Hambleton S Construction

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• By Sandra

  April 8, 2022

  Major home renovation

  $500,000

  I hired Hambleton Construction for a major renovation of my home. Hundreds of thousands of dollars and over 14 months later, they still have not finished the project and I am living on a construction site (see photo). At first they did great work and moved steadily. Then, with no discussion and nothing in the contract to allow it, they ripped up my beautiful original hardwood flooring in what was going to be my new dining room. Apparently, their flooring expert thought it was maple and could not find the right size to patch where walls had been taken down, so they decided it was best to destroy all of it without asking me. (It turns out the floor was birch, and you can find the same size as my original at Home Depot--I found it in a single Google search.) They expected me to pay for this uncontracted destruction, and when it became clear I would not, they installed maple to make it up to me. Now, my once beautiful floors look like a car with a replacement, off-color door. They said they would make it right four months ago, but have so far not responded to my emails attempting to move forward with a fix.
  In fact, they respond to nothing. Once they got their second-last payment, they moved all their people to other projects and took six months to do occasional odd jobs around my home when they can spare a person, usually during holidays--which just adds to my inconvenience. They kept their dumpster and port a potty on my driveway for months after they absconded, using the dumpster for garbage from other projects until it overflowed onto my driveway. I had to arrange for the dumpster and potty people to remove these items so I could stop being a Hambleton dump site or hosting random strangers who stopped to pee, exactly what you want after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a home removation.

  Autumn passed, then winter, now we are moving through spring with no progress on my build. No updates, no communication no responses to my inquiries. I notified them in January that the garage door they installed leaks when it rains and they have not responded. There are downed wires in my yard so I cannot mow my grass, and am starting a second year of yard neglect now. They finally got a permit for the last phase of the project in February and told me they planned to begin it in early April, but have refused to answer my text or phone messages to say when. This is after hundreds of thousands of dollars in prompt payments, the end of my bank's draw period, and 14 months of my home being a construction site. There is no end in sight and my builders refuse to provide any information.
  It's all been a nightmare and will likely end up in litigation. Very disappointing.

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• By Andrea K.

  May 31, 2020

  Remodel of three full bathrooms

  We contracted with Hambleton Construction to replace all three bathrooms and pipes, a plum assignment for any residential construction firm, to begin January 2017 and be completed in 9.5 weeks. EIGHTEEN MONTHS later I told them I would not pay any more because they kept failing to fix things and made some things worse. That is the last we've heard from them. It didn't start out that way. In 2012, we met David Hambleton thru a designer recommendation. He came across then, and later in 2016 when we were ready to begin, as a complete pro. Online reviews, though dated, said the company and their work were "first class." We were good clients--we used all of their vendors, agreed to their estimated price, and made very few changes to the project after the contract was signed. They were always polite and had good ideas the few times they engaged. However, soon after work began we realized we could not give them a key or trust them alone as we do with most contractors. COMMUNICATION AND DELAY. They did not show up for stretches of days, weeks, and then months, no explanation why or when they would return. They would come over on 1 day's notice for a flurry of activity, ask to collect more money, then disappear again as soon as they were paid. They did not retain information I gave them. As just one example, we emailed/told them multiple times about our spring break, but on the first day they woke us at 5am (3 time zones away) because they had sent the plumber over and no one was there to let him in. LACK OF PREPARATION. There was a project notebook onsite but no one must have ever looked at it. The downstairs bathroom was nearly complete but then had to be partly dismantled because they failed to plan for moving the toilet in the upstairs bathroom immediately above. The countertop installation guys showed up on time but sat around for hours because the Hambletons could not find the sink bowls. The plumber had to re-position the rough-ins after the vanities were installed, now the vanities inside have glops and smears. The tile guy was sent in without any instruction, so most of the tiling had to be re-installed because the layout was bad, there was no plan for trim along the ceiling line, etc. SHODDY WORK. Nearly everything was done poorly the first time, and only corrected sometimes after multiple attempts and delays. The tile guy did poor work needing repairs and re-dos, some of it is still not flush. We had to beg over and over for basic things like smooth caulking, even painting, decent stain work, flush tiles, decent drywall work, some of that is still not good. All three shower faucets apparently were installed without plumbing grease so that they functioned like rubber on rubber and soon failed. I got replacements from Moen and my husband found the problem and fixed it. They installed the tub without mooring so that it creaked, then cut a hole in my laundry room to try and fix it, the hole is still there and it still creaks. DAMAGE. We were without a landline phone upstairs for 2+ months because they had the phone wire inside the wall touching metal. First they ignored the problem and then they cut multiple holes in the newly painted drywall trying to figure it out. When they cut off the water upstairs it was not sealed and leaked a balloon bulge of water into the new bathroom ceiling below, fortunately we were there that weekend to see it before other rooms were damaged (unlike another homeowner posting a review here). POWER GROUT. This product has a long history of occasional failure, well-documented online. It happened to us. We, not Hambleton, found the failure and the online history. Their redo also failed, although they claimed success. The grout still retained water and grew mildew. Finally I called the manufacturer and obtained corrective sealant that I applied myself, a five-day job. They requested full payment from us even though I'm pretty sure the manufacturer paid them too. CLEANUP. Their workers race each other to leave without cleaning up. Their tile repairs left white grout smeared all over our wood planked ceilings. After they failed over and over to clean it up I finally did it, it took a full weekend. VIRTUALLY NO ONSITE SUPERVISION. Over the entire 18 month period after work began, David came by once, his brother Tom the Project Manager (always dressed in business casual) showed up mostly when he wanted to collect money. The Site Manager spent very little time onsite, mainly he inspects. Not once did the SM order work re-done, he passed everything the first time. As homeowners, we were the de facto site and project managers. Tom told me they instruct their workers not to go to the homeowner with questions, even though I was nearly always there. So, many of the problems that arose (I mention here only a slight fraction) were after the fact, when they could and should have been prevented in the first place.

