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"Bobby and his crew were on-time, reasonably priced, and they did a great job! Great clean-up too. "

"We used The Powell Company for several jobs on our house near Oneonta before realizing our mistake, so we have the experience to warn others. First, this company makes some very stupid “mistakes”. For example, they put a downspout directly over an electrical outlet, and they replaced items on our house that were NOT the rotted ones. We had to call them back to move the downspout so it wouldn’t block the outlet, and to replace the correct items; they got angry and blamed US for cutting into their profit because doing the work the right way would cost them money. Second, they cut corners or use cheap materials despite the impact on their customers; for example, they used plastic gutter brackets that broke in a season instead of metal ones that hold up year after year. Third, good builders try to think ahead and account for contingencies in a project in advance and fairly, but in our experience Powell didn’t use its imagination because it just put all risk of an unknown or cost overrun on us. This can result in large avoidable and unnecessary costs for the homeowner. Third, being lawyers, we recognized that proposals Powell gave us, which become binding contracts once signed, were, in our opinion, unfairly one-sided — they protected only Powell in any contingency that arose during their work and if any litigation came from the contract. We tried to change this to protect ourselves too, but could not. We have found other builders who are fairer from the get-go, or who will promptly agree to changes to lopsided proposals, and such an attitude speaks volumes. Last, but certainly not least, we foolishly didn’t get other bids for a few jobs that Powell did. When we wised up, we found that Powell cost 2-4 times what other builders did for the jobs we were doing. Bottom line — we caution anyone considering using The Powell Company."

"Astar: S#!tshow Incorporated An absolute catastrophe from the moment I sent them money until they finally got their act together to finish the project four and a half months later (with mediocre results at best). Their ability to communicate was abysmal and they utterly failed to take any sort of meaningful responsibility several times over. They proved unable to track information both internally and especially coming from me (even by email!) and in the end seem not to have much of an understanding of the products they sell. The trouble initially arose from their failure to note the several times I told them I was in Putnam rather than Dutchess county. It turns out they're not licensed to work in Putnam, but rather than doing the right thing and telling me that so that we could find a solution, they gave me nebulous excuses about how there was a snag with the electrical permit and that it was going to take a little more time. They were quick to get some things installed (probably so I couldn't walk away from the contract if I learned what was really going on), but then were unresponsive and would only give me a runaround on when things would happen and never answered my questions fully. This issue almost screwed me out of a rebate as I had to tell them several times that I'm with NYSEG instead of Central Hudson before they got it right. Their initial timing estimate left me with the choice of shlepping diesel for a few weeks to keep my hot water running or dealing with 100+ gallons of fuel oil when the job was done, so I went with the former. That would've been easy if it had hit their early target of two weeks and a reasonable but manageable hassle at their late target of six. They left me cold for three unexpected months (Jan-Apr) during which I spent many hours and hundreds of dollars on diesel, firewood, and electric heaters (not to mention an astronomical electric bill). In compensation they took roughly $1200 off my $43000 bill, which feels about like getting a dollar tip on a $20 check. Along the way, there were other issues (such as their plan to leave the boiler "as a backup" for me to deal with despite my having told their sales rep point blank that my whole aim was to remove the boiler). The quality of work was OK, but by no means great. The vents they use are absurdly cheap, don't really open & close properly, and the control knob frequently comes out when I try to operate them. Information from the installation planning meeting was either ignored or changed on the fly but their technicians, and one of their guys gouged my mechanical room door while removing the old boiler tank (which would've been easily avoided with the extra minute's work to put a blanket over it) & didn't so much as apologize for it. On top of it all, I'm still finding trash from the job around my property. Finally, their design of the system doesn't allow different rooms to run different functions; an issue I never would have accepted if I'd known. (for what it's worth, that seemed a surprise to the technician who came back to address the non-functioning thermostat they initially left me with). Also: upon the end their last scheduled install day, and with zero warning that this was going to happen, the installer demanded that I pay the remaining $23000 balance right then and there as though everyone simply has that amount of cash in their checking account or available on their credit card at all times and would not leave until I put half on a card, only accepting the half payment because I could name issues they still needed to come back and fix. Jason, the rep that sold me the system in the first place was kind, courteous, and gave me lots of faith in that company. I don't believe that was misleading me intentionally, but I deeply wish that they'd sent someone less likable and more reflective of the way their company actually operates. They sell an image of professionalism that absolutely misrepresents them as a company. Listen to the complaints about their outlandish pricing and terrible service. Jason told me that Yelp offered to scrub the bad reviews for them for an exorbitant amount of money and to trust the other sites, but I can only conclude that it's a lot cheaper to manage your brand image on Angi and other, less ubiquitous review sites."