I rarely write negative reviews, but overall, I was disappointed with my experience with Mike. Starting with the positive: the quality of the work that was performed appears excellent. We had significant water damage and rot to the siding, exterior sheathing, and to some studs on one face of our house. As best I can tell, Mikeâ s team displayed great workmanship in stripping the rotted areas and rebuilding, including replacing insulation, replacing the sheathing, adding new house wrap, and installing new siding. Mike was also responsive while the work was ongoing. But there were four significant issues. (1) Permit and credibility issues. When the scope of the necessary work became apparent, I consulted with my local building department, and based on that conversation, asked Mike to obtain a building permit. He was very hesitant to do so but ultimately agreed. During the course of the project, he repeatedly assured me that the permit paperwork was in. However, it turned out that he did not actually file the permit application until the day the work was completed. Moreover, the application did not identify Mike as the contractor, but instead one of the workers, meaning that Mike might not have been on the hook if there were any issues. And it did not correctly state the scope of the workâ referring only to siding replacement and ignoring the significant additional work that he had been hired for. Most troubling was that Mike attached a contract to the application that I had never seen, much less signed. In fact, I had repeatedly requested from Mike a written contract/estimate, but Mike never provided one. After the permit application was filed, Mike requested full payment, insisting that no city inspection was needed. I paid him. The city, of course, disagreed and said that an inspection was required. But at that point, it was very difficult to get Mikeâ s cooperation - he had been paid and moved on. Luckily, the inspection eventually took place and was uneventful. But Mikeâ s slowness to cooperate after receiving payment was upsetting. (2) Unfinished work. As mentioned above, I repeatedly requested an estimate, which would have itemized all the agreed work. Mike never provided one. As a result, there were a number of items that remained unfinished even after Mikeâ s team stated that they had completed the job. They did eventually come back to address some of the issues, but we kept discovering more and more areas of repair that had been discussed with Mike but never addressed. (3) Cost and transparency. This was a big repair, certainly. But the scope of the repair did not become apparent until after some work had already been done. So over the course of the project, the estimate increased. Thatâ s to be expected to some extent. But I do feel that Mike took advantage of the difficulty that we would have had in asking him to stop work midway through the project to get alternative quotes, once the scope became clear. The cost was very high. And I repeatedly requested receipts for materials, which were never provided. (4) Expertise. Mike made some troubling recommendations that made me question his expertise. For example, we explained that we wanted to increase the R-value in our walls as a side benefit of doing the repairs, and he recommended a reflective insulation product that very clearly stated on the instructions that needed an air gap. But there was no space for an air gap in our installation. I called the manufacturer to confirm, and they agreed that their product would not provide any benefit in our situation. Likewise, there were specific instructions in the mineral wool insulation product that we did purchase, requiring cutting a hole in the insulation to make space for electrical boxes and other protrusions, and it was not clear that Mike knew of these requirements or intended to follow themâ even after we pointed them out.