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"I don’t feel good about giving bad reviews, since I know there are consequences when a company gets a bad review, and everyone we dealt with at Winter Hill, from the project manager on down were nice people, who I am sure were dealing with many Covid-related issues, as my family was. However, we have been members of Angie’s List for many years, and rely on people like us to give honest reviews. So, I have to be honest in saying that this project turned out to be a bad experience and that we would not use Winter Hill again. The project we hired Winter Hill to work on was a re-model of our existing finished basement. The basement had been finished by the previous owners, but had water issues. So, we were looking for a contractor to rip out the existing drywall and carpet and refinish the basement. We hired a separate contractor to do the basement waterproofing. Since it was just a replacement of the existing basement, we (perhaps naively) expected the project to go fairly smoothly. The process started out fairly well. We received a relatively timely quote from the estimator, although we had to correct the scope of work several times. As it turned out, the estimator left some key items out of their quote that they really should have captured, such as the cost of a plumber. Winter Hill’s quoted price was higher than we had expected to replace an existing finished basement, but the contractor with the lowest price was not going to be able to fit us into his schedule for 6 months, so we chose to go with Winter Hill. The process of ripping out the existing basement went okay, though we had to call a few times to get the contractor out to do the work. The waterproofing contractor finished their work at the end of August 2020. And, after that, is when the problems really started. Most of our problems stemmed from very poor communication. Starting in September, we felt lucky if we could get one piece of the work on the basement construction done each week, and oftentimes whole weeks went by with no work getting accomplished, and little explanation from the contractor. I cannot count the number of times we were told we would hear back from them that evening or the next day, and all we got was silence. My assumption, though I have no concrete proof, is that we were very low on this contractor’s priority list, so that work only got done when their employees were in the middle of other jobs. Regardless, this, in my opinion, relatively simple project, took 8 months to complete (into March 2021) and I fear that it would have taken much longer to complete if I was not constantly calling/texting our project manager to get things moving. Now, if Winter Hill is going to be honest with themselves, I think they would accept this aspect of the review without much rebuttal. We certainly received our share of apologies from them for delays and for people not showing up when they said they would, while the work was ongoing. However, I worry that they will respond by saying that there were things outside of their control that resulted in delays, such as problems we had getting inspectors from the Town to come out. While it is true that there were those types of issues, they caused delays of a few days or weeks, at most. The poor communication also extended to far more than simply when the contractors would show up. As just one example, we selected a vinyl tile for the floor of the basement. The contractor told us that they could not apply vinyl tile on the stairs, and that the stairs would have to be done in wood, but that it would be “no problem” to find a stain to match the vinyl floor. In fact, it turned out that (1) the vinyl tile could be applied to the stairs and (2) the contractor could not match the stain. After seeing the color of the vinyl tile we selected, we asked for weeks (if not months) for samples of the stain they would use on the stairs, so we could give our approval. However, it was only on the day the stairs were installed, while the carpenters were working on the stairs, that we were given a few minutes to select a stain from three choices before the work commenced. Two of the stains were nowhere near the floor color, so we picked the only stain color that was remotely close. After one coat was applied, we stopped the work after seeing it at the end of the day, because the colors did not match at all. After that, we performed our own research and found out that the manufacturer of the vinyl floor made a stair tread in the same style. This is something we should have been told at the start of the project, as that is the option we would have selected. It ultimately turned out that the stair tread was back-ordered from the manufacturer, which caused further delays in completing the project. Even after the tread became available, I had to go purchase the stair tread for myself to get the project moving. Worse, at the close of the project, Winter Hill charged us for a “change order” done on the stairs due to the need to do the work on the stairs twice. It was their fault the work needed to be done twice. Moreover, at no point before or while the “extra” work was being done, did they tell us there would be an additional charge for the stairs or what that would be. I will freely admit that really ****** me off. There are many other examples I can give of communication problems. Winter Hill had to be reminded to do things multiple times, like replacing a door in the basement (part of our contract) or leaving gaps in the insulation for access to the waterproofing system. We had multiple issues with the relatively simple closet where our laundry machines were located, having to explain what we wanted many times in order to make sure it was done correctly. Initially, we were fine with a simple closet, but were talked into putting some shelving on the side by the project manager. Ultimately, the carpenter put a fairly fancy shelving system into the closet, despite that not being necessary. At no time prior to the work being done was it mentioned that there would be an extra charge for the shelves or how much it would cost, but again, we were presented with a bill for that “extra work” at the end of the project. In terms of the quality of work that was performed, I would say it was average to below average. Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that the project manager was rarely at the site to oversee the work. We would see him perhaps once every few months, and hardly ever while the actual work was being done. This led to issues like the vinyl floor not being installed all the way to the doors (you could see the concrete floor right in front of the door), no paint over some of the windows, holes in the drywall not plastered over and painted, a stain on the vinyl floor left over from the stair staining process, cracks in the molding on the stairs, nails sticking out from the stairs, some sagging stair treads, and missing molding on the stairs. Even after the project manager came out to review the work, these were issues that we largely had to identify ourselves and press to get resolved before the project was finished. Neither my wife nor I have any construction experience, so it leaves me to wonder what other issues there might be that we missed. This was our perspective of the experience. Perhaps we expected too much, but we have done other large projects with other contractors that did their work on time and on budget, and where the quality of the work and attention to detail really blew us away. This is one of the most expensive projects we have done on our house, and we expected better service and quality than we received."

