ALPha Home Builder

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• By Kendall J.

  July 16, 2017

  Home remodel

  Avoid Ming Shyong Wu's ALPha Home Builder Inc. A one star rating is generous. Let me share the experience I had with ALPha. I am a residential cabinet maker by trade with about 12 years in the business, and I work for and/or with residential contractors daily. I mention this to add professional credibility to this review. We hired Mr. Wu as our general contractor because I had neither the time nor energy to manage the construction project on my own house. Mr. Wu’s turnkey price was the lowest, but not by much (yes, usually one should avoid the lowest price), and with my knowledge of construction, I was certain that I could right the ship when and if this budget contractor veered off course. Rather than provide a dissertation entitled "How Wrong I Was”, I will just highlight the worst problems we experienced with Mr. Wu and ALPha Home Builder:
  It seems to us he does not have a good understanding of the construction process including how things are built. In retrospect, there were warning signs. His quote was difficult to decipher and disorganized. We thought we had clarified things, but even with my experience in construction, with the hundreds of details in a major home remodel, there simply are things you forget or don’t have experience with. Ultimately, we had several disputes over what was or wasn’t within his scope of work. He has no actual employees and instead hires a crew of carpenters that are also responsible for the rough in electric and plumbing, and the tile work. (Though he did hire a licensed electrician and plumber to pull permits, we objected over and over about our never seeing either do or oversee actual work). The sequencing of work and material deliveries also confused us. We would receive deliveries of materials months before the actual work was to be done, yet wait for weeks for materials that were needed immediately. This created delays in the project directly attributed to his disorganization. At just over the half way point of our project, Ming got into a dispute with his construction subcontractor which escalated into a threat by the sub to vandalize our property. We reported the threat to the police, changed the locks, and demanded that this sub no longer work at our home. Mr. Wu then took weeks to find replacements to complete the work - painting, siding, tile, electrical, plumbing. These replacements were grossly unsuitable to complete the work based on the minimum requirements under our contract. It was horrifying to see the level of incompetence in the people Mr. Wu hired to complete our project that was already several months behind schedule. So, we fired Mr. Wu, and my wife became the general contractor. With the help of our architect’s contacts, we hired all the trades necessary to complete our home. Ultimately, we payed far more by being involved with APLha Home Builder than we would have by hiring one of its higher priced competitors. Our home remodel took twice as long as was promised (one year rather than six months). ALHpa's disorganization led to arguments and confusion throughout the entire project, and in the end, he was unable to complete the job because of gross incompetence. He then had the nerve to lawyer-up, insisting that because he “materially completed” the work under his contract, he deserved ALL of the money under our fixed price contract. Needless to say, he didn’t get it.
  Based on our experience, and anecdotally what we heard he did to another homeowner in northern Virginia, we strongly recommend looking elsewhere for your project.

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