Asheville, NC area contractor caveats

[Chris Harjes]

Howdy y'all! Doing it yourself is seeming like a better idea at the moment, with two unusually bad results from local contractors in the past few months. I've also had quite a few good ones, and am happy to share their info on request (you have to do it through a colleage request message though to be able to send the contact info). For now, I'd like to warn against the two below in case you're considering hiring someone. 

The first is Asa Bleier (Broad River Builders)

 I hired Asa Bleier (Broad River builders) for two small rehab projects based on a recommendation from a friend, and agreed on a labor rate for his work as a general contractor. He then hired a basic laborer to do the actual work, gave the laborer poor directions, and charged me his full contractor rate plus a 10% management fee, for unskilled labor. The result was a higher bill for less work than I have ever paid in the eight rehab projects I have done in Asheville in the past two years. Worse yet, I had to pull my own crew off of other jobs to redo painting, flooring and other work that was unacceptable quality, even for rental houses. I discussed these problems extensively with Asa and gave him multiple chances to remedy the situation, which resulted in talk, talk and more talk. He is very good at talking, and very convincing. However the actual results of his labor are shoddy and overpriced. We're still picking up the pieces of his mess, but between the overcharge and the re-done work, we estimate that hiring him was a $6500 mistake.

The second in Plumbsmart Technologies.

 Don (the owner) makes a great impression when you talk to him- but when it came time to do the work, he sent an inexperienced plumber's assistant who made fatal changes to the bathroom plan that resulted in failed inspections. He also misrouted several major lines requiring re-doing of carpentry work and an extra hole in the roof. We called him repeatedly to notify him of problems, but even when he eventually called back, he rarely visited the jobsite, provided no supervision to his laborer, and ended up costing us about $1800 in extra labor, in addition to a full month of lost rent due to delaying other contractors repeatedly due to failed inspections.

I'd rather learn from other people's mistakes, so hopefully you can learn from mine and save yourselves some headache, and some cash  :)