"John and his crew are the definition of professional carpenters. They were very kind and respectful of my property and did a thorough cleaning at the end of each day. I would absolutely recommend them and hire them again!"

"Excellent! Gil was fantastic and his team did everything to plan and the workmanship is terrific - the renovation exceeds our expectations in every way. Gil worked to the budget and we had discussions if we wanted changes made/additions. I highly recommend New England Carpentry."

"Responsive, thorough, knowledgeable,"

"Great company! Had a great project experience with Absolute. Mike was very responsive and made himself available every step of the way. We’re very happy we chose to work with him."

"I was with the contractor that made me think that because my good credit I was getting a good financing interest around 7% and he did not tell me that my granite steps had to be removed, he told me after the loan went through at a rate of almost 14% at this moment I would like to cancel the project, I am under a lot of stress and having back issues I am afraid that because I take time off from work I am not going to be able to pay for this high interest loan."

"Jose and his team were amazing. Deck exceeded my expectations. Always here when they said they would be. Extremely efficient, respectful, and professional. Worked long hours to get the project finished ahead of schedule. Meticulous attention to detail. Respected property and always cleaned everything up at the end of the day. I had an exceptional experience with JCN. Highly recommend and plan on using them for future projects. Thank you for my amazing deck."

"They were all extremely professional"

"Was great to work with, hard workers would recommend to any who need work done on their pool"

"This company provided a quote for a new fiberglass pool that was 100k more than the other two companies that install Latham Pools in Massachusetts. Obviously I chose another company. Now that my pool is completed, I need to install a winter safety cover. So I submitted a request for a quote with McCarthy. Someone politely gets back to me and asked me to provide additional information so they could “provide a quote right away” which I do. I got an email back. 15 minutes later saying that now they won’t quote me because I didn’t have my pool installed by them. Insisting that in the last 15 minutes they decided to only install winter covers on pools that they installed. Clearly, this action was retaliatory as they are upset that they weren’t able to take advantage of me for an additional hundred thousand dollars. It’s also really poor business form that you’re not even going to compete for my maintenance business because of your hubris. Since installing my pool, I enjoyed telling people that I saved 100K by avoiding McCarthy. N now I get to add to my story! Not only are they trying to rip people off, but they get mad when customers catch them price gouging. If you’re looking for a Lathan pool, there are much more cost-effective options as there are two other installers are located in Massachusetts. My suggestion would be to make sure you get a quote from all three."