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SFBA Companies
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Some companies that have done work in my homeI live in the south San Francisco Bay area in California, USA. Over the past few years I've had different people do work. Some I would recommend without hesitation, others... I would hesitate. I thought I'd take the opportunity to say a few words about each of them. I've tried to separate the factual parts from the highly opinionated parts. The final rating is strictly my subjective opinion. I bought a townhouse in May of the year 2000, and had some work done before moving in, figuring that it's easier to paint and redo the floors when there's no furniture to move. About this time I did some significant modifications of my own. Four years later my wife & I bought a detached single-family house, and did some fairly major work there. The companies are organized into broad categories. CleaningDuraclean Professional Services Work Done - Friday 23-Jun-2000 Before moving in I wanted to clean the carpets. I called Duraclean based on a recommendation. They weren't sure if they were going to be able to find time to fit me in -- a lot of houses were trading hands back then, so many people were getting their carpets cleaned before having an open house -- but when they found out that my house was empty they agreed to come over. The guy showed up when expected, and steam-cleaned all of the carpets. When some spots reappeared a couple of weeks later, he came back out and re-cleaned those areas for free. (As it happens, the downstairs carpet is thoroughly trashed, and the spots just keep coming back. As time goes by more show up. The downstairs carpet just needs to be replaced.) My Impression: Prompt, courteous, all that good stuff. I wish my carpet looked better, but I really don't think any amount of steam-cleaning is going to help that. Final rating: 10/10 Chimney Clean Company Work Done - Friday 9-Apr-2004 Before we bought our house, we needed to have the chimney inspected for structural soundness. The guy cleaned it thoroughly and found no damage, but warned us against using the fireplace insert that the previous owners were leaving behind. I gather it's important to have a chimney flue liner -- typically a stainless steel pipe that runs the length of the chimney -- because the intense heat generated by fireplace inserts can damage the mortar in chimneys that weren't built to withstand it. They also recommended that we replace the chimney cap, which looked pretty beat-up from two stories below. My Impression: Job well done. Helpful advice saved us from headaches down the road. Final rating: 10/10 Follow-up: Thursday 9-Sep-2004. We brought them out to replace the beat-up chimney cap. ElectricalFM Electric Work Done - 18-Jun-2000 I needed somebody to figure out why one of my kitchen outlets was dead after Paint-Up Painting had finished working. I found FM Electric through an ad in the yellow pages. An electrician showed up, on time, and found the problem quickly. The fried part was replaced and hasn't caused any problems since. My Impression: The guy was on time and knew his stuff. I don't know what more to ask for. Final rating: 10/10 Floors (Carpets, Tile, etc.)Mackey Floors Work Done - Thursday 15-Jun-2000 and Friday 16-Jun-2000 I went to them based on a recommendation, and went with them because their bid was much lower than their other strong local competition (Circus Floors -- see below). They did a fairly solid job on the floor, but we went through some gyrations before I came to that conclusion. They put vinyl flooring in four locations: the kitchen (big job), the upstairs laundry closet (small job), and two upstairs bathrooms (moderate jobs). The kitchen included a half-bathroom and a pantry with the entrance to the crawlspace. Like many kitchens, mine doesn't exactly form right angles. The trick is to pick something, like a major wall or row of cabinets, and make the pattern in the vinyl flooring square to that. I had three objections to the work in the kitchen: (1) they picked the cabinets when they should've picked the opposite wall; (2) there was a lump in the floor that I hadn't noticed before; and (3) they sealed my crawlspace door shut. We went back and forth on #2 for a while. They came out on two or three occasions and looked at the work (which was otherwise beautiful), and determined that the underlying floor sloped off. It's possible that the previous floor sloped and I didn't notice it, or that the previous floor had some extra stuff added elsewhere to minimize the lump. Whatever the case, it wasn't a flaw in their work, except perhaps in that they didn't alert me to it before continuing. I wasn't ready to accept their explanation so I asked one of their competitors (who had provided a bid earlier) about it. They also have a strong reputation, but their prices are higher because they're a union shop: Circus Floors Carpet One I went over to talk to them in an effort to figure out if my expectations were way out of line. After a few minutes, one of them got in my car with me and drove back to my place to look. (Which is pretty remarkable, given that they had very little chance of profiting from the visit... I