Berkey Homebuilders

This review is not to discourage anyone from using Berkey as their builder, but to make people aware of our experience with them, and to give awareness before picking them to build. I have all the emails and information to back up the below review.

Back story: we owned an entire 3.1 Acre lot, split 1.1 acres off of that, sold the other two to some great friends, and contracted Berkey to build for us on the 1.1 remaining acres.

At the beginning, last spring through July 2020, it was great working with Berkey. Even with COVID Brit worked great with us to get everything put together. By July we had our last meeting on fixtures, cabinets, and other minor stuff from the house, and we were trucking forward. We had a few hiccups that were at no fault of ours or theirs, but I feel like Brit and Eric worked well with us to keep moving. Once Brit left the company everything started going down hill. I had to work the water line to the new house, and we also worked the LP tank, because we wanted to keep thing moving. The communication from Berkey was horrible. They would not get with us on much of anything, and when we tried to talk to Lori or Kirby they would brush us off. One of the primary situations was:

They needed to get a driveway put it for contractors, and we would try to get an answer from Berkey both by phone and through our realtor on when it would get constructed . They would not respond back, and would brush us off. Their contractors would regularly use our neighbors driveway to come in for work, and the neighbors would call Berkey to have contractors not do this. They would brush them off as well. After a month and a half of great weather last fall, no driveway was installed. Contractors would repetitively use the neighbors driveway, destroy their driveway and yard, and Berkey would do NOTHING!! What great professionalism.

When we got to the drywall and finishing stages, the wife and I thought we were home free. We couldn’t have been more wrong. A General Contractor from my understanding is suppose to manage subcontractors tightly for resolve and progress, and this time Berkey showed they were not a strong General Contractor. After the drywall was finished, Berkey must have found out that the state electrical inspection had not taken place. With no communication to us, I found out from the dry wallers three weeks after they had found out, on a morning that I had stay at my neighbors. Instead of doing what the State inspector had told them, Berkey took only part of the drywall and insulation out, and the state inspection was pushed back farther! Although this is the electricians fault (from what Berkey has told us) I believe you trust but verify when it comes to business, and for a company that has built houses for some time, they should have know that.

Finally we did the walk-through on 22 March 2021. The gentleman that Berkey sent out was GREAT! Best person to work with since Brit had been with the company. The two primary concerns was a retaining wall on the edge of the driveway due to a 6 foot drop and washed out rock, and some backfilling to cover up the septic. Low and behold when confronted about the retaining wall, Lori proceeded to tell my wife “ Yeah a retaining wall is a must, we can send you a quote on that.” ON A 30 foot BY 30 foot PAD 6FEET OFF THE GROUND YOU THINK THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN PART OF THE DESIGN!!!

I would highly recommend going somewhere else to have a custom home built. I was disgusted by their professionalism, communication, timeliness, and their unwillingness to own up to a mistake or mishap-taken by them or their selected contractors.

Please do not waste your time, money, or energy.

We absolutely love our home, the 9 months to get there was the most painful thing I’ve done. I would get deployed to a combat zone again, before going through this headache!!