Heartwood Remodeling

Heartwood Remodeling should change it's name to Heartless Remodeling.

My wife and I deeply regret that we hired Warwick/Cranston Rhode Island's Heartwood Remodeling, it was by far the worst mistake we ever made. It was an extremely long and painful experience to say the very least. Anything that possibly could have gone wrong did go wrong. We were horrified at the lack of professionalism and workmanship by Heartwood Remodeling. We were disappointed to find out Steve Pelosi did not get the required permits, did the plumbing and is not a licensed plumber, and did the electrical but is not a licensed electrician. There were countless code violations that were found during the later inspections. We hired Heartwood Remodeling to do a $40,000 kitchen and 1/2 bath remodel and we expected that for the $21,000 we paid Heartwood Remodeling that there would be an experienced work crew working on a regular basis. Unfortunately during our project the company Heartwood Remodeling really consisted of only Steve Pelosi and there was virtually no manpower at all. Steve proved to be nothing more than a slow working and skill challenged handyman who failed to even show up to work regularly, certainly not a professional business that we paid for and expected. On the rare occasion that there was somebody helping Steve, they tended have little to no experience and were usually elderly floor sweepers. It was clear very early on that our project was way over the head of Steve Pelosi of Heartwood Remodeling. We found it very hard to believe that Steve claimed to have 33 years experience because he constantly seemed confused and overwhelmed. We were disappointed Steve did not work Tuesdays because he is BNI member (a business networking group) which meets every Tuesday afternoon. The days he did work he would typically leave before 2:30. We finally filed a claim with the RI Contractors Board and a complaint with the Better Business Bureau on the 127th day of our still uncompleted project, 182 days from when we signed the contract because Heartwood Remodeling did not start for nearly two months (even though Steve said he would start soon and the contract stated he would star ASAP). For 114 days we had to wash our dishes in our bathtub while without a kitchen sink. For months we felt like hostages in our own home while every room was packed with boxes stacked to our ceilings. After the bathroom's plumbing was installed it took months to finally get the toilet installed, during which time a pungent sewage stench filled our home when the upstairs toilet or shower was used. After 90 days Steve took down his advertising sign in front of our house because he admitted he was embarrassed about how the job was not progressing. Steve lives five minutes away from us and he had our house key while we worked during the week so there is NO EXCUSE for the work not completed.

Steve Pelosi frequently made tasks much harder for himself by not doing them the right way the first time. Everything was constantly installed crooked. We were devastated when our kitchen cabinets were initially installed making our kitchen look like a carnival fun house. There was more than a 3/4" slant from one side of the base cabinets to the other side and the front of the cabinets were slanted much higher than the rear of the cabinets. We had to beg Steve to finally get him to install them level (unfortunately scratching our new wood floors and cabinets in the process). Our granite company had to come back a second time because the cabinets were not installed well the first time they came to do the counter top template. Later when the Contractor Board inspector came to assess the situation and contractors came to give us estimates to finish and fix everything, all they kept saying over and over was "what was this guy thinking?" as everyone was shocked at Steve's negligent work. Steve had absolutely no idea what he was doing when he made the windows larger and it is going to be a very expensive fix as the holes were cut to large and left unfinished outside so our wall leaks when it rains. The pocket door was left under a tarp outside for nearly two months and was warped when it was finally installed so it rubs and is hard to open and close, the door is also covered in water stains that shows through the paint and it never had the door handle or lock installed. We paid to have posts installed to to support the sagging floor joists in the basement, unfortunately Steve used untreated pine footings under the pressure treated posts. There are huge spaces under all the floor board mouldings instead of them being installed flush to the floor. No trim was used between the backsplash and microwave and our backsplash was grouted right up into our over-the-range microwave. Steve used a hand saw instead of a required wet saw required to cut marble tiles and he had a lot of trouble getting the right sizes and ruined a large amount of expensive tile, most of the backsplash tile was cut much too short and he just filled in the large gaps with lots of grout. Non-sanded grout is supposed to be used with marble tile because it scratches very easy but Steve used sanded grout. Our cabinets have a bunch of empty drill holes on the bottoms from searching to find studs. The cabinets on each side of the dishwasher were installed way too far apart so there are very large gaps around the dishwasher and Steve's trademark ugly wood shims are visible on each front side gap, also the dishwasher's metal clips should not have been screwed into the front sides of the cabinets. It sickens us that Steve messed up really bad when ordering the sink base cabinet and it was not altered to fit resulting in an ugly inch gap on the sides of our apron front sink. Cabinet hardware was installed at different heights and needs to be fixed. The microwave vent was installed wrong and the vent pipe leaks a lot of air. Steve used an ugly piece of plywood to shim under our pendant light over the sink because the ceiling was installed crooked. We had to get another ceiling fan because Steve bent something inside it during the installation. The plumbing and electric was not up to code as Steve is not a licenced plumber or electrician. The under cabinet lighting junction boxes were installed under the wall cabinets instead of inside the walls where they should have been installed while the walls were opened. Steve made sure he only worked when we were not home and email was our only form of communication. After we sent an email about issues we had, we received a reply from Steve stating that if we didn't like his work he would start charging us extra by adding fixes as "change orders". In the same email he had the nerve to threaten to put a Lien on our home, even though we did not owe him any more money, and walk off the job. We found it very frustrating that Steve always put smaller finishing projects as a priority over major jobs that really needed to be done. Tasks such as installing a ceiling fan, light fixtures, and baseboards were always worked on first even though the plumbing, toilet, dishwasher, and both sinks really needed to be installed since we had already gone without them for over 100 days. The ceiling beams, recessed lighting, and ceiling fan are not centered at all which is a real eyesore. We asked for our 12" bathroom tiles we purchased to be installed staggered but he installed them straight, because the project was taking such a long time he probably forgot but he should have at least asked us how we wanted them installed if he did not know. We were shocked when Steve installed our bathroom sink, toilet, and radiator BEFORE he grouted the floor tiles, in the process the tiles ended up crooked and are sticking up so bad they are a tripping hazard. The radiant flooring and tiles we purchased are now ruined as the whole floor needs to be taken up and the radiant flooring should have been installed by a licenced electrician. We found out after that Steve Pelosi stopped paying his contractors insurance DURING our job therefore canceling it, but he had only liability insurance which only covers property damage and does not cover his negligent work and him not finishing the job. Two different workers that were on our job for only a couple of days both pointed out things to us that Steve did wrong, one called him a hack to his face and quit on the spot after Steve's paycheck to him bounced. Heartwood Remodeling now has a history of violations that can be viewed on the State Of RI Contractor's Registration and Licensing Board website and is no longer an accredited Better Business Bureau company.