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• By a user in Fairfax

  September 8, 2018

  Major storm damage repairs to exterior and interior of home.

  $25,000

  UNREASONABLE, UNEXPLAINED DELAYS: The estimated completion was 3 weeks from the start of work. It took them over 4 months from the time we signed the contract until they CLAIMED they were done, and that doesn't include the time they needed to revisit and correct poor workmanship. Their workers would disappear for a week or more at a time and I would never know when they were coming back. In the meantime, several rooms in my house were unusable, which created considerable hardship for my family. The contract says there may be delays due to material availability or weather, but all of the excuses combined cannot account for their chronic absenteeism.

  LIGHT INSTALLATION: The exterior light fixture they installed flickers from time to time. I emailed them about it on more than one occasion several months ago. They said they would take care of it, twice, but they never actually showed up to make the repair when they said they would. According to the contract, this problem should have been resolved under the warranty.

  TRIM: They removed a piece of trim and when they reinstalled it, they did it incorrectly so now the closet door in one of my bedrooms won't shut.

  INSTALLED WRONG SIZE WINDOW: They installed a window in my basement that was too narrow for the opening, which left a large gap around the edges that they just packed with foam and caulk. After I pointed out that it looked terrible they covered the exposed foam with plastic trim. They said that the window size was not available at Home Depot and they would have needed to order a custom window, which would have cost a couple hundred dollars more. The smart thing to do would have been to talk to me about it before installing a window that is the wrong size. I would have been willing to pay a bit more to get it done right, rather than fast and wrong. (Actually, it wasn't done fast either. The installation was delayed by weeks and the window is ALSO the wrong size.)

  PAINTING: When they paint, they can usually get the middle of the wall right, but when they get to a light fixture or door or window or built-in bookcase they get paint on the trim. They never use tape to get crisp edges. All of the places they painted in my house have wavering, inconsistent lines. There are multiple paint smudges on the white window/door/bookcase trim. I raised this issue with them multiple times and they made repeated attempts to correct the problem, but they could never seem to get it right. This is not the sort of "workman like" quality that was promised in the contract. I have painted rooms in my home and done a much better job, more quickly, and with no training.

  GARBAGE: When they departed they left a trail of trash and debris. For months I was finding construction debris, energy drink cans, candy bar wrappers, random work gloves, cans of paint, and pieces of scrap wood around my house.

  DRYWALL: They left a large gap between the drywall and the skylight they installed. They were going to leave it that way, until I asked them to fix it. They also left numerous marks in the joint compound on walls in my bathroom that they just painted over. I pointed out that it needed to be fixed to their quality assurance rep during his first inspection, but it was not fixed. I had to point it out a second time to get them to take action.

  In summation, Hambleton Construction is guilty of poor management, poor service, and poor workmanship. I would NEVER, EVER invite them back.

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