Please, PLEASE do your homework.
Our contracts have always been one (1) sheet of paper with words on front AND back. Even though now I've had to add a 2nd sheet disclosing what new growth pine does, I have taken great measures to ensure that it doesn't end up to be seven pages long. While struggling to be concise, our contracts are very informative and cover darn near everything they need to cover to protect you (and sometimes me). For anything seemingly left out, there is a line that mentions that every piece of content on this website AND in any email I send you about your project are to be considered binding parts of the contract. That way, if I forget to build something you wanted or add a certain feature to something, you are protected by the emails where we discussed it and agreed upon it in writing. It's on ME then.
Now.... There are certain things that are the same on every project; like the nails we use. I do sometimes mention this in the contracts, but many people don't really read the contract. To know what nails we use or how we feel about screws, it is up to you to read the contract, read the information on THIS website, and if the answers you seek are not there then ASK ME.
We've also had another problem: People are finding us on Angie's List or some other review site, reading our reviews (or worse - just looking at our flawless grade of A and the fact that we've won awards) and have decided to hire us on that criteria alone. And then.... then they are confused about what we are building because they have never actually SEEN our work. Sure, they received a to-scale Plan showing an aerial view of what their project would look like, but many people don't understand plan drawings (even though we make them much simpler to understand than an architect would) not to mention that a good old fashioned real world look at our work in person or in a picture is better than all of the plans & descriptions in the world.
You know what they say: A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words.
Over the years, when phone calls or email questions would come in about how we do things or what materials we use I would spend heinous amounts of time talking or writing back to the people to answer their questions. And I still do this because I just can't be rude. But most times the answers were on the website or in the contract they just signed. I do like to make everyone feel comfortable and like they are getting "Custom" attention from me. But, that takes time - and time is money. For the entire existence of this business, it has been my family (wife & 3 kids) who have suffered and missed out on things as the time has accumulated that I have spent in the evenings explaining to people things that are already answered herein. And to be a month into a project only to discover that your customer has NEVER looked at any of the thousands of FREE pictures of your work and they suddenly have concerns about how it will all turn out is a feeling I wouldn't wish on anyone.
If you want to see your contractor vomit, do this to him!
So please, PLEASE, read the information on this website, look at the pictures, and even go visit our facebook page before you hire us. We literally have not had an unhappy customer the entire time we've been in business; even the ones that didn't read the contract or website at first (well... there was that one lady). But why would any of us want to go through that moment of terror with chest pains strangling us when, instead, we can all be informed up front?
