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Report: #645180

Complaint Review: Lone Star Remodeling - Internet

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  • Reported By: Michael — Houston Texas USA
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  • Lone Star Remodeling Internet United States of America

Lone Star Remodeling Lone Star Remodeling - Gary Hartman Inattention to Detail, Shoddy Craftsmanship Internet

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The two words I would use to describe Lone Star Remodeling is incompetent and careless.  My wife and I just finished a 14-week kitchen remodel with Lone Star (15 weeks if you count our having to hire at our expense an outside appliance installer to properly install our electric stove) and it has been one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life.  The inattention to detail is pervasive throughout the company and runs from its owner Garry Hartman to his field supervisor and down to his workers.

The problems with Lone Star began with the cabinets.  Garry Hartman is an authorized dealer of Brandom Cabinets and sold us on these by claiming these were all-wood cabinets and possessed superior construction and materials.  The first problem with the cabinets was that Garry Hartman ordered the wrong sized cabinet.  Our kitchen plan called for a 36-inch wide appliance pantry to go in next to our ovens.  As construction progressed, we noticed that the placement of light switches would put them behind our appliance pantry.  That is when we realized that the wrong sized cabinet had been ordered.  The workers were working off of a plan that called for a 30-inch wide cabinet a big difference.  Lone Star had to re-place the order and essentially buy a second appliance pantry at their expense.



This change to our order further delayed the construction of our cabinets.  What was supposed to be a three-week turnaround turned into six weeks.  When the cabinets finally arrived, they were some of the cheapest constructed cabinets I had ever seen (similar in quality to those bookshelves you buy at discount stores and assemble at home) and the painted finishes on them were horrible.  Almost every painted joint on every door was cracked, the insides of some cabinets had so little paint applied that you could see bare wood beneath them and one cabinet had someones footprint on the inside.  The cabinets were primarily constructed of fiberboard and were assembled using plastic braces and staples.  I was appalled.



So too was Brandom Cabinets field supervisor.  He personally came to our house and saw how poorly the cabinets were finished and apologized profusely to us.  To his credit, he took all of the cabinets back and credited Lone Star Remodeling for all charges.



When I questioned Garry Hartman on how cheaply constructed the cabinets were, he told me that he was mislead by Brandom on their construction materials and technique.  I dont believe this on two accounts; first, I had been told that Lone Star Remodeling had just installed Brandom cabinets in another customers bathroom, so they had to have known what they looked like and secondly, as an authorized dealer of Brandom cabinets (and someone who stood to make a nice sales commission on the cabinets he sold us), Garry Hartman should have had intimate knowledge of the product he was selling.



We ended up having our kitchen cabinets custom-made locally.  We decided to do this because we felt we would have better visibility over the quality of construction and finishes.  We gave Lone Star Remodeling the go-ahead to have these cabinets made at an additional cost of $6,000 added to our contract price.  On my first visit to the cabinet maker, I was distraught to learn that Garry Hartman had given him instructions to make a 30-inch wide appliance pantry the same exact mistake Garry Hartman had made before with the Brandom cabinets.  I could not believe that any one person could have been so careless.  Thankfully, that mistake got corrected in time.  After 4 additional weeks (and 10 weeks after the initial demolition of our kitchen), our cabinets were finally ready to be installed.  The painting of the cabinets took an additional 2 weeks and was done in our house after the cabinets had been installed.



But the cabinet story does not end there.  We were having a hutch-like cabinet built in our breakfast room, with a base cabinet and 36-inch tall upper cabinets.  Again, Garry Hartman ordered the wrong sized cabinet, and we ended up with a 42-inch tall cabinet that made the hutch look disproportionate and caused issues with the installation of the crown moulding in the room.  We accepted the larger cabinet because after living for 10 weeks in our bedroom (our living room and dining room were full of boxes of kitchen stuff), we couldnt stomach any more delays.  I really could not believe that any one person could be so inattentive to detail.  This was the third mistake Garry Hartman had made in ordering our cabinets.



Lone Star Remodeling also tiled our kitchen floor.  This job was botched.  They did not level the floor prior to laying tiles and subsequently had many tiles that were laid unevenly next to each other.  We made Lone Star Remodeling replace several of the tiles, but there are still instances where we cannot roll our vacuum cleaner over the floor without an uneven edge stopping the vacuum.  We have already noticed that some tiles have chipped on their edges because of the unevenness.



Lone Star Remodelings field supervisor and one of their workers did the plumbing for our dishwasher, sink and disposal.  I had to show one of the workers that he had installed the water lines over the hose to our pull-out faucet and had pinned it against the back of the cabinet.  This prevented the hose from retracting properly.  You would think that an installer would make sure that something as basic as a pull-out faucet operated properly, but that was not the case.  Had I not pointed this out, he would have left it as is.