Steve Pelosi had an extremely unprofessional attitude. Too often the days were filled with drama and when we were home you could cut the tension in our home with a knife. One day I was watching as Steve and a worker were moving our refrigerator and Steve looked at me and twice rudely barked "we don't need any supervisors . . . we can use helpers". I was the customer and not a worker and I should not have been spoken to like that, especially in my own home. Also while moving our refrigerator Steve swore loudly twice in front of my young children which was very upsetting to us. The worker who was helping actually called Steve into the other room and had a talk with him because Steve was so out of line. Steve decided it was not necessary to drywall the ceiling above the kitchen wall cabinets because the ceiling would not be seen there, we expressed our concerns of drafts because the cabinets were inches from being flush with the open ceiling and his reply was "what do you care, your whole house is drafty". From day one Steve never once answered his cell phone or returned a call adding to the abundant lack of communication throughout the project. Way too often Steve took his own creative liberties to do various things and he did not ask for our input nearly often enough.

Steve Pelosi illegally wrote our contract so $9,956.16 was due up front, $4,978.08 was due after 5 days, $3,982.46 was due after 10 days, and only $995.61 was due at completion. Virtually all the money was paid within ten days of work and after that Steve had absolutely no motivation to finish the job and stopped showing up anywhere near a regular basis after that. He had just finished gutting the rooms in ten days and very little of the job was completed. Our contract did not have an expected finish date and we wish we knew better because we learned later on contractors should provide an expected completion date in the contract. 50 days into our project even though so much more work needed to be done, our house was put on the back burner as Steve Pelosi started another kitchen project and proceeded to show up to ours on an extremely limited basis. Heartwood Remodeling does not have sufficient manpower for one kitchen project much less two projects at the same time. We emailed Steve and begged him to hire workers but he refused to.

During the project we received an email from Steve looking for $3600 extra for things he took it upon himself to do and for things we never agreed to or signed papers for. This email came the day we had our sewer connected and we can't help but wonder if he just thought we had a little extra money laying around. The contract for our kitchen ceiling was to have the original beams exposed with drywall installed in between. We came home to find Steve had taken it upon himself to create a ceiling beam look by essentially building an outside deck frame complete with the ugly metal deck mounting brackets under our ceiling without telling us first, showing us pictures, showing us samples, or giving us any options. We hated the beams as they were installed very crooked, hung very low, were plain ugly, and caused countless issues as it was not done right. Even though our ceiling was completely gutted out, the beams and whole ceiling was installed crooked two inches higher on one side of the room than the other side and the drywall ceiling in between the beams was installed at all different heights. The recessed lighting was installed off centered between the 8" tall beams so that one side of the recessed lights is very close against the beams and the other side is far from the next beam. Not only does it look bad off centered between the beams, the beams block half the recessed lighting on one side which causes large shadows throughout our kitchen. Steve was not able to put one of our cabinet doors on because he put the top moulding on the wall cabinet on crooked so the cabinet door would not fit, he put the molding up crooked because the beams were installed crooked. Steve did not even cut the cabinet molding with the correct angle cuts, when cut at the correct angle it should hide the seams. The cabinet molding was also hacked to pieces after Steve installed and removed it multiple times in the process of trying to get the cabinets level.

It hurt to have to constantly have to speak of our contractor woes to our friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers who would inquire on a daily basis about the lack of work being done on our home and all the nightmare issues we were going through. It was such a helpless feeling to have given all our money to Steve Pelosi only to have him repeatedly not show up, work so painfully slow, and do such a sub par job. Thanks to Steve's apathetic negligence we are going to have to pay a fortune to finish the job, get it up to code, and fix as much of Steve's poor work as possible. Nobody deserves to go through the mental anguish that Steve Pelosi of Heartwood Remodeling caused our family