Carachure Remodeling, INC.

Chiril Russu

2023-08

Short version: 7 months before doing the kitchen remodel I get a quote - $6,600. ONE DAY before the tentative date of starting the work the price is still not finalized and I get a quote that is MORE THAN DOUBLE the original estimate for the same amount of work. Do not recommend.__________Long version: I want to do a kitchen remodel, I explain that I already have the kitchen cabinets, the appliances, the countertop and their installation figured out. The majority of what I'm asking to do is demo two walls, extend a small wall piece and do a bunch of electrical work. I get a quote in February that is $22,000.First time I opened it - I looked very weirdly at such a big number for such a small amount of work. Thankfully the document itself was done REALLY well - excel spreadsheet, everything itemized, material cost separate from labor, hour estimates per line item, even says what the % overhead and % profit of the total work cost is. I'm like DAMN - just based on this they must really know what they are doing. WRONG. Later am told that someone else made that estimate and that "so many numbers are confusing".Anyway the reason why the initial quote was so high is that it included all that work that I asked not to include - price of kitchen cabinets, kitchen counter, kitchen appliances, and their installation. Should have been a red flag, but whatever - I can just remove them from the spreadsheet and it calculates the new values automatically - 21st century, fantastic!So after some back and forth, explaining whats wrong, saying what needs to be removed I don't hear back for MONTHS. Should have been a red flag - but I'm thinking - whatever still a bunch of time till I'd like to start the work.Two months before the date I'm finally starting to reach out and be persistent about this - yeah, yeah, very sorry, very busy, etc. Between the first estimate and last estimate the owner came either 3 or 4 times to talk about practically the same stuff - should have been a red flag. Finally a week or two before the date he comes and has another estimate on hand - AGAIN it has a bunch of stuff that I don't need doing that we've been over already - should have been a red flag. Can we get to six flags?But I have the old estimate on hand and he goes - yeah yeah, for the stuff that's the same between the estimates I'll honor the original prices (spoiler - he did not).So ONE DAY before the date we've been talking about for the past 7 months he finally gives me the 3d estimate. For some reason this one isn't as nice as the last two, no spreadsheet, no itemized list, just paragraph with words and numbers in the form of a contract. NOT EVEN A TOTAL PRICE. Should have been a red flag. Adding up the total price was $15,625.I'm looking at that price, again, shocked - well what is wrong this time? Why is it so much different from the $6,600 based on the original estimate? So I go, paragraph by paragraph through the new estimate and compare the prices to the lines in the old estimate. Demo + wall extension is randomly $500 more, whatever, not the end of the world. NEW LINE ITEM in the kitchen demo paragraph - "Patching, plastering, sanding, priming" - $1,700. What is this? This wasn't part of the old estimate. So now it's $2,200 more for the demo and wall extension, weird.Electrical paragraph with a couple of line items - total of $5885. Weird, what does the same electrical work cost on the initial estimate? $2,908. This makes for a $2,977 dollar difference - MORE THAN TWICE.Ok, I finalized my little side by side comparison and give the guy a call to figure out what's going on.Some highlights of the conversation:"I didn't look at the old estimate when making the new one" (remember how he said he would honor the prices on the original estimate?)"The price is what it is""You shouldn't have assumed that patching the holes after demoing the walls is included in the old estimate" (but it's totally reasonable for him to assume that I'm ok with holes in the ceiling and floor where the two walls used to stand.)Just a little upset.

??????

2024-02

The best building company around