Two days later, when we were moving back into our kitchen and putting things under the sink, I noticed that there was standing water inside my cabinet.  At this point, Lone Star Remodeling hired a third-party plumbing contractor to come and fix the leaks.  It took two plumbers four hours to fix the problem.  The plumbers actually sawed-out all of the existing plumbing and redid it from scratch. 



In trying to install our electric cooktop, Lone Star Remodeling scratched the stainless steel trim ring that encircles the cooktop.  Garry Hartman insists that this was done during shipping, but the cooktop installer that we ultimately hired to install the stove said otherwise, stating it was obviously scratched by Lone Star Remodelings workers.  Lone Star Remodeling opened the box that the cooktop came in, removed the cooktop from the box and then removed the protective film over the stainless steel that protected it during shipping.  At no time did they notice any damage from shipping.  It was only when I came in my kitchen to inspect the backsplash being installed that I saw the damage.  I noticed because Lone Star Remodelings workers had tools and a bucket of grout sitting on our uncovered and unprotected cooktop.



Lone Star Remodeling could not figure out how to fasten the cooktop to my counters, but they wired the stove to power and told me I could use it in the meantime.  I later found out that the cooktop was not installed properly.  For plywood cabinets, a heat deflector needs to be installed (this tidbit of information was displayed prominently on page 1 of the installation instructions) and Lone Star Remodeling did not do this.  They were telling me it was alright to use a stove that was installed improperly and was a potential fire hazard.  At this point I took no chances and hired my own contractor to properly install the cooktop (which I did at my own expense.)



These are the major items that went wrong during this construction process but everyday was filled with other screw-ups that would not have been fixed had I not pointed them out.  The workers sheetrocked over a recessed lighting fixture, sheetrocked over our vent hood exhaust, left tape and paint on our kitchen floor, left visible holes in the sheetrock around light switches, installed my crown moulding so sloppily that they didnt meet in the corners there was a good one-half inch difference in where they met.  (They had all intentions of leaving it like this as they puttied it as it was and were going to paint it that way.) The wall painting was done carelessly and many spots were left not properly painted.  They installed our phone and cable TV jacks in one of the most sloppy, unprofessional manner I have ever seen.  I have since redone that in a proper way myself.  And finally, they constantly left the worksite messy and dirty.  All of the other subcontractors that worked on our job were steadfast about cleanliness.  Not Lone Star Remodeling.



I found out through the third party contractors that Lone Star Remodelings long-time field supervisor recently passed away.  His replacement, I was told, was a talented fellow but he quit to take a job as maintenance supervisor with a large company.  My wife and I were one of the first jobs to be handled by the current supervisor.  It is obvious that this man does not have the skill set of his predecessors.



Finally, right after my remodel job ended and Lone Star Remodeling removed their things from my garage, my 55 piece socket wrench set went missing.  I do not have proof that Lone Star Remodelings employees stole it, but considering Ive had that set for over 10 years and it suddenly went missing seems beyond coincidence.



If you dont consider the poor flooring job and some missed spots with the wall painting, the rest of my kitchen now looks fine.  This is a testament to the professionals that Lone Star Remodeling subcontracted with.  Lori Allen of Lori Allen Design convinced us to rethink our original design plan and she couldnt have been more right.  Our kitchen is bright, airy and open.  Miguel Arizola of Arizola Carpentry built our kitchen cabinets and he is a true artist and craftsman.  Corbett Thompson of C and K Painting painted the outsides of our kitchen cabinets and did a natural stain on the inside.  They are beautiful.  Glenn Martin of Stone and Wood Concepts did our granite countertops and granite windowsills.  It is almost impossible to find the seams between the pieces of granite they fused together.  Finally, the fellows at Alliance Plumbing came in and transformed a disarrayed jumble of leaky kitchen plumbing into a neat and watertight system.  I would highly recommend each of these professionals.



I cannot recommend Lone Star Remodeling.  Their inattention to detail is frustrating and time consuming.  Work has to be redone two or three times before it's right.  The workers require constant supervision and correction; otherwise they will be satisfied leaving you with substandard work.  The amount of time and effort that you would have to invest to insure that Lone Star Remodeling is doing their job properly would be better spent serving as your own general contractor and using the fine subcontractors I mentioned above.


This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 09/28/2010 06:32 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/lone-star-remodeling/internet/lone-star-remodeling-lone-star-remodeling-gary-hartman-inattention-to-detail-shoddy-cra-645180. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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