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Review 6/5/2010
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Summary: Mediocre craftsmanship poor attention to detail, questionable business practices. I would seriously suggest you take to heart other reviews and BBB complaints. We hired Southwest Design & Remodeling (NM license #354748) to do the first half of a larger job because we wanted to see how he would work out. At the time he had one BBB complaint which he explained away convincingly and he seemed very knowledgeable etc.
Details:
1. Part of the job required replacing a portion of very old siding. We asked multiple times prior to starting the job if a source for the old siding was available and were assured that wasn't a problem. Turns out such a source never existed. As of this writing (11 weeks after the fact) portions of our house have no siding ! I have had to arrange to have some manufactured.
2. All of the work Doug Dean and Southwest Design & Remodeling did required constant supervision for quality and workmanship. Rows of lights were installed crooked, Doors hung incorrectly etc.. These are obvious things and if you catch them and complain, to their credit, they would fix them. But why not do it right the first time and it always makes me wonder .. did they do the electrical just as sloppy ? what is behind the walls that I didn't catch ?
3. Despite being told there would always be a crew on-site this job was never given very much of their attention. It was a $10,000 job re-working much of the dining and living area and was slated for 1 month. In the 7th and 9th week of the job the contractor or his employee's never even showed up, no notice, and he couldn't be reached either time. After 9 weeks it was still only 90% done (siding incomplete, roof tiles left open) and we decided to cut our losses and terminate the contract with his approval. The amount of work left incomplete roughly equaled the amount we owed him, and an agreement was reached to stop the job, call it even.
4. The mess... I fully understand construction is a messy business and expected it to be messy. We had to request that the floors (tile and grout) be covered a couple days into the job (dark grout is still stained white by drywall dust even after multiple mopping jobs) and the outside patio (stone pavers) is still stained. Throughout the job we had to ask that left over lunches and lunch debri not be left in the house, that tar paper and trash not be left to blow around the property etc..
5. Doug (owner) has the tendency to tell you what you want to hear.
In all fairness PART of the work Southwest Design & Remodeling (Doug Dean, NM license #354748) did for us ended up being a decent job. But doing things right means doing the whole job right, not just a few parts. Everything required multiple passes, and a continuous review of everything he had done at the end of each day. 9 weeks of that is brutal.
Doug Dean didn't do anything illegal, didn't explicitly break the contract and so a real BBB complaint isn't warranted. But others should heed existing BBB reviews of this company and this review.
I do not do this lightly, I liked the owner, I think he is knowledgeable about what he is doing and is probably capable of much much better work. But I do not think he should be doing custom remodels and I cannot recommend him as a result.
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