Doremus Home Improvements

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• By Heather C.

  March 21, 2023

  Kitchen Remodel

  We used Doremus Homes for a kitchen renovation. We began the process of getting quotes for our kitchen in early winter of 2022. We settled on Doremus as they had great reviews and came in with their quote in the middle of the pack. With our input they provided the initial kitchen design that the quote was based on, and that we used to order our kitchen cabinetry. In order to avoid delays, demo did not start until we had the kitchen cabinets and all appliances that my husband and I were responsible for securing already in our garage. Work began in August 2022. We were told our kitchen should be up and running by Halloween. In the end, I didn't even have running water until just before Thanksgiving. The kitchen project wasn't finished until after the New Year.

  It is important to note that as stated in our contract, Doremus Homes would be responsible for securing all permits (we would pay the associated fees). As the project progressed, we were getting pressured by Doremus to not go through with the full inspection. At that time I found out that they had never secured the initial permit through our town, and the entire project was shut down for weeks. A completely unavoidable delay had the contractor done what they were supposed to. The town informed us that this is very much against the standard and Doremus and their subcontractors could be fined heftily for failure to secure permits before work began.

  My husband regularly checked in with the owner about the status of our bill and was assured things were running on track. In the end we were whacked with a bill that was over 70% above the initial quote!!!! When we questioned how the project could be this over (the main overage was for Doremus' own workers) we were told "I'm not great at estimating".

  In the end the work that was done was good but for the pure hell of dealing with this contractor it is not worth it.

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• By Samantha S.

  May 15, 2022

  Replace interior doors, skim coat walls

  $17,000

  We had Doremus come to our home to replace interior doors, which included the cost of doors and skim coat the drywall. They replaced a bathroom closet door that we did not ask them to replace. The carpenter Fabio was GREAT! His work is very professional and nicely done. He showed up everyday at 8:30 on the dot and worked until 5:30 pm.
  Craig (owner) gave us an estimate and after the carpenter had installed the doors, Craig came back to us with a bill of an extra $3,350. $3000 for replacing doors and $350 for an extra door he ordered. (This was the cost of the bathroom closet door we did NOT request to be changed.) When my husband questioned the extra charge, Craig said “an estimate is just that…an estimate”. We OBVIOUSLY understand what an estimate is. He told us that the work was taking longer than expected. I am not sure how he doesn’t know how long it would take to replace doors. So he was charging us an extra $3350 which didn’t include skim coating the walls. He was THEN going to charge us an extra $6000 to skim coat the walls. So total of an extra $9350. He also left doors, and materials that were removed from our house out in the side of our driveway and refuses to return our call to pick it up. He also left 2 doors without drilling a hole for a lock jam. It seems like this is a classic bait and switch. He was trying to charge us 55% more than the estimate. Before he came back with this crazy bill, we had requested an estimate for more work to be done. So he screwed himself out of more projects, which isn’t a smart business plan. We would highly recommend you DON’T use them for any work on your home.

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