Complaint Review: Paul Davis Restoration - Paul Davis Restoration And Remodeling - Tampa Florida

In August 2005 we lost our home to a fire caused by a lightning strike. Two days after the fire I meet the insurance adjuster at the house for his initial inspection. During this visit he asked who would do the repairs and I informed him I had no idea. He told me they had preferred vendors and I told his that was fine. He contacted Paul Davis Restoration who showed up to secure the home to prevent further lose or injury to neighbood kids messing around. That night PDR signed us to a contract to do the repairs.

The problems began in April of 2006. When the new windows were installed they were installed crooked. I point this out to PDR and they were never corrected and are still crooked today.

During the rebuilding process there were numerous delays and other poorworkmanship that were point out. This included crooked walls, crooked doors, sloppy trim work and damage to our property. These issues were brought to the attention of the company on several occassions with no corrective actions taking place.

One critical issue that came up was the installation of the gas lines. It turns out the company never drew a gas permit even though all the gas line from the garage thgought the house had to be replaced. They knew this becase the gas line run through the attic and the entire roof system (except the garage) was removed. This was pointed out in a July 2006 inspection where the insepector note "gas permit needed". This was again addressed in Aug 2006 when it was again noted by the inspector "gas permit".

Since our temporary lodging coverage was running out we had to accept the house in September 2006 with the deficincies we had already noted. The one exception was the gas. They had installed a gas valve at the dryer even though the dryer was electric. They knew this because they ordered the appliances. I personally contacted the county and informed them of the defect. They stated no gas inspection was done because no permit was pulled but after several call agreed to meet me at the house. When they arrived they discovered several deficiencies that had to be corrected. This delayed us from a 1 September turnover to approximately 9 September. One interesting point to this was that I received an Email from the company stating that because I had called the county inspector they now had to open holes in the walls to check joints and conduct a 24 hour pressure check and these are not normaly required. Basically blaming me for the delay, when actually these were required because they normally occur during rough in inspection and final inspection, which they never received because no permit was pulled.

We then hired a home inspector to inspect the work. In addition to validating the fact that the poor workmanship existed in the walls, doors, windows and trim he found several code violations. This included electrical, air conditioning and structural issues. These were reported to the county as the inspection offical and they had to confirm the violations. Upon notification of these problems the county sent the inspectors to the house to conduct additional inspections to verify the issues and check for other issues. Each issues identified in the report was verified by the county who then required the builder to return to the house to correct the violation. The contractor came out in mid Novemebr 2006 to correct the code violationas required by the county and the county approved the job and issued a second Certificate of Occupancy in December 2006.

During the above process PDR made no attempt to correct any issues identified in the report that were not code related. Yet in December the owner of the company and contactor of record for the permit, Merle Impson, sent me several emails demanding final payment or he would place a lien on the property and foreclose for final payment. I informed him that until the corrections were made or settlement reach we would not authorize final payment.

In March 2007 Paul Davis Restoration filed a foreclosure suit on our property.

One of the issues addressed was that there had been no follow up report to show the deficiencies still exist. This led us to have subsequent inspections. During these inspections thing got even worse yet. In addition to the known poor workmanship the inspections uncovered additional code violations and other material issues that were not previously known. These included

- Several trusses have been cut in width, by as much as an inch, in the top cord, piggyback trusses were not installed in accordance with engineering diagram, proper bracing was not in place.

- The hurricane straps were not properly installed in many cases, straps installed did not meet the engineers plans or truss design strength requirements, several of the straps were not even connected to the walls

- Gable end walls are not istalled in accordance with florida code

- Gable end walls are not constructed according to plans or florida code

- 1/2 inch sheetrock was installed in the ceiling where the code (and contract) call for 5/8

- Electrical junction boxes in the attic not properly installed

- Many other cases where the work was not accomplished according to plans

- Charged for 5900 sf of roofing when roof is only 5300 sf

- Charged for 5/8" sheetrock and 1/2 installed

- Charged for foam board insulation in wall and foil was installed

- Charged to reinstall 40year shingles, installed 30 year shingle

- Charged for 3 pc crown mold not installed

This company is negligent in their construction practices, fail to abide by their own developed estimate, and have no regard for their customers. We worked all the way up the company in trying to resolve these issues with no success. This included talking to the job supervisor, company vice president and company president, who is also the licensed contractor. At each step we were told we wanted perfection and we were being unreasonable.

I am sure numerous other homeowner are victims of similar circumstance and I would guess possibly even by this specific company.

In our case in addition to all the above this has consumed over 2 years of our lives after our return to the house and caused us great financial debt in order to defend ourselves and our equity in the house. People need to know the loss of the house is only the start of the problem many pitfalls await you in the recovery espicially if you rely on Paul Davis Restoration for the repairs.

Robert

Valrico, Florida

U.S.A.