Prairie Dog Construction

I was introduced to John at a Political rally at the Tacoma Dome in 2020. He had given me his Prairie Dog Construction business card and said if we ever needed any remodeling done to give him a call. About a year ago we decided to redo our back deck and make it larger. So we had John come out at take a look and see what he thought.
He said we should expand the footprint of the deck about 3 times as big as the old deck, and suggested using symmetrry composite deck material. John said he has installed this type of deck several times and it would look great and he provided a really inexpensive bid to do the job.
We reviewed and decided to give the go ahead and payed half up front. We also picked the color of the deck and went with Gray. John wrecked out the old deck in 2 days and started on the new construction.
All was going great until the installation on the deck surface was half way done and we realized the wrong color boards were being installed. Instead of gray the color of the surface boards was Trex, which in much lighter in color.
When we noticed we immediately asked the Contractor and he said that is what we ordered. The concern was the lighter color would not hold up as this is the sunny side of the home and the deck would be exposed about 90% of the day.
After much discussion and the contractor arguing that we made the mistake, and he would not start over cause it was our fault that we didn't communicate properly, we reluctantly allowed him to finish with the wrong lighter color boards. This was a very uncomfortable, heated exchange and I wish we had not given in.
But 1 year later our concern on the lighter color has come true. The boards are changing colors in spots and the deck does not look good. Based on our experience I would not recommend Prairie Dog Construction.

We are lucky enough to own a 2nd home on Fox Island. Being it is our 2nd home we have never wanted or needed to do any remodeling, but as retirement gets closer we made the decision to do some remodeling in case we wanted to live there full time.
We found John thru Angies list and had him come out and give us a bid. Unfortunately Angies List does not have a section for reviews or ratings. The bid John gave was extremely lower than we expected, so we made sure he checked out on the Washington state contractor site. He is licensed and bonded and has no claims against his required $12,000 bond. So we established a scope of work and John drafted a contract, and the job had a start date. How do I wish I would have found this site and several others to do a bit more homework.
Again we do not live in this home full time, so John started the Job with us not there. 3 days into the job I knew we were in trouble. We were away in Palm Springs and John called to inform us that the wreck out (which had already happened) was going to cost more than expected. In fact it was exactly double the $2,500 quote that was in the contract. I of course pushed back and asked why the bid was so inaccurate and John said he "didn't factor in the location and the time to dump the removed materials at the Tacoma landfill. And in all his years of working as a contractor "no job comes in at the bid price."
So not being able to address the issue in person and not sure what to do if we fired John at that point, we decided unwisely to let him proceed with the job.
What transpired over the next 3 weeks was nothing but a nightmare. Nothing John bid on came at the contract price, everything came in at 50% to over 100% higher. The straw that broke the camels back was when the electrical work, (4 basement can lights and 8 new outlets) would cost an additional $1850 over the $2,000 electrical bid. When asked why the additional cost, the reply was "I am not an electrician".
We ended up letting John go and had to find someone to finish the remodel. John continues to threaten us with emails and letters saying his lawyer will be in contact with us, but to date no lawyer has officially contacted us.
The advise I would give is like all the other reviews on this site. Find another business to work with other than Prairie Dog Construction. You will have nothing but cost over runs and delays if you chose to do business with Prairie Dog Construction.

We hired Prairie Dog Construction over 7 months ago to remodel our Port Orchard, WA home. We found John through a friend who had a business remodel going and had hired John to do the work.
John gave us a very competitive bid and decided to have the job started. We paid 25% down and a few days later the wreck out went good.
What we did not know is that John and our friend were having a disagreement about the cost on the business job and basically John stopped working on that job and walked away.
A few days went by and a problem was discovered by John and the cost of our remodel went up. He said he had a friend that could fix the problem and would have him contact us. About a week and half went by and John came to our home to pick up some materials that he left during the wreck out. He informed us that he had an emergency at another job site and there would be delays. That was over 7 months ago and we cant seem to get John back to finish the work he started.
After some research, that I should have done in the first place, this type of behavior is not uncommon on Prairie Dog Construction Jobs. There are nothing but bad reviews on line about John and his business. I have yet to find one good review or person that like the experience. John brags about over 20 years of successful business, and even told our friend that in 20 years not one job has come in on the bid price. Go to BBB website and see the long list of excuses John has posted about various difficult, unreasonable customers. Do not Hire.

If I could put zero stars I would. We hired John to convert a church to an office building. We signed a contract that said the building would be completed to plans, proposals and permits. About two months into the project (which John and/or his crew were only present about 50% of the time), John informed me that he did not include in the bid, HVAC, Insulation, Low Voltage Wiring, Cabinets and work stations that were in the plans, proposals and/or permits. He also informed me and my banker that we were going to have to pay for it. The unbid work totaled about $40,000. In addition to that, the line items that he did bid were coming in 100 to 150% over bid. For instance, he bid electrical at $8,500 and the bid ended up being $18,500. Apparently, he does not secure subcontractor bids before he provides a bid. He ballparks everything and he's almost always wrong and then tries to get you to pay for it. If you don't agree to pay for it, he starts suggesting not completing things that are clearly in the plans but not crucial to a functioning building (keep the original front doors = $4,500 savings) or cutting corners on the quality of the work he promised in his proposal. When my banker and I confronted him about this he looked us in the face and said, "In all my years of doing this work, I've never seen a project come in at bid." SERIOUSLY. He said that. In addition to all this, I learned during this project that John is a bully. He belittles and berates customers when they do not agree with him. Eventually, I hired a construction lawyer even though I am a lawyer to ensure I wasn't so out of touch with contracts that I was missing something (I wasn't, I was spot on) and we fired John and acted as our own General. After we fired him, EVERY single subcontractor that I hired said "who did this work?" The work he did do was so substandard that subcontractors (several of them) made lists of things that were wrong and suggested that I sue John when everything was done. The building ended up costing us more than originally anticipated. When we fired John, we kept his last draw of $16,000 to offset our damages. He started calling us thieves, telling subcontractors we had stolen from him and then he filed a lien against our property. The way the law works, the lien expires in 8 months if the contractor does not initiate a lawsuit to collect the money he believes he's owed. Of course, John did not file a lawsuit because we would have counter sued for our losses. The lien has since expired. This is why I have waited this long to write this complaint. My hassles with John ended in June 2019. I initially wasn't going to make a review but I see that John keeps stacking them up so I think people really need to know. Also, the complaints you see are not all of them. This site used to have other complaints but John somehow successfully convinced this site to remove them. My research indicates that these issues go back at least 10 years probably longer. He has changed company names and addresses.