Homemasters Portland SW

Possibly the worst home project experience I have had in 25 years. This bungled job took 14 months to completely resolve, not to my satisfaction, even though it involved a relatively trivial job. The initial work was performed in October. The heavy rains did not come until late December. In January I noticed that after the rain stopped, water dripped continuously from the corner of new gutter for days, damaging the area below. Homemasters sent someone to "seal" the corner. "Is that really a permanent solution?" I asked. He assured me it was. A couple of weeks later it was dripping again. Over the next several months I made at least 20 phone calls to them. During multiple visits by their personnel (they tried the "sealing" route again), the following factscame out: (1) When they originally installed the gutter, the fascia board was too rotten to hold screws... Why did they not inform me of this at the time, instead of slapping up a gutter covering a real problem? Incompetence, or just complete lack of professionalism? (2) ...so they just laid the gutter on the ledge from which the previous gutter had been hung. My home was built in 1898 and has settled. The corner of the ledge is now its lowest point, so water collected in the corner of the gutter and did not drain after a rain. 'Nothing we can do about a crooked house.' ******** -- the previous gutter was installed with adjustable hangers that made setting of the correct angle for drainage possible. They tried to avoid re-doing the job correctly by using the quickest, cheapest fix possible (allow the water to accumulate, just "seal" the corner so it wouldn't drip out). Possibly, this was not a swindle: the personnel they sent out to do the job may truly have just been totally incompetent, and lacking proper training/ supervision. I started calling daily. They sent somebody with some experience who took a look and understood the gutters needed hangers. As long as they were going to be pulling them off to correct the problem, I asked that the rotten fascia board be replaced. Correcting the installation of the gutters was their problem, but I was willing to pay for the board. I was surprised when I received a bid for $550 ($50 more than the original gutter installation!) to provide a new board, paint it with paint supplied by me, and install it. I was told it was because the job would entail two crews (handyman and gutter), and that they would be tied up much of the day due to painting the board and allowing it to dry before installation. Just wanting to get this resolved, I agreed. On the scheduled day, no handyman crew arrived. The gutter crew left, saying they could not do their part until the handyman had done the fascia board. My wife contacted me at work, and I called Homemasters, rather irate by now, and was promised the work would be completed that day, as scheduled. When I got home, I found: (1) The gutter crew was sent back to do the job on their own (no handymen ever came). (2) They had no paint brushes. It appears they put the board up first, then attached the gutter to it, then sloppily coated the exposed lower edge (only) of the board using a plastic bag to apply the paint. The paint can was still full. (3) And they attached the gutter to the fascia board - they did not use hangers as agreed. (4) Including the re-installation of the gutter, they were gone in under 2 hours. I did not see how this was worth $550 (since getting the gutter to drain correctly was their problem). But the gutter was no longer on the ledge, at an angle that seemed to allow proper drainage, and I did not want to see them again. When the bill arrived I just sent it back with a description of my grievances, asking that it be adjusted accordingly. For 5 months I heard nothing. Then an accountant called me asking when I was going to pay the bill. I explained that I had sent a letter, was waiting for answer to it, and when I received it I would pay. I was contacted several more times by phone and email before they could successfully communicate among themselves and understand the situation. I finally received the bill again. There was no response to my grievances, but they lowered the asking amount by $50. Nowhere near enough. Given Homemasters' incompetence, lack of professionalism, and shoddy work (on a simple job!), I would highly recommend you look elsewhere for the services they offer, especially if you own an older house.

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