Paul Hodge Construction

I hired Paul to build a custom home. I spent weeks researching everything, colors, styles, where to buy etc. I sent him all of this information along with multiple copies of the plans. At each step I was contacted and being asked what do you want here, how does this go? I sent him all of this information, broken down by room! We sat and talked about a plan we liked and thought it would fit into our budget. Well, custom home builders add square footage for porches, over hangs, garages, crawl spaces etc. to pad the money bag I assume. So I was forced to spend more weeks of research looking for new plans that fit into the calculation for our budget. Our budget was $250,000, we already owned the land and utilities were already at the build site. He worked up a budget and it was acceptable. Soon afterwards, I was getting a call asking for $13,000. The soil here is strange and moves a lot, so we needed to bring in special soil to place on the build spot. This was a required item, why was it not in the estimate?? Things like this went on the whole build. The plans clearly show a small patio out back, he left it off. He didn’t figure it into the estimate. But it was on the plans! The same with the parking pad in front of the garage. We specifically requested a pad so we could wash the cars and not be on dirt, he said he would put some rock down. Really? I ended up paying $18,000 out of pocket for the two slabs. Over all, we paid nearly $100,000 that was not in the estimate that should have been. Mind you, I was 1400 miles away, so I could not be there every day like he was supposed to. I drove down as framing and rough in was being finished. I wanted to check everything before they closed the walls up. We specifically asked for tongue and groove ceiling for the porch. I got there and they had plywood up, wrong! I made them change it. Then they rolled up with the doors, all wrong. Can this guy follow instructions? Evidently not! This is what we put up with for 7 months. The plumber could not understand old time style plumbing. We were building a farmhouse, we wanted the bathrooms to look like they came out of the 1910’s. Pipe comes out at the spigot area and goes into a star knob control, and up the wall to an old fashioned shower head. He just didn’t get the concept. He kept putting the supply lines for the master bath over on the end of the tub area. We had ordered a claw foot tub so they needed to be in the middle. Eventually we were given an updated estimate. $390,000! That’s $150,000 over budget that we agreed to. Not including the $100,000 I paid out of pocket. What did this guy think that he would just add costs on as we went like we wouldn’t notice? We were forced to change some things. He came up with $50,000 and we deleted the fireplace and the metal roof for another $50,000. That was a big mistake. Here we are two years after moving in, and we had the disposal collar in the kitchen sink have the Oil rubbed bronze finish peeling off within the first two weeks. We reported it immediately to Paul, promises to get it fixed, he’ll call the plumber and have him call me. Well the plumber was just as bad as Hodge. We never heard from him regarding the problem. So avoid Dobbins plumbing too. I just replaced the collar myself. It was a $50 part, but the manufacturer would not warranty the original one he installed…….. ok? And? So you eat the cost! Paul swears up and down everything is under warranty, he will take care of everything, just let him know of any problems. Well before we even moved in, one of the solid wood doors on a closet warped. We told Paul about it and he said it would settle out over time. Two years later and it’s the same. He gave me the name of the company he bought the doors from. I stopped in with photos and they never sold those style of door. So now I have a door that I can’t find a replacement for if I wanted to. But it gets better. Since we moved into the house, every time would get a windy day, we had roof shingles ripping off. I’d call and Paul would have the roofer come out and patch things up. This went on for two years. On occasion I would get up on the roof myself at 65 years old and glue the shingles down with roof cement. We are in a high wind area and are within tornado alley. I was blaming the shingles. The roofer kept trying to get me to hire him to replace the roof. Last week we had a lot of shingles off, so I called Paul. He had the roofer call and again he said the shingles were junk and I should replace the roof….. on my dime. I got a quote for a new shingle roof, a basic metal roof, and a standing seam metal roof. I decided to get other roofing companies to give me estimates too. Both said immediately that the problem was not with the shingles, but that the roof was installed incorrectly. There is a nail line on each shingle the manufacturer recommends the 4 nails per shingle be nailed on that line. All of the nail holes were 2” to 3” above that nail line. Lawsuit time.