suspect he was mostly interested in seeing what kind of work his competitors did. Either way, it says good things about Circus Floors.) He agreed with the Mackey assessment of the kitchen floor, and gave them "nine out of ten" on the installation. I ended up prying the crawlspace door open myself. It took two of us and an automobile jack to do it. Mackey came out and re-did the crawlspace correctly for no extra charge. My Impression: I don't notice the fact that the pattern is not aligned with the wall. I don't notice the bump. I'm not sure there even is a bump anymore. I've had zero problems with the flooring they installed. All's well that ends well. They were on time, locked up when they were done, and did everything they could reasonably be expected to do to make me happy. They lose points for nailing my crawlspace door shut, and for picking the wrong wall to align the pattern with. They gain points for doing excellent work otherwise -- the whole kitchen/pantry/half-bath/entrance-to-garage was done from a single sheet, and hasn't a flaw. Despite the trials and tribulations, I'd call them again. Final rating: 9/10 Mackey Floors (again) Work Done - April 2004 and June 2004 We had Mackey come back out in April to replace the carpeting downstairs in the townhouse with WilsonArt wood laminate. Good stuff. They did an excellent job. We liked it so much that, two months later, we had them come out and re-do the entire downstairs in our new house with the same stuff. They really bent over backwards to help us; one of the guys came out on a Saturday morning to drop off heating vent grills because he knew we had guests coming that day. Garage DoorsOverhead Door Company of Santa Clara Valley Work Done - Monday 30-Jul-2001 One evening I heard a loud "pop" from my garage door. It's a rollup two-car garage with horizontally mounted springs that wind up (as opposed to a slab that levers up with vertical springs that expand). I called this company after finding their ad in the yellow pages. A guy came out, and set about replacing both springs. This involved pulling out a pile of spring stock, welding end caps on with a welding torch, and then balancing the door so it wouldn't fly up or slam down. When he was done, you could lift the garage door with a finger, and the electric garage door opener (which auto-reverses when it thinks it's obstructed) worked without a hitch. Still works great today. My Impression: Quick and painless. Final rating: 10/10 [Another visit on 26-Jun-2003, to correct a nylon gear in the electric opener that had deteriorated to the point where it slipped and the garage door didn't close all the way. Again, fast service, complete with a fast but thorough inspection of the garage door and tracks.] Hazardous Materials (Testing, Abatement)MACS Lab, Inc. Work Done - Monday 3-May-2004 Before getting our "popcorn" ceilings removed, we wanted to have them tested for asbestos. I scraped a sample off and took it over to MACS Lab. Later that afternoon I got a fax with the results (negative). My Impression: Speedy and inexpensive. Final rating: 10/10 HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning)Knoll Systems Corp Work Done - Monday 28-Jan-2002 My furnace had started making a rather unpleasant buzzing sound that appeared to be related to a fan. I called their Sunnyvale office (408-720-1135) after reading their ad in the yellow pages. A technician showed up, a couple of hours later than the time window I was given. He quickly diagnosed the problem as being in the inducer motor assembly. He gave me an estimate. I gave him a funny look. He removed the $55.00 travel charge. He replaced the assembly, and it worked fine the first time. Haven't had a problem with it since. My Impression: Low marks for being late, low marks for trying to bill me a travel charge when late. However, the guy knew his business and had the replacement part in his van. Final rating: 7/10 Alten Products Company Work Done - Wednesday 22-Jan-2003 My townhouse has solar panels on the roof, as do most of the adjacent units. One of my neighbors had some repairs done on their panels, and during the process were told that the insulation used on the exposed sections of pipe wasn't UV-cured and had started to break down. After 2.5 years of living in this house I still had no idea if my panels were doing anything -- I'd need a 30-foot ladder to even get a good look at them -- and the maze of pipes surrounding the water heater and solar heater tank had me baffled. So, I figured I'd get the same guys to come by, check the system out, and re-do the insulation if my pipes were in equally bad shape. The guy showed up on time and set about his business. He re-did the insulation, verified that the temperature sensors were working (one activates the pump to circulate water when it gets hot enough, the other when the pipes are in danger of freezing if water doesn't circulate), labeled the valves, and gave me a short course in how it all works. Most importantly, he gave me written instructions on how to shut things down if something in the panels breaks. My Impression:I was very impressed by the contractor's competence and professionalism. I'd recommend them to others without hesitation. Final rating: 10/10 Valley