Complaint Review: Black Slate Construction

We hired Black Slate Contruction (Hunter Dolinger) for a comprehensive home remodeling project: kitchen, bathrooms, paint/trim, floors, counters, cabinets, etc. Working with him was a nightmare. Not only did he not honor his contractual obligations, but he did very shoddy work. He took numerous shortcuts, used poorly skilled labor, and did not properly manage the project.

We are having to have much of the work he did redone by qualified professionals. One of the more egrigous examples was the tile floor in the kitchen. His tile installers did a substandard job setting the tiles with over 90% of the tiles uneven with the adjacent tiles. We hired a thrid party consultant to come in and assess the floor, and they said it was so bad it posed a trip hazard and had to be completely redone. We had to hire flooring professionals to redo the entire floor. Getting him to acknowledge that there was even a problem with the floor was a major fight. He finally acknowledged that the floor was bad and had to be redone. He made a contractual commitment to credit us on the project for the installation and to replace the materials at his expense. He did indeed give us a credit for an amount we both agreed on, but when the time came to replace the tile, he ended up sticking us with the tab! He ordered the replacement tile but did not pay for it as promised.

The bad tile installation was not limited to the kitchen. They did a very poor job installing the new tile in the master shower. Joints were uneven, the tile was not cut cleanly, and edges around soap boxes were unfinished and unsightly. The same tile people we hired to do the kitchen floors were going to repair some of the tile in the shower, but when they started to take out the tile we found that Hunter had not waterproofed the hardi backer joints behind the tile! The entire shower has to be redone from floor to ceiling.

The list of problems and issues is too long to detail here. That said, ethical professionals stand by their work and address any issues. After Hunter received his money for the project, he stopped taking any calls and would not answer any messages. He took the money and ran! I've spoken to others that have experienced the same: when they had problems with his substandard work, he would not answer their calls or emails. A search on Google for Black Slate Construction will yield some more detail.