We hired Alpharetta Electric on Feb 22, 2017 to finish 1000 sq foot rooms and 1/2 bath, install 2nd HVAC zone ( gas furnace and AC) in our basement. As of May 16th the work is not completed. My husband stepped in to finish a lot of the work, drywall, plumbing and we are hiring an electrician and HVAC company to finish the work for final county inspection, additional costs to what we have paid Overholt. We were not ever told work schedules and the workers often showed up around 2 pm to work till 6 or so or not al all. Deadlines Overholt set for work completion were never met. Overholt would disappear for a week at a time with no response to texts or phone calls. There was always an excuse, uncle died, mother died, custody battle over kids, put brother in jail, father cancer, ex wife cancer.... The workers were not very skilled and not supervised by Overholt so much of the work got redone or the people were directed on how to do something by my husband. We did not pass 4 county building inspections as a result of poor craftsman ship and general lack of knowledge of the building codes. We were told that some of the work would be completed at no charge because of the delays and were later given an invoice for the work. Overholt uses sub contractors, although we asked him if he used subs at the beginning of job and he said no. He picked up casual labor that are not skilled in all the tasks he assigns and sent them to work here. He then complained and demeaned the workers paying them very little (2 men worked over 40 hours each and were paid $100 each for the week). Overholt came to our home at 10 pm on May 1 to tell us he was firing the drywall sub, who was 1 day from completing the work. We paid Overholt for more than 1/2 the dry wall labor and since said he did not have the paperwork to pay the sub we asked for a refund so we can pay the sub directly, as the sub has threatened a builders lien on our home. He started to walk out and said he was not giving us a check. We have requested a refund in writing and not received it. The sub has not been able to get in touch with Overholt. If the sub did not have the certificate of insurance and W9, Overholt's excuse for not making payment, then the sub should not have been hired to work at our home leaving us open to liability. I provided a billing reconciliation of his invoices, which are altered during the job and did not reflect all payments we made, reflecting work not completed and paid for and overpayments made. There has been no resolution on this issue. We fired Overholt, May 7th, when he promised to have the dry wall completed by Friday May 5th. We were doing some of the work ourselves, like painting, and every delay made the project drag on. Never was our job a priority, it was a part time side job. Very unprofessionallly managed. In researching Gerald Overholt I uncovered 6 corporations registered and then closed with the Georgia Secretary of State. The currently open corporation is Alpharetta Electric, Inc. registered in 2016. Do not do business with Gerald Overholt. He does not complete work, poor workmanship, does not meet schedules, increases estimated costs during the job without telling the homeowner until invoicing for the work, keeps over payments, does not pay sub contractors, disappears without contact during the job. We plan to sue him to recover costs when our work is completed.
Gerald
Alpharetta,#2REBUTTAL Owner of company
Thu, October 18, 2018
information reported here is simply not true. I was never hired to "finish any rooms" in their basement. I was hired to do the electrical work on the whole basement which was done, completed and inspected by the local county. These folks held a homeowners permit for completing the basement. The husband was a pilot attempting to do the other work during his off hours. After failing to pass 4 inspections for framing work he did I did offer to offer to help out since he simply couldnt get the framing right and refer some people to him to help him out - an air conditioning contractor and a drywall person. Due to the husband's work schedule I did correct the framming mistakes, coordinate the air conditioning installation with the a/c contractor and install the insulation.(it was an introduction to the customer) The framing was completed and insulation installed by me.
The air conditioning was installed by a licensed local contractor and inspected and paid by the owner. As I had suspected they saved $900 over the next cheapest quote they had gotton. I gave them the number to a drywall guy who was referred to me from a builder who I still do work for. The customer had problems with the drywall guy and called me asking me to come over and look at the work. I went out of courtesy and looked at the work and it was definately substandard. They wanted me to correct it or call the guy and get their money back. I explained to them at their dining room table that I only referred the guy to them. The wife had some papers she handed me and said she wanted me to sign them.
I declined to do so as they stated I was their general contractor. I was never hired to be there general contractor nor am I licensed to perform or insured to perform as a general contractor. As a result the customer refused to pay the two small invoices I gave them for fixing the framing and installing customer supplied insulation ($350) - 7 hrs of work. I tried to reason with the wife who insisted I was their general contractor and I must sign these papers. I learned a valuable lesson dealing with these people and will not try to help anyone again - no matter how in over their head they are. I was only contracted for the electrical work completed and inspected by the county. There never was any employees who worked anywhere or did anything other then electrical work.
#3Author of original report
Wed, May 17, 2017
County inspections were repeated 4 times instead of the normal 2, not 4 failures