Finally, a contractor that doesn’t suck!
First, some info about the contractor, taken straight from his business card:
Mountjoy’s Remodeling
Carl Mountjoy
Phone: 540-720-9003 [edited 03/31/2008 to add this phone #]
Cell: 540-379-0324 [edited 04/23/2007 to update contact info]
Email: mtjoyremodeling@aol.com
Decks, siding, windows, etc….
Now, the story behind how we found this guy, and why we’re so glad that we did:
For quite some time, now, I’ve been meaning to post about companies that I’ve had good/bad experiences with. I’ve been trying to avoid bitching and moaning too much, though, so I’ve shyed away from posting about companies that have screwed me over (although I do intend to, in due time, but want to do it right when I do).
Anyways, pretty much everyone I know has been screwed over by a contractor doing work on their house, at one point or another. We’ve had our fair share of bad contractors, which made our recent search for a good contractor to repair our flood-damaged basement very difficult. Finally, after about 2 months of trying (half-heartedly, though, because we’re so paranoid that it takes a lot of motivation to actually deal with finding a contractor), Lacey’s parents hooked us up.
They’re friends with a guy, who used to run a contracting company in northern Virginia, but who now lives in southern Virginia, somewhere near them (I think). They’ve known him for a long time, and he has done work for them several times over the years, and they even have him over for dinner from time to time. Apparently, a real good guy, who is trustworthy and does high quality work. Well, he’s got a son, who currently works as a home inspector for Centex Homes (and evidently, a good one), but who has also been working on getting the family contracting business going again on the side.
He came over, gave things a thorough look (both from a home inspector and a contractor’s perspective, I presume), talked to us for a while (and was not pushy or shady in any way), and wrote us up an estimate. He gave us a very reasonable price, and said he could get it done in a week.
Being skeptical, based on past experiences of getting screwed over, I still made him sign a modified version of a 6-page contract addendum that my lawyer wrote for me several years ago. However, based on our meeting wit him, we could see his friendly nature, vast array of relevant knowledge, and attention to detail. Those qualities, plus the fact that he and his father are friends of the family, made it pretty clear that this was an honest guy we were dealing with.
He was able to start the work a day earlier than he originally expected, and finished it within the quoted time frame, despite running into a few surprises (not his fault, it was the house’s fault), which he handled very well, and with very minimal additional cost to us. The work was done very well, and we’re determined to refer some business to him, because we were just so impressed. We’re going to have him do some more work for us in a couple weeks, too.
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September 21st, 2006 at 11:21 am
So……….. think I could get a copy of that 6 page addendum???? Sounds like something I could harvest some useful tidbits out of, for future contracts.
A good clause that I more or less paid $575 for basically came down to: “Contractor has agreed that he has inspected the house already, and that the scope of the work in the contract will be possible to execute without further modification”.
I messed it up, but it was basically to that affect. “You’ve inspected the house; so you can’t claim surprises later”.
And also ANYONE WHO DOESN’T CHECK THEIR CONTRACTORS OUT ON DPOR HAS A DEATHWISH.
Wish I knew what Virginia DPOR was before I got mine, it would have stopped me utterly.
Better Business Bureau is totally fucking useless, enforcement wise. DPOR actually has (small) teeth.
September 21st, 2007 at 7:17 am
[…] a waterfall in the basement!” or something like that), turn the water off, and even get our favorite contractor, Carl Mountjoy, to come over within about an hour! He and another guy took care of cutting out all the wet […]