Cahill Construction

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• By Murray S.

  March 13, 2021

  Kitchen, living room, master bath remodel

  Jim Cahill, formerly operating in the Methow Valley under the name Cahill Construction, now Cahill Custom Builders, provided us the worst construction work we've ever experienced. His ability to manage timeline and budget is horrible, his record keeping is so spotty it felt like he was intentionally obfuscating it - and worst, he walked off the job in the middle of the pandemic leaving us with no kitchen, living room, or master bath, rather than adjust scope to finish within our budget.

  Full details of all this can be obtained from the Consumer Protection Office of the Attorney General, since I promptly filed a complaint against Jim Cahill. Below is a summary.

  Jim Cahill is unable to estimate and manage timelines and budgets. Cahill quoted us an amount, spent months assuring us that he would let us know if it increased, and then, after tearing apart most of our house and finished none of it, presented us with a bill for over 30% more than estimated. There was not a single update along the way, and yet we were assured regularly that he was "the bouncer to our budget". There were conversations about changes which were followed by assurances they fit within the budget and would not significantly change the amount. For example, changing up the kitchen lighting. When meeting with Jim and his electrical subcontractor, we talked about budget and I was assured it would still fit within the price we had discussed.

  Now, to be clear here, I don't blame the electrical contractor for anything. His work did indeed come in close to budget. Cahill, however, failed to mention that the change in lighting would make him feel justified in removing the drywall in the entire ceiling. He moved ahead without providing me that information, nor asking me for approval.

  He also repeatedly delayed the project by insisting on meetings in which we discussed items that had already been decided. Even then, he delayed ordering cabinetry for almost a month after we had confirmed - for the third time - what we wanted the design to be. At various points, he told us there was "no rush" on certain decisions that he now claims delayed the project.

  There were also multiple instances where he made the decision to go beyond scope without approval. For example, there was a portion of drywall near the sink that had water damage. I approved the removal and replacement of that portion, but then returned to see the entire kitchen had been torn apart - not just the damaged parts. Another instance was when we had him replace drywall in a garage bay we wanted to use as an office. He estimated less than a week, and it turned into almost a month. Why? Because his crew tore out the entire wall without approval. They claimed it "would be better", but it is a garage in a barn, and regardless it's not okay to adjust scope from "replace drywall" to "demolish space entirely" without consulting the owner.

  Speaking of the office, we specifically told him not to put flooring in. We wanted to leave bare concrete in the event we decided not to use it as an office down the road. He installed it anyway, and worse, he glued down a floating floor. There have been fumes in that room for a year now, and I will have to do a huge amount of work to mitigate and correct his mistakes.

  Record keeping: When he presented us with this "updated" bill, after no warning of increase, we asked for documentation. His "invoice" included insufficient breakdowns of his charges. It was just his general estimate with some edits - right down to the invoice number. Some line items for portions of the project, but no accounting of materials, markup, or hours worked.

  The "documentation" he provided us was a series of barely legible photos of a slew of invoices. There were many items in which his "proof" that they were related to our job was a small dot written in pen - no job number, no PO. Additionally, the portion of the project we took largest issue with was the least legible - as in there is no way to read what he claims it proves he purchased. And the worst instance - he presented a receipt for an appliance order that, when looked up online, had been canceled. He never notified us that the order had been canceled and he had been refunded. He only told us after I called him out on it. His "documentation" did not include any proof of hours worked.

  Cahill's response to our records request: "very upsetting", blame his marital problems for issues, and have his wife make a spreadsheet.

  Upon review, we approved parts at his, in our opinion, questionable price. His response was to demand we let him bid on completion and "move to other jobs" until we did. So, no kitchen or living room for months, in a pandemic while I worked on it in the evenings and we found other contractors. The contractors who finished the kitchen found multiple significant errors, from electrical to cabinetry.

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