Homemasters Portland SW

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It was fine. I'd recommend them and they did a fine job cleaning up after themselves.

This bungled job took 14 months to completely resolve, and even then not to my satisfaction.  The weird part is that it was a relatively trivial job. I first contacted Homemasters in October 2013 about replacing a short L-shaped section of gutter in the front of the house.  The work was performed on October 14.  It was a relatively dry autumn, and the rains didn?t really start until almost December.  In January I noticed that after the rain stopped, water dripped continuously from the corner of new gutter for hours or even days.  I contacted Homemasters and they sent someone out.  He ?sealed? the corner and said we were good to go. ?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 had to make at least 20 phone calls to them (they became less and less responsive, while not correcting the problem). During multiple visits by their personnel (they tried the ?sealing? route again), the following facts came 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 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 hung, with adjustable hangers that made setting of the correct angle for drainage possible. Why did they not replace the gutter they removed in the same way?  Why tell me nothing could be done?  Instead, 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. Finally, as I started calling daily, they sent somebody with some experience who took a look and understood that the gutters needed to be hung.  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/install a new board, after painting it with paint supplied by me. On inquiry, 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 to go ahead. On the scheduled day, no handyman crew arrived.  The gutter crew left, saying they could not do their part until the handyman had done he fascia board.  I was at work, but was contacted by my wife, who told what had happened.  I called Homemasters, rather irate by now, to find out what was going on, and was promised the work would be completed that day, as scheduled. When I got home, I found out: (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, yes, I said 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. Needless to say, I did not see how this was worth $550 (since getting the gutter to drain correctly was their problem). Nevertheless, the gutter was now at an angle that allowed proper drainage, and I did not want to see them again. Rather than ask for the work to be re-done 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. Two days ago, I finally received the bill again. There was no response to my grievances, but they lowered the asking amount by $50.  Nowhere near enough, in my opinion. 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.

Everything went as planned

The installation went well. The installers made a suggestion to change the color of the gutter and that worked out very well. They were efficient and polite.  

All went well.

It was terrible. He was supposed to come in the morning on  10/16 and then called and asked if he could come later. He never showed up. I had to call the office and leave a message. I ended up calling the number on his business card and he said he would come the next day. He showed up the next day while I was gone and was working on the roof when I returned. I had an arbor of berries that he knocked over with his ladder and said the wind knocked it over and it damaged all the runners. On Oct. 27th he agreed to do the job for $119 and he was hosing the gutter mess into the drains. He ended up clogging up my drains. Then he noticed cracks on the roof caps and said he could do the job for $150. He ended up doing the job for $135 but they weren't done correctly and water still leaked. Then he was supposed to give me an estimate on the roof on 11/3 but he never showed. They over charged for the entire job and now I have to pay to have everything all fixed. I am going to submit photos and call the Better Business Bureau and the local news about this company. They offer a senior discount but they wouldn't give me the discount. I want to make sure none of my friends use this company. 1/2/15 - UPDATE - they finally came back after I went to the manager after I found out that they never did the back, they came back out and did the same thing they did the first time, washed it down into the downspout clogging my drains to the street even more!  Totally unhappy with this company!

went fine

I should have been concerned early, when I had trouble accepting the quote and scheduling the work. I had the quote from phil.  I called the main office to pay the deposit and schedule the service.  They told me I had to call phil.  So I left him a message, and waited.  He called back and left me a message that I could call the main office the next day and give a CC for the deposite.  Which I did.  But why did I have to make 3 phone calls to pay a deposit and say yes to the quote.  They didn't even schedule it then, I had to fax in the sign quote, then wait for them to call me back to schedule.  That seems like way more effort then it should take... The job, well it was summer, so they came they did, and I assumed all was well.  I started finding nails and things on the ground.  Turns out they just blasted the debris from the gutters onto my lawn.  I understand now, that that is how most people do it, had I known I wouldn't have let them do it.  But that is a minor oversight really, and understandable.  But when the rains came, the downspout that was just a loud monotonous drip-drip-drip when the rain slowed down, was technically gone.  But it was replaced by a much louder more then drip-drip any time it rained much at all.  Instead of only hearing it in one room, I could know hear it in two rooms.   I called, phil came out, tested with a hose, reproduced the sound, said someone would come out to put some sort of synthetic pad in the gutter.  Weeks went by, no one came.  I called phil.  He said he would look into it and call me back. A week went by, I called Phil again, got his voice mail, I asked for a call back in 48 hours.  Nothing.  Now during this time, I noticed that the overflowing gutter now had a stream of water coming out the downspout.  It looked like they had damaged the downspout while trying to clear the clog that was causing it to overflow.  Which I mentioned in the last call to Phil.   So with him not calling me back, I called the main office and explained my issue.  They first told me it would be a few days before someone could even tell me when someone might be able to come out and look.  Which is absurd, it doesn't take days to find 10 minutes for someone to just look.  I complained, they said they would try to do better.  To their credit they called back and said someone would be out in a few days.  I think it was Phil again.   Well, I think he came out, because the synthetic thing was there, but I never heard from him or anyone about the busted downspout.  The synthetic thing made it quieter, but overall the downspout is much nosier then it was, before, though a different kind of noise.  After about 2 weeks I called, and told them I was done calling them, and would like a refund so I could hire someone to come out and fix what they didn't, or what they broke.  To show how bad they communicated, I got a call from Greg threatening collections.  He had no idea I had already paid the bill months ago.  Who calls up a dissatisfied customer and threatens to send them to collections for a bill they already paid when they asked for a refund.  So I gave up calling them.  Enough of my time has already been wasted on them.