I've been working in real estate for over twenty years, and during that time I have engaged with literally dozens of contractors and probably 50+ jobs. The following review of Trueway Renovations of Lilburn Georgia will be by far the worst review that I have ever documented to date, and will likely never be topped.
Please understand that this review is going to be quite extensive and will take several days or even weeks to complete. I will return to this upon completion to correct typos, so pardon them for now while I get these thoughts down as fluidly as I can.
Trueway Renovations was addressing me in regards to my contruction project for a commercial ADA bathroom building for my professional outdoor volleyball court facility, which I was making available for the training of junior players who have hopes of earning scholarships to college, as well as for leagues, tournaments and training of adult players.
Trueway Renovations was bidding on the full project which was to include the mens and womens bathroom and shower building, decking around the building, installation of court lights and poles, and extension of the parking area. Prior to winning the bid, I had lower bids I was considering, but Trueway Renovations wanted the project badly and negotiated with me extensively in order to win the bid. The promise of professional workmanship and a prompt completion of the project, along with the final pricing won them the contract.
Within a week of the initial down payment, I was already regretting my decision. Slow progress and few hours spent on site was immediately evident, and became the disgusting norm throughout the entire process.
The Plumber:
I was never informed at any time from Trueway that the vice president of Trueway construction and project manager Shea Powell had assigned the entire plumbing project to her son, who had been an apprentice to a plumber for only six months (according to the plumber). I do not know for a fact, but I believe after only 6 months as an apprentice a person is no where close to being qualified to get a plumber's license, which I believe takes more like 4-5 years to achieve. As I understand, this apprentice had asked the REAL plumber he had previous worked with to pull the plumbing permit for him, and that the REAL plumber would not be needed for the majority of my project.
My project was not simple in my mind and I would NOT have approved an unlicensed plumber to work unsupervised onsite by a REAL plumber I was never informed that he was an apprentice and I even complimented the apprentice and his mother that this young lad was a plumber... to which no correction of my assumption was delivered.
My project included two ADA bathrooms, with showers, sinks, toilets, and a urinal, all set in a new slab and to be connected to existing sewer and water lines over 120 feet away. This apprentice worked without onsite supervision of the REAL plumber for nearly the entire time. This apprentice (project manager's son) would not show up on site but for a couple or few hours at a time, so my five week project was not getting off the ground at all for the first few weeks. GAACK! My front yard had been excavated to such an extent that I had 6 foot piles of dirt and a ditch 3' to 12' deep extending across the entire front yard. The REAL plumber later said that this novice hadn't overseen that excavation, so had to spend dozens of hours correcting the slope by hand. Then he set the sewer lines in the slab incorrectly so the interior wall later had to be shifted and widened to correct it. He did not set the shower drains prior to pouring the slab, so later a REAL plumber had to come in and core out the concrete in order to install the forgotten drains. He installed sand filters that the REAL plumber had already indicated were way undersized for the application. That REAL plumber had to remove those filters later to install appropriate filters. At that time it was learned that an experienced commercial plumber could have simply built a concrete box and filtered both showers into that box and the overall cost would have been just a few hundred dollars for labor and material. Instead the correction had to be completed based on this poor plan and the costs was likely closer to two grand. Going on... this novice also installed the water line to the bathroom building too shallow, having no understanding of what the final level of the grade would be under the decking around the bathroom building. Inexperience is a painful thing. This main line ended up being basically at the surface of the ground, where it is required by code to be 12 inches deep to prevent freezing. He went to the city inspector to demand he shouldn't have to do a certain inspection procedure, the upon realizing the inspection did need to be done, he returned to dig up the plumbing that needed the inspection to hook up the pressure test and found his work FAILED that test. After having to redig up that connection 3'-4' down in the middle of a walkway, he put a piece of plywood over it, then left for California, never to return to the job site.
It took me months to get the Trueway's general contractor and project manager to finally get that REAL plumber out here to make corrections. Seriously, Trueway simply started dropping the ball on my project as soon as they realized their "plumber" was not going to be able to complete the work and that they would have to pay for a REAL plumber to do the work. Upon this realization, everything they did from that point was with the idea of how they could cut corners to save money. Disgusting.
So upon the hiring of a REAL plumber many of these defects were found as well as many more. The plumbing for the urinal was incorrect and had to be redone. The hanging device for the back to back wall mounted toilets (for each of the two bathrooms) was at an incorrect hieght and distance from the wall for ADA compliance and had to be reset and at this time the wall had to be widened to accomodate the mounting. All items that should have been known prior to construction. The mounts for the shower heads were attached to the outside walls with screws so long they extended through the plywood AND siding of the building. Too late to fix, those screws had to be ground down using a grinder and the siding patched. He did not install a cleanout near the connection to the existing sewer (which he was advised to do by the REAL plumber), so any potential future issues in that area will now be much more highly expensive to reach.
[I'll be thinking back and return to this because I know there are still several other issues that had to be corrected and they should all be mentioned.]
... to be continued.
