Buchanan Screen, Rail & Windows
I hired this company to build a simple 16ft x 14ft patio screen with roof. They delayed and dragged their feet for 9 weeks before they filed for the building permit. State law requires that the permit be filed for within 30 days of taking more than 10% payment in advance. They took 50% up front.
10 weeks into the waiting period they finally called me to say that they were picking up the building permit only because of my repeated calls and complaints to them and I had to have the city where I live flag their company to inform me when and if they applied for the building permit. After they picked up the building permit they held it for 22 days before calling me to say they would begin work the following week. No one showed up to start working and no one called me.
90 days after signing the contract, I was sitting by the phone all day waiting for another promised phone call to talk about my project. The call never came. After I called the office again, I got a relayed excuse and another apology thru the office clerk. During the entire waiting period I got nothing but excuses, un-returned phone calls and half-truths by office staff who gave me different stories each time I called. A few days after I posted a negative comment on their business face book page they seemed to become motivated, but deleted my comment about their poor customer service.
110 days after signing the contract they said they are ready to begin work. The 1st phase started and passed inspection but on the day they said they were going to pour the concrete they didnt show up and they didnt call me to explain why.
4 months into the project, the only thing completed has been the pouring of the concrete slab. To install the slab they removed my patio paver blocks and 6 inches of dirt. They piled the dirt up on my grass near the curb and left it there. I had to haul the dirt away myself because it killed my grass in a spot measuring 8 ft x 13 ft, not to mention that the concrete guys poured the excess concrete on top of the dirt when they finished. It was huge mess for me to deal with. The guy that prepared my patio for the concrete slab was supposed to return to replace the bricks between the concrete slab and the remaining bricks which required cutting of the stones to make them fit. They guy never returned so I had to finish the job myself.
At 4 1/2 months, they started building the frame and roof, but they ordered the wrong roof panel and had to stop work to order the correct roof panel. I wanted a roof that could be used to install a ceiling fan but they didnt include that right panel and then charged me another $500.00 to include it and he tried to talk his way out of ordering the correct panel. Since the roof was not constructed to mount a ceiling fan it was framed and installed 3 inches lower than it could have been; now I have lost 3 inches in ceiling height because they got my order wrong. The co-owner who came to my house to do the initial project got amnesia about the ceiling fan and claimed we never talked about it. He is the one that told me
they had special roof panels to mount a ceiling fan. He also told me I was getting a 4 inch roof when in fact what came was a 3 inch roof. To top it off, the sales person who wrote my order no longer works for them.
At 4 months and 3 weeks the project was finally completed and Buchanan was paid in full. One month after Buchanan was paid, a sub-contractor called me to inform me that they had not been paid by Buchanan. This company placed a lien on my house for the cost they were not paid. Under Florida law, the sub-contractor can place a lien on my house because the primary contractor failed to pay them.
After the first heavy rain came, the roof leaked at the seam where the two roofs meet each other. This is not the kind of thing I expected from a new enclosure. This forced me to have to climb up on the roof and caulk the seam where the roofs coming together. Many months and a few hundred dollars later I am still trying to stop the leaking when it rains.
The totality of negative issues with this project has really soured me on this company. The actual work only took 5 days to build the enclosure but it took the company over 4 months to actually get it finished.
I checked with the Better Business Bureau to discover there are complaints on file against this company dealing with the same issues I had with them. The official complaints are as follows: Failure to honor contract agreement, unsatisfactory customer service, failure to provide assistance in a timely manner, failure to address or respond to customer dissatisfaction, unavailability for customer support and inappropriate attitude exhibited by company staff.
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