Blue Mountain Building

We had our existing porch demolished and rebuild, and siding shingles replaced on the west side of the house. We were told that the job would take 3 weeks, and it took almost 11 months. Originally, they were going to use helical piers to function as the foundation, straddled over a large tree root that was raising the porch. They ended up not using the helical piers because the drill ran into river rocks and broke. So, this explained part of the job delay, but certainly not all of it. The contractor said that they did some extra things, like increasing the height of the rails, per code, and they didn't charge extra for that. I do appreciate that. They didn't charge extra for the oak flooring either. However, I found the subs to be mediocre at best, and there seemed to be very little quality control. I am still concerned that the job was only warranted for 1 year, especially given that the concrete foundation for the porch column supports had to be cut and repoured twice, in most places. One of the skirting boards had to be put in 3 times, before it was done correctly. They buried a sprinkler head and it broke. They did fix it, after I asked them to fix it. The shingled siding turned out really well, but they did not replace molding that was knocked down by their carpenters. The wood used to replace the spindles on the porch railing was of very poor quality, e.g., some were warped, and most had many, many knots, making the integrity of the spindles suspect. One spindle just came apart without even touching it after the job was completed. (I took a picture of this, and it can be furnished upon request.) The base of one rail section was not nailed down. To their credit, the subs did come back right away to fix that. But this is just one example of the poor quality control by the contractor and his subs. The masonry workers did some tucking of the brick work for free, but they dribbled mortar in places, including the bricks. They used red oak flooring after I told them that I would not accept the cheap pine that was already cracking before installation. For the most part, the flooring looks good, but there are a few funky looking joints with slight gaps. Some other neighbors have really nice wood floors on their porches that do not have these flaws, so it can be done with proper supervision and attention to detail. Some of the decorative molding on the porch columns have up to 1/4 inch gaps at the corners where the mitered boards meet. The contractor did have them redo some of the funky parts, but none of the funky molding joints. I realize that this was a difficult job, and frankly, none of the other contractors I contacted wanted to do it.