I have used Arrow Exterminators for minor house repairs in the past and thought i would use them for a slightly bigger job. I had the old press-board siding on my house and it was beginning to deteriorate pretty badly. I made a call to the local office and set up an appointment with the supervisior of the Handyman Division for a Thursday afternoon at 4 pm. I was very happy to say that he was on time as promised, looked professional and was very courteous and helpful.
Not knowing what kind of problems i would encounter in this situation with replacing a whole house of siding, I was a little alarmed at the total cost of the job. The total price quoted was for about 14,000 dollars if there was no problems encountered with the sub structure underneath. He gave me a written estimate and assured me the work would be done in a timely matter and to my satisfaction before any payment would be made.
After discussing this with my family, I decided to go ahead with the project and have the siding stripped and replaced on the house. I was told the job would be done in 4 day's and all clean-up was included in the price. I was disappointed to find out that i would have to supply the dumpster and dumping fees at an additional cost.
The work started on a Tuesday and was completed on the following Monday, so not quite the four days that was quoted. I also ran into some problems with the existing windows that were in the house. We had them replaced last year and the outside mouldings were all wrapped in aluminum so they would be maintenence free and would not rot out the brick moulding underneath. The workers bent some of the aluminium wrapping and did not replace it. This upset me to the point that I requested the supervisor to come back to the job and take a look.
I am not sure what happended with him but he did not show back up to the job as asked and his reasoning was he was on other jobs giving estimates. This was unacceptable to me as I then felt like i was being pushed aside because they already had me as a customer and the work had started so they knew they would be paid for the job. It didn't seem to matter to the supervisor that I had a problem that needed correcting then.
I contacted the Office Manager and he came out personally the next day to take care of my problem. He assured my that this was not the way business was taken care of and he would address it with his supervisor that quoted the job. My problem was solved to my satisfaction and the job was completed.
I was given a 5% discount for the troubles that I had and any grief I had been given over my incident with the supervisor. the discount was about 700 dollars as I recall. To me this seemed like a big amount considering the total cost of the job, it leads me to believe that the markup involved in the job and percentage of profit must have been pretty high to be able to give a discount of this amount without even blinking an eye. I still wonder now rather i overpaid for the job!
The quality of workmanship was good, probably above average but by no means the best I have ever seen. Of course you can pick any job apart of you spend enough time and nitpick every little problem you might see. Overall is was satisfied with the work done and sevice provided and would probably use them again but, I believe I would get a few estimates and compare the pricing.
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