Paul Schmidt, one of the owners of AMEK, gave a talk at a Home/Garden Show about how critical it is for exterior work on houses to be done by contractors who understand how to properly install exterior siding and windows, and who install these systems professionally. We hired his company (AMEK) to install windows and siding on our house in Bloomington, MN. Work got started around April or May 2017. We had to leave town for a while due to a family crisis. Workers installed our expensive fiberglass windows while we were out of town. We came back to discover that they had dropped at least three of the windows while installing them, damaging hardwood floors in three rooms. AMEK never mentioned this to us. The nearly $100,000 we paid for the work was not enough to interest them in managing our job properly. They hired an untrained subcontractor to install our expensive siding. The contractor they sent over had never installed cement board siding before. In fact, they had never done any work for AMEK, and AMEK had no idea of the quality of their work, or lack thereof. AMEK did not send anyone to the house to supervise these workers. I had to do it myself, which defeats the purpose of hiring a General Contractor. It was clear that the subcontractor could not do the job. AMEK agreed to replace them, but hired another subcontractor that I had to supervise as well. The subcontractor had to do a bunch of repairs to the exterior before they could install the siding. The AMEK carpenters had left quite a bit of work undone when they left the job site. The subcontractor also left before all the caulking was done. I had to finish up that work myself. The existing front porch (concrete) needed to be redone, but AMEK was not interested in helping us make decisions about any of the work to be done. We expected some help from the contractor in this area but got none. We ended up paying them to redo the porch as an add-on, at an exorbitant price. They sent a concrete sub-contractor to do this work. This contractor was obnoxious and unfriendly and did not understand that he was being paid to do a specific job and that the quality of the work matters. He attempted to cut every corner imaginable. Their work was entirely unprofessional. An employee of AMEK did come over during this phase and ensured that the final product was acceptable, by re-doing some of the work himself. We also had several other issues with the overall quality of work on this project. I was promised that no wood would be left exposed to the elements, necessitating maintenance, by the time the project was over. Since there was no coordination between AMEK and subcontractors that they hired, we ended up with wood trim left around the garage door, and other doors, which will require painting and maintenance. Also, they used plastic wood as trim on the new outside front porch (in Minnesota, which gets cold in the winter). This was an inappropriate use of plastic material that should never be used outdoors in Minnesota. Every winter, we have several cracks out there that are a half-inch wide, allowing moisture and whatever else to get behind the trim. AMEK promised to come back that summer and fix this, but they never showed up. This contractor does not understand the proper use of materials and the proper installation of exterior systems on houses. They took our money and promised us spectacular results. They delivered poor quality work and did not even do most of the work themselves. They hired unqualified contractors to work on our house, after promising us that the work would be of very high quality. This is not what we got. I would avoid AMEK at all costs. Also, they did not finish the job until the middle of fall, about six months after they started.