Heating and Cooling Work Done - June 2004 The furnace in our new house was shot, the insulation on the rigid metal ducting had come off in several places, and we wanted to add air conditioning. We hired Valley H&C to come out and upgrade everything. There was a bit of tension between the Valley guys and my general contractor, because they tended to run the ducting in ways that obstructed access. One of the sub-contractors actually pulled some of the ducting apart, possibly to gain access to some plumbing behind it. Whatever the case, it probably would have been better to do the HVAC stuff last. (I also should have let the general contractor hire them instead of bringing them in myself, but we were pressed for time.) The system does seem to work very well. I'm extremely happy with our "dual zone" setup, which uses two thermostats and electric dampers to direct hot or cold air to just the upstairs, just the downstairs, or both. There was one minor misconfiguration -- the zone panel was overriding the thermostats' decision about when to activate the second stage of the furnace -- which they came out and fixed free of charge. My Impression: Some of their ducting choices were a little strange, but not necessarily wrong. The sales guy was friendly and informative. They were very responsive to questions and concerns. Final rating: 9/10 LocksmithAlpha Lock Work Done - 27-Jul-2004 After all the work on our house was done we finally had the locks changed. I found these guys in the phone book and had them re-key the doors. My Impression: Punctual and speedy. Final rating: 10/10 MoversHansen-Smylie Work Done - 26-Jun-2004 We were only moving a few miles, which made life much easier, especially since it took a couple of trips to move all our stuff. (We have a lot of stuff.) We found them through a recommendation from friends of ours who had recently moved. They put in long hours, didn't break anything, and nothing went missing. I'm not sure higher praise exists for house movers. :-) I didn't really expect to see a couple of guys pick up a piano and carry it around, but they managed it. My Impression: Very impressed. Final rating: 10/10 PaintingPaint-Up Painting Work Done - Monday 12-Jun-2000 through Wednesday 14-Jun-2000 I found them through the yellow pages. I solicited some other bids, but these seemed the most reasonable (if $3,000 for painting the inside of an empty 1900sq.ft. house can be considered "reasonable"). My goal was to put a new coat of the same color paint over the old, to cover up marks, scratches, and general erosion over the last several years (and last several occupants). The work took three days. When I stopped by after they left I typically found the front door left open. I'm in a good neighborhood and there wasn't anything in the house, but that still concerned me. When the work was completed, I had to have them come back and fix a number of places that were missed, paint over some easily-visible ladder marks, and deal with other miscellaneous items. One day I found an upstairs breaker had tripped, and after the work was completed I discovered that an outlet in the kitchen no longer worked, so it looks like they were overloading circuits with their paint sprayers. I had to call an electrician for the kitchen outlet, and Paint-Up agreed to deduct the cost of the electrician from the final bill. About a year later, the paint above the master bathroom shower started to peel. The area they missed (easily visible when there's steam in the room) isn't peeling, which means only the coat of paint they applied is coming off. It appears that they did an improper job of preparing the bathroom. I'm now confronted with having to re-paint that ceiling myself. My Impression: This seemed like a couple of decent guys who got a lot of demand and decided to handle it by hiring day laborers and letting them work unsupervised. The net result was weak and disappointing. They did a reasonable job on most of the house -- there's no paint on windows and no doors that won't open anymore -- but they weren't thorough and left some inexcusable defects (notably the ladder marks). They borrowed my ladder, and got paint all over it, but I figure that's what ladders are for. It's not a real ladder unless it has paint on it. They lose big points for the miserable job in the bathroom and generally poor attention to detail. They gain points for not fighting with me over the electrician. Final rating: 5/10 Pest Control & InspectionsAntique Termite & Pest, Inc. Work Done - 9-Apr-2004 (inspection) and May 2004 Part of buying a house in California is getting an inspection from a pest control company. The smaller companies generally do a better job than the generic "bug sprayers" like Orkin. This example proved the point. The previous owners had been told by Orkin that termites had been found. The inspector from Antique spent about two hours in, around, over, and under the house, thumping on rafter tails and fence boards. He found the termites, as well as dry rot, water damage, and carpenter bees. All told about $4000 in section 1 work that the previous inspector either didn't see or wasn't trained to find. Needless to say, I was very impressed with the inspection. Antique was hired by the previous owners