December 2016 by Cindy L.
Terrible Contractor!!! Be very careful hiring Phil. He does a very good job of convincing you he is experienced when he is not. He took on a job to build an entire apartment for me and he was in way over his head. I really needed an expert and he ended up leading me in the wrong direction over and over again. He also did everything he could to use the cheapest products and go the cheapest route, one example is he removed 2 big beautiful windows and replaced them with small standard ones, when all I agreed to was they can be a little smaller. You cant put a window back once the space has been closed in! I was devastated over this. I have a large concrete basement that I told him I was going to finish and use for an additional room. He had the hot air heat unit installed completely right in the middle of it which took up half the room. I now have half of the space to use for a spare room than I would have had he had the heat installed in a better place and he had plenty of space to choose from he just didn't care. He also lied to me every step of the way when he was behind. He continued to say he would be ready and on the day I showed up with the movers, only half of the hard wood floor was installed!!! And because they installed the floor so quickly it was done poorly. Real hardwood floors, they were expensive and you can feel every crack under your feet, there are a few hills and valleys throughout the apartment, and several areas where they should have set aside some of the pieces of wood as they were really dark and they stand out like a sore thumb in a few areas. He didn't budget well, he asked me for additional payments even though that was not part of the original contract. In the end when all I owed was final payment upon completion and he kept pressuring me for more money when I told him no he threatened to not give me the keys to my own apartment. Complete jerk. He also had his child on the job site several times, which I thought was very unprofessional. When the city inspector came he said his work was sloppy. He had to do a few things over because they were safety hazards and the inspector wouldn't give me my certificate of occupancy unless they were fixed. These were obvious things that should have been done correctly in the first place, like having a door open over stairs, any contractor should know better than that. I would strongly caution hiring him for a big job, perhaps in a different setting he may have done better, but I completely regret hiring him. I am only sharing this to prevent anyone else from going through what I did.
