Sunrooms America unprofessional conduct and room not up to code Ripoff Williamstown New Jersey

I recently purchase a Sunroom from Sunrooms America and totally disagree with the negative comments made. Sounds like the buyer did not take the time to read his contract ask questions or know the Construction requirments of the Township he lives in. I have nothing but respect for all of the employees who work for Sunrooms America. I was always treated in a professional manner by the staff and they were available anytime I needed to have a question answered. The product they sell was of excellent quality and I enjoy the time I spend in my Sunroom each day. I highly recommend Sunrooms America and look forward to purchasing more of their products that they sell in the future and working with thier staff again.

Donna
Sicklerville,NJ

My name is Jon Cray, I am the Project Manager for Sunrooms America and I take full responsiblility for this job in question. Recently, this posting was brought to my attention via one of my friends surfing the net and this is the first time I was able to offer my side of the story. Let me start by publicly thanking Steve and all of our customers for choosing Sunrooms America to build their dream Sunrooms.



I will try to address each of Steve's concerns in a chronological order; 1.) The average sunroom contract calls for 8-12 weeks to start building once full deposit has been secured. This project included a new concrete foundation and floor system. Excavation, soil prep, rebar, insulation, form boards, concrete material, concrete mix installation and final finish on concrete were all part of just the foundation (including a min. of one week cure time). Project also included custom tie-in to existing house at both the wall and roof areas. Additionally, this contract called for custom electric work, new flooring (carpet) along with all finish trim work. Our customers are told that the sunroom walls and roof usually are erected within 3-5 days once the sunroom foundation is fully inspected (via local township inspection) and is ready as per IBC & IRC codes.



Prior to any of the afore mentioned work being started, SRA goes through a series of processes to ensure all projects are designed to meet local and national building codes. Sunrooms are designed and built via a licensed engineer's approval along with over-sight from local township building officials. It is my job to coordinate the many trades involved at different times to ensure a smooth flow on any given job i.e.concrete, sunroom crew, electrician, etc. In scheduling projects, there are times when the customers are given approx. timetables on when the work will be started and stopped. We follow-up with many different forms of communications (phone, e-mail, letters, etc.) most of which are phone calls. There have been times when we communicate with one spouse and the other spouse assumes we never contact them. We have an extensive call log documented from this project showing many calls to the customers during the entire project (from signing of contract to completion of all work). Back to the construction of the sunroom, once the walls and roof are installed, the electric team comes in to begin work.



2.) SRA contracts state customers are responsible for supplying light fixtures. The reason we have customers supply light fixtures is the many different styles and colors available are too numerous to have in stock, so we have customers choose via their local stores to ensure it fits with their project based upon their personal preferrence. This is a standard practice with ALL of our basic contracts. When customer was informed that there was a problem installing a switch in a certain location, this was based on a reasonable expectation of normal access to areas of the house to run electric lines. Given unlimited time and money, one could accomplish just about any desired result. What this customer was demanding, could not be accomplished within a reasonable amount of time and still be as per NEC (National Electric Code) guidelines. The light fixture for the door area was too large to fit properly, so customer was asked to re-purchase a smaller unit.



Anyone reading this story should be advised that unless this customer went down to his local township building department and took out a new electric permit to move the wiring, he is non-compliant on his house electric system and may not be eligible to receive any insurance payments if his property suffers and damage due to his electric system. Having stated he had the electric "moved the next day by someone else", leads me to believe no new permit was issued (permits take 1-2 weeks on average to approve and issue) and the person who moved the wiring was not a licensed professional, as a reputable licensed electrician would not risk their state license or the possible threat of being sued for working without a permit listed under their license number. SRA always uses licensed electricians for our projects, we have four different crews throughout the tri-state area and yes, one of them is a relative of the owner.



3.) Carpet trash...My carpet crew was trying to clean-up upon completing the install and ran short of trash bags. I apologized to customers for crew asking for a trash bag and I personally removed every bit of debris and trash from the job site upon learning of this problem. At this point, I should mention that customer has had a great deal of things go right with this project and appears to focus his displeasure on a couple of minor issues. I strive to have 100% customer satisfaction, however, some project issues must be handled to ensure compliance with both safety and legal matters. This brings me to our next issue...



4.) Seepage Pit...customers' local township had recently enacted a local ordiance requiring new additions to incorporate water run-off management aka seepage pit. The township had placed this requirement onto the permit approval. SRA did not learn of this requirement until after the permit was approved and issued. The contract that was signed by customers clearly states that if any additional work is required by local governments, customers will be responsible to comply at their expense. Once I became aware of the seepage pit issue, I contacted customers and offered to assist them in handling this matter short of paying for or installing the seepage pit i.e. drawing-up plans and calculations for pit, finding a qualified contractor to perform needed work, etc. . Here is the real 'Kick-in the head' regarding this issue, SRA ended up refunding customers enough money to have an outside contractor install a new seepage pit, when we were not legally or morally obligated to give them a dime!!!



The local township even admitted to "throwing the seepage pit in at the last minute" and stating that this requirement was now being enforced on all new impervious ground covering projects i.e. roof covers, solid patio covers (concrete), etc.. SRA ownership was made aware of all of the afore mentioned circumstances along with the statement by customers that they could not afford this seepage pit work, so a decision was made to refund customers enough money to have the pit installed and allow the customers to enjoy their new sunroom (no strings attached).



5.) customer had requested names of some of the workers involved on their project, however, this request turned into something more of a personal nature...I do not release personal/private information of my workers. Customer would not tell me the reason(s) for this request! SRA performs extensive backround checks on both our employees and our sub-contractors and have independent checks via our business partners i.e. Home Depot, etc.. Now I've saved the most important issue for last...customer likes to use the expression 'LIES'. I take great offense to these remarks as I am a Christian above all else and my reputation as such is more important to me than possibly upsetting a customer who may not always like what I have to tell them. As a project manager, I must balance the needs of the customer as well as getting work properly completed in a timely fashion. There are many factors that I must deal with on a daily basis i.e. customers' schedules, business schedules (incl. sub-contractors & other professional vendors), deliveries, employee schedules, job schedules, etc..



I have been doing this professionally now for over 24 years. SRA has installed over 2,000 rooms and enjoys a very good reputation through out this industry (we are the only sunroom company that has been accepted into the South Jersey Builders League Association)and the tri-state area. I could not survive nor could SRA in this modern day business environment, if either of us truly were representative of this customers' accusations of being dishonest! Hopefully, this correspondance has shed some light onto the total story involving this project and I welcome questions from any and all readers of this report. Thank you to the web-site for affording me the opportunity to state my side of this story...



Sincerely,



Jon Cray

SRA Project Manager