to correct the problems. There were some things I would have liked to do differently, e.g. upgrading the pedestrian door to the garage, but I had trouble communicating this to the people doing the work. A big part of this, of course, is that I wasn't the one paying them to do the job, so they had little reason to pay attention to me. Still, it could have gone better. My Impression: If I need another inspection I'll call them without hesitation. If I want problems corrected I'll hire a contractor of my own choosing. Final rating: 9/10 PlumbingTriple A Plumbing Service ("Let Stinky Do It") Work Done - Wednesday 20-Jun-2001 I had a bathtub that was draining slowly, and had been since I'd moved in. I figured part of the problem was some debris left over from when the new vinyl flooring had been put in (this bathroom is really only used by guests), so I wanted to get the whole thing cleared out. The guy showed up on time, and spent about 45 minutes disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling the bathtub bits. One of the little metal retaining clips was old and needed to be replaced; fiddling with that took some time (no charge - 1 hour minimum and he didn't charge for parts). The tub had a big mass of hair clogging it up (from the previous occupants... durable stuff, hair). He ran a snake through to clear up any other problems. It has worked fine ever since. My Impression: He showed up, got it done, and didn't need to come back. Exactly what you want from a plumber. Final rating: 10/10 [I brought them in again on 12-Jul-02 to deal with a shower problem. Different guys, same good service.] [They've been out a couple more times to fix stop valves under sinks that went wonky. I'm still happy in March 2004.] [Brought them out to the new house in May 2004 to deal with a leaking stop valve. I had them replace a number of cheap-looking or seriously corroded valves with new quarter-turn stops. Very happy with their work.] TV Repair and CalibrationTV Unlimited Work Done - Monday 18-Nov-2002 One evening, while watching TV, I heard a small "pop" and the black-and-white movie on the screen suddenly looked a little purplish. I have a 56" 16:9 Panasonic rear-projection television with three CRTs inside (red, green, and blue). It appears that, for some reason, the green CRT dimmed by perhaps 10 or 20%. With less green, the red and blue light is more visible, so anything that should be white looks a tad lavender. After verifying that my warranties had all expired, I checked the Panasonic web site for repair centers. TV Unlimited was the only one in the south bay area, so I called them, and set up a time for them to come visit. (One does not simply take a 300lb television over to the shop.) I was given Monday between 2pm and 6pm. Monday morning they called to verify directions and narrow the time frame of their visit to between 2pm and 4pm. Two guys showed up around 3:30pm. I had a little trouble explaining the problem -- apparently this isn't a common failure mode -- but they quickly got down to business and pried the front off of the TV. After twiddling the knobs for a little bit, they got it looking "about right", which apparently is what they're used to. They weren't familiar with the Avia test DVD I had, nor did either of the two technicians appear to have ever viewed an image through pieces of colored film (red, green, and blue, so you can check the output from each CRT). Apparently they just eyeball everything. The good news is that, to the naked eye, the image looks much better than it did before. The bad news is that the three CRTs don't appear to be balanced as precisely as one might hope. My eyeballs are no better than theirs, so I can't really see the difference, but with appropriate test patterns the problem is noticeable. (However, now that I know where the magic knobs are, I might be able to fix it myself.) My Impression: On time, friendly, and helpful. They seemed to be well familiar with the television set, its internal adjustments, and various components. They lose points for lack of expertise with calibration of higher-end televisions. For a $55 "diagnosis charge" plus a $45 "adjustment charge" I expect a little more than "hey, that looks about right". Final rating: 7/10 TV Unlimited (again) Work Done - 19-Apr-2004 I finally decided to get the TV fixed. Since we were moving, I figured I'd let them wheel the thing out of the main room and then into the garage afterward, saving me the trouble of getting it out of the way while we were showing the house. This turned out to be a big mistake. They successfully replaced the broken picture tube, but failed to calibrate the television to anything remotely watchable. The basic mode was okay, but the "zoom" modes were terrible. Instead of white lines, the TV showed red/green/blue lines that diverged as you got farther from the center. By the time I had the TV set up again, the warranty period had expired, so I couldn't go back to them. My Impression: I don't think these guys know what they're doing when it comes to projection TVs. They correctly diagnosed and fixed the problem, but didn't return my set in a usable state. The HDTV modes are also screwed up, so I'll have to pay somebody to re-calibrate the set if I want to