Tilley Construction, Inc. Brian Tilley residential remodel Warren MI

This is a long review but if you are considering working with Brian Tilley, please read so you can be informed and aware of what working with Tilley Construction may entail.

When we began remodeling our home, we had never been involved with such an extensive construction job before. We got a seemingly sincere and nice impression of Brian and therefore felt we could trust him to lead us honestly through this new daunting process.

What ended up happening was far FAR from that. 

First off, we were under-quoted for the price of the job, which we learned is common among contractors to convince you to hire them, but he immediately took advantage of our trust and asked for insane (and unheard of) percentages of the total price upfront (which we later found out was NOT at all common or legal).

Then very soon after, he came with change order after change order which ended up adding up to literally triple the cost of what we were originally quoted. He justified all these change orders, and blamed us for upgrading everything to an extreme. This didn’t make sense because the architect drawings we submitted to him were never revised or changed for the entire project. 

However, we paid (out of pocket) for all and any “upgrades” that were needed/wanted as we went along, as well as for many other items that he had originally assured us he would cover. He reassured us numerous times that the price he quoted us will cover absolutely everything except the hardware. This was NOT so.

We were surprised with the abnormally large amounts on the change orders and much of the details of it did not add up or make sense to us, but we went along anyway under his threats that he would literally walk off our job without it. 

He also conveniently neglected to inform us that he was really required to present us with change orders BEFORE any changes or upgrades are made, and that according to our contract he cannot come after the fact and tell us he made such and such changes and now we need to pay up. 

This lack of honesty was astounding and very insulting to our intelligence and integrity as well.

Wanting to move forward and be done with it all, we paid those change orders in full. 

What he did with that money, who knows, because even after coming for a “final” change order (In which he informed us that he’s not paying for tiles, carpeting, flooring or paint - all things he said was covered in his original bid, and which we reluctantly paid in full), he came with yet another MAJOR one towards the very end of the project! We could not make any sense of it. It was a mix of items we had paid for and “changes'' that were actually included in our original blueprints! We asked him to explain, and he tried to but got frustrated with all our very valid questions and refused to continue the conversation.

He then started becoming extremely disrespectful to my wife, yelling at her, and threatening us that we will never be able to move back home, because he will not get us approval from the city if we do not give into his extortion. 

We should have sensed something was off from the beginning, when he asked for  40% of the entire money for this project upfront. But he had told us he needed it so he could start buying material and he wanted to start working on the house right away, so we trusted him and gave him ALL that. 

He took that 40%  and disappeared for two months and didn’t do one thing to our house. We were told by experts in the profession that he likely took our money and spent it elsewhere. We had never done this before, we trusted him and assumed it was normal. BIG mistake.

Our main issue with Brian was his dishonesty. His lies came at us so fast and so many that we began recording them in case we would need them for legal purposes.  He only stopped harassing me and yelling at me and my wife that we owe him money and he is in debt because of us, when I told him I have these recordings of him endlessly contradicting himself.

If that was it and the end of our dealings with him it would have been more than enough for us.

But it was not so.

His lack of straight-forwardness and honesty turned into a plumbing nightmare for us just a few months after finally moving into our newly renovated home. 

From the very beginning, even before we started our renovations, we told him that the sewer line to the house will need to be entirely replaced, because we’ve had problems with it in the past. He said of course, no problem and brought in a couple of reputable plumbing companies to give estimates. At the last minute, he informed me that we will not be using any of those companies we had approved and said he would be doing it all by himself. 

I was not thrilled with that idea, and I told him so. 

I was concerned that if we were to have an issue sometime down the line I will not have a company that guarantees their work to call and fix the problem. He reassured me that he can do everything perfectly and we can call him if there is a problem. 

He signed in our agreement that he would do a brand new sewer line, ALL THE WAY to the city one. 

Fast forward a few months later, after we have moved back into our home and we have a massive sewer backup in our basement. He came by to help with it and see what was wrong. He told us it was blocked with something and most likely one of our kids flushed a stuffed animal down the toilet. We were kind of skeptical, because this has never happened before and we’ve had a handful of kids around for over 15 years!

But we accepted his answer and help, and let it go. 

A few weeks later, there was another sewage back up.  This time I called for a plumbing company and they sent a camera all the way down the line. We were shocked when they informed us that the new line did not go all the way to the city as Brian had put in writing that it did. Instead, it stopped about 20 feet before the city and for 20 feet, it was all old pipe and that old pipe head collapsed right at the connection point between the new and the old pipe. You can see the picture I attached which shows the old pipe he attached to.

The sewer company was shocked that Brian did such a dishonest thing. 

Brian then admitted to me that he didn’t do the job as he said he would but with no apology and certainly no resolve to take responsibility for the sewer repair that now cost us well over $10,000. We were and still are amazed at this outright act of fraud. We had no idea that  because he is not a certified plumber, he was not allowed to go all the way to the city. He knew this the whole time and did not let us know, leading us to think that he would do as we requested.

This was one of four plumbing issues we had.

To this day, he has convinced himself and tries to convince us that all of his financial and personal issues are our fault. It is sad that not only does he lie to those he works with, but he even lies to himself.

He left us with renovations, but a very bad taste in our mouths from his lack of integrity and quite frankly-  the abuse we endured while working with him.