Affordable Handyman Service
Serving Shiloh, GA and surrounding areas
In business since 2007
Free estimates
Emergency services offered
"The work done on my rental house looks pretty good. Of course, there?s more to repair and paint work than what can be seen on the surface. Since I could only check in about once a day, I would generally have to trust that work was being performed to my expectations.
It was on one of my daily stops that my crisis of confidence began. Some of my vertical window moldings had concave and cracked faces at their lower ends -- sure signs that they were rotting inside. I had pointed these out to Jason, when he came to bid the job. He had said they would be repaired with a Bondo-like filler, before being painted. What I found in my spot check, was that the cracks had been filled with caulk, as if they were simply going to be painted over, with no repair to the rot. I pointed this out to the painter, and told him that was not OK. He agreed, saying they had been caulked by mistake, and that the moldings would be repaired properly. I also spoke to Jason on the phone. He apologized, and said the bad spots would be replaced with new wood sectioned in.
When I was called to the site on the last day, for final check and payment, I found that the moldings were not repaired, and had simply been painted over! I was probing them with a knife blade, but, Jason joined in with a screwdriver, gouging out rot from the moldings I had been aware of, and found several more moldings that needed repair. Jason said it would all be taken care of in the next hour or so.
We also looked at a repair he had made to a rotted garage door frame that we had discussed on our initial meeting. At that meeting, we agreed that the wood should not run all the way to the concrete -- that being a common construction error that leads to rot. We agreed that there should be an uncaulked, 3/8 inch gap, to allow for air circulation, and to prevent wicking of water. I was SO glad to find someone that understood this commonsense approach to such a common problem. But, the repair DID run all the way to the to the concrete, and was caulked around. When I made note of that, Jason said it was not a problem, because he had used pressure-treated wood for the 4-inch repair section. He might be right. He might be wrong, with the contact still allowing water to wick up to the original wood above the repair. But, the real issue is that the repair was not done as we had agreed.
I left for a while, so the rot repairs could be made, and so I might get a grip on my tension. It was about 90 minutes before I was called back. I spent most of that time asking myself questions like these: How could home repair guys either A), not recognize obviously rotted molding, or B), think it is ever OK to paint over rotten wood? How could they make the same mistake a second time, when it had already been pointed out to them? Could proper repairs be done to the rotted wood in the last 90 minutes of a week-long job? Had all other aspects of the work been done as we had agreed, and/or to accepted best practices? I DON'T KNOW, and, I don?t appreciate being forced to entertain such questions.
When I got back, Jason showed me where he had sectioned in wood to the areas of worst rot, and had used Bondo-filler on the others. As we were going over the bill, he stated that he had not charged me for any rot repair, noting there was no line-item for it on the estimate. Really? Lacking any evidence to the contrary, I would have expected that a certain amount of rot repair is figured into a paint job in the same way that a certain amount of decking repair is figured into a roofing job. At any rate, we had certainly discussed rot repair when he came to bid the job.
I?ll conclude with a point in Jason?s favor. I had taken bids from two other repair guys. I did not hire them, in part, because they resisted the notion that Masonite and fiber cement boards needed to have their backs and edges painted even where it would not show, to give them proper service life. Jason did understand this, and did see that all sides were painted. He also used a recommended primer for fiber cement products that I had not been aware of.
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+9
Recommended by93%of homeowners