give HDTV a try. Final rating: 5/10 Robert P. Jones ("Mr. Bob") Work Done - 14-Jul-2004 After having my rear-projection TV repaired by TV unlimited, the picture was pretty hopeless. After doing some web searches and sending some e-mails, I found "Mr. Bob". He gave my set a thorough cleaning, helped me remove the "glare screen" (which made a *huge* difference in my new house), and calibrated several viewing modes. This process was not cheap, nor was it especially fast (he left around 1am), but all of that was explained ahead of time, in detail, in writing. My Impression: He loses a point for showing up 90 minutes late. The new image was so sharp that we had to get used to the image on certain programs -- the TV's clarity showed us exactly how blurry the broadcast image was. I'd say the TV looks better now than it did new. Final rating: 9/10 Window Treatments (Curtains, Blinds, Shutters)3 Day Blinds Work Done - Saturday 9-Sep-2000 The previous owners had mini-blinds on the windows that were either hideous (nasty shades of blue and pink) or broken. I finally got around to having new ones installed. Based on a recommendation, I went to 3 Day Blinds in Sunnyvale. I picked out a selection of mini-blinds, honeycomb shades, and "shutter blinds" for ten different locations in my home. The only difficult part of the process was dealing with the sales guy, who would have been loud and abrupt even if his hearing aid were in working order. He was reasonably helpful, but woe to him who responds, "I don't know"! The installer came through on 2-Sep-2000 to take measurements. The different kinds of blinds are installed in different ways (some in front of the window frame, some set inside it), so it's important to take a proper measurement for each location and type of blind. The parts were ordered and ready a week later. I removed the old mini-blind hardware (saved a little time and money). The installer and an assistant showed up when expected and got everything installed with a minimum of fuss. My Impression: The installer was fast, friendly, and did work that hasn't revealed a flaw in two years. Subtract a point for having to deal with the cantankerous sales guy. Final rating: 9/10 3 Day Blinds (again) Work Done - 23-Jul-2004 We worked with them again to get some blinds for the new house. The new sales guy was good, but it took about three weeks for the blinds to show up, which is sort of annoying in a bedroom. The installer was fast and friendly, and we haven't had any trouble with the products (top- and bottom-pull honeycomb blinds). Final rating: 8/10 Windows & DoorsLandmark Window & Door Co. Work Done - 11-Jun-2004 Our new house has two 6-foot-wide sliding glass doors. These are the 1972 originals, which means they're single pane glass with aluminum frames. This was not the best choice for energy efficiency, and they looked pretty ugly, so we replaced them. The installation had a couple of hitches. Burglar alarm wires had been pulled up through the door frame, and on one door they were simply cut off. At the end of the day they didn't have enough primer, so they just didn't bother painting one of the door frames. I was strongly tempted to withhold payment, but since we had a professional painter working upstairs at the time it wasn't worth an argument. I noticed a problem with one of the doors, and contacted their service department, which seems to be loosely affiliated with the company. You call their line, they refer you to the repair guy's cell phone, and eventually he calls you back. Or not. It took a little while to get them to come out and look at it. They deferred the matter to the door manufacturer, Certainteed. I give high marks to Certainteed. Very friendly, and when they made an appointment they would give a specific time, not a range of hours. The Certainteed guy found that the door sill bowed in slightly, and (at Landmark's request) tried replacing the sash on the door. Didn't work. Landmark came back out (on November 4th -- this took a while), and fiddled with the door for a while. It may be fixed, but it's hard to tell, since the problem only happens when the summer sun heats up the door. The next round of fixes would require dismantling and re-installing the door, and I'm not sure I want them to do that. At any rate, the Landmark fix-it people were punctual, friendly, and seemed to know what they were doing. Update: we finally had a nice sunny day on 11-Mar-2005. Still bonks. I called and left a message with Landmark's fix-it people; no reply after 10 days. We have since built a deck in front of the door, so tearing it all apart isn't an option, but perhaps the problem can be mitigated. I'm going to wait until the rain lets up again and call some more. Update again: never heard from Landmark. I give up. Fortunately the cover on the deck keeps the sun off the door frame for most of the year, so it doesn't heat up and expand the way it used to. I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in Landmark. My Impression: Certainteed makes a good product and backs it up. Landmark's sales people were good, their installers ("SLK Construction") were okay, and their product support was a little hard to get a hold of but pretty good once they got there. Final rating: 7/10 |