June and when I returned and opened my front door, I realized that I did not have access to half of downstairs because Stonecraft added a wall to middle section of downstairs. I immediately told them that this was not correct and provided them with the diagrams and contract that they created to show them that this was a significant error; they did not fix this error until more than two weeks later.
Stonecraft had to remove portions of existing walls in my home to install pipes and wires for the new addition; when they sealed the openings, none of the paint they selected matched the existing paint and they only painted portions of the wall that they removed. In some cases, they painted portions of my white wall with beige paint and portions of my beige wall with white paint. There seemed to be no attempt to match the paint and my home resembled a polka dot painting. At some point, we simply got tired of asking them to send their painter back to redo so we hired someone to match and finish painting the walls they opened and later closed.
Even though we signed contract January 2018, construction began mid-Apri; 2018. Stonecraft Builders contractors removed half of my roof to make space for the walls and new roof for the new addition. This requred that they reroute and adjust my AC and the ducts, dampers, and vents that occupied that space. My AC stopped working on the day they began the adjustments and we could not get an answer from them for more than four months despite countless emails, phone calls, and face-to-face attempts. Finally, we hired another company Septermber 2018 to simply provide feedbak and learned from the other company that Stonecraft's adjustments were the proximate cause of the failure. On the morning the other company was locked to fix the problem, Stonecraft operations officer and secretary responded and provided some feedback. By then, we had zero confidence in them so we allowed the other company to fix. We asked Stonecraft why we did not get an answer in April, May, June, July or August 2018 but instead got an answer from them in September on the same day and an hour before the other company we hired to fix arrived; Stonecraft did not answer whey it took them so long to provide us with an answer. I, my family and my parents occupied my home during most of this period where temperatures exceeded 90 degrees on most days.
Stonecraft added a new AC-heater unit to the new addition. When they were "done", they asked me to check the unit. When I checked for heat, there was no hot air when heater option was selected. At this point, they had already made so many mistakes that I was not surprised when I learned that the problem was them forgetting to add / connect the gas line to the unit. Even worse, when I told them gas line was not connected and thus installation was not complete, their reply was that their AC guy told them that it was connected. We took / sent pictures and waited through another countless number of emails and phone calls before they sent someone to connect the gas line to the heater. We tried to get another company to connect this initial line because we did not want anyone from Stonecraft in our home any longer...however, the other company said Stonecraft had to connect the gas to the new unit because they were the plumbing contractor that issued the certificate of occupancy and that they had to legally complete the initial installation for the gas connection to the new unit.
There is so much more I could add but will stop now and simply let you decide whether this is the experience you want for Stonecraft's titanic charges. EVen though I could fight more to recover some of the extra $12,000 I paid for their mistakes, I have considered this a life lesson and simply sharing this with you so that you are armed with this warning. Their operations officer and secretary seemed nice and knowledgeable at first but I realized over time that this was only a facade. It was too late when I realized the rip-off and warn you to look elsewhere.