United Home Experts

Hired to do work on our house. Terribly unprofessional including using our garden to URINATE for THREE weeks since they were too disorganized and cheap to get a porta potty (only caught them doing this the last day, but they — including the project manager! — admitted all the workers had been doing it the whole time). Never never NEVER use this company.

We contacted United Home to paint the exterior of our stucco’d home which was peeling badly. When I spoke with the co-​owner I mentioned my concern for dropcloths to protect bushes from the spray washing as well as the cast-​offs of the peeling paint. We also spoke about having windows in a Great Room regrouted (256 panes in all). There were several delays in starting the work but when the 3-​man crew finally arrived, they showed up between 9.30 and 10.30 and left by 3p (incl lunch break) saying there was traffic coming from the west. During the day often one person was there alone, rarely all three. None of the three was totally fluent in English and one had no English at all so it was hard to communicate with them directly. There seemed to be a gap between what I told the project manager and what the crew was told (wrong color paint was put on the house at one point e.g.) I expressed my concerns regularly to the project manager (the actual painters are not salaried employees of the company and are overseen by him only in terms of the project as a whole) whom I felt was slow to react. The spray washing of the house was done without any dropcloths – we had a mess everywhere, ground and rooftops, of paint pieces. When painting started they first sprayed it on then worked by hand. I came home to find white spray paint all over our copper downspouts and gutters, and one 35 foot section of copper flashing had even been hand-​painted white. I also noticed paint had been applied over areas not scraped well at all. in some cases peeling paint was still there but now with the new color. I spoke again with the project manager. again I felt he was slow to react and I finally called the co-​owner directly who said he would talk to the project manager. Altho’ the owner never called me back (which I felt was bad service since I had gone all the way to him to complain) they pulled the crew and said they would send another one out, but there would be a 3 – 4 day delay (the old crew had been on the job 10 work days already). The new crew (again not employees of United but of a separate company) took charge immediately and were supervised technically by their own foreman who visited regularly. They were light years ahead of the first crew and true professionals… they spent the first four days re-​scraping the entire house and one poor fellow worked three days straight with a chemical cleaner to take the paint off the copper flashing and downspouts, and two men went around the house and on the rooftops with industrial vacuums to vacuum up paint pieces left there by the spray washing. At one point there were seven men working on the house at the same time. I could also communicate with this crew in Spanish which made it a lot easier for me as well, and United’s project manager was truly upset at how the work had gone and committed to making this job good. There were still some problems though with the second crew: 3.30p one Friday they informed me they would have to enter my house to set up hanging drop cloths inside the great room as they would be spraying under pressure from the outside and thought the spray would come through. SInce the inside was all carved stained wood around each window I certainly wasn’t agreeing to that and it certainly hadn’t been discussed with me beforehand: I had them do the work by hand. One of the second crew would slap his hand out flat on the window and yell at me to «come outside I want to talk to you», smoked onsite until his foreman found out and sent him away (but then he returned the next day still smoking) and using dark paint played tic-​tac-​toe on some of the great room windows (admittedly at that point they had been painted with a protective liquid plastic so not actually on the glass) which we had to look at over the weekend until the plastic was scraped off. I finally got him banned from the job and the remaining co-​workers individually thanked me as he had been distracting to them and a poor worker overall. With that one exception, the second crew were great fellows and if I could get them again I would do so: they spoke very well of the times they work with United and were upset by how the house had been treated by the first crew. We do finally, after almost a full month, have a newly painted home and regrouted window panes. But we never had problems like these with two other house paint jobs over the years… so be warned this company uses external contractors who are not direct employees and, in the case of the first crew, had no direct technical supervision outside of the group, only the company’s project manager wanting to keep the job moving. This lack of supervision combined with the first group’s language deficits (I speak from ESL teaching experience) meant United hadn’t a clue as to what was really going on apart from the customer, me, complaining and I feel they were slow to react to that. To repeat, tho’, they did commit to making this right in the end.

UPDATE– May 2015 — S. R the new manager at United Home experts contacted me during this last winter. He was genuinely concerned about our review and the fact that our siding kept on cracking. Due to the extensive amount of snow he was unable to come out to the house until April which was understandable. He came and documented the cracking boards and stated that the actual color of our board is having problems and everlast is looking into it. It’s too bad because it looks nice when new but looks horrendous when it is cracked. They ended up replacing the cracked boards on 4 different sections of the house. They patch worked it but it does look better than the first patch work process as they now have color matching paint to put over the stainless steel nail head. They were able to fix my damaged light. They ended up cutting a check for 1k for the inconvenience, the damaged water spigot handle and the cost for Comcast to re install the cut cable line. Only time will tell to see how well this last. For their ongoing effort to keep fixing the cracked boards I changed the review to three stars even though I am aware and by everlast notifying me I have a lifetime warranty on this product I just hope it stops cracking and can move on.

I highly recommend united home experts. I have worked with them for exterior painting, a roof replacement and just recent snow removal. I have found them to be reasonably priced, customer focused and prompt. Most recently I, like many others, needed to have snow and ice dams removed. They responded quickly. Their rapid response I believe prevented a serious situation getting worse. No job every goes perfectly. Any issues that came up were resolved quickly, smoothly and always in a professional and customer focused way. John, Shawn and Peter were great interfaces. The keep in touch until you are satisfied. United home should be on your call list when seeking a competent contractor. They do things right for a fair price.

I thought they did a great job on my siding and roof project. There pricing was very reasonable

What I got was most unprofessional and rude employee who clearly doesn’t understand what costumer service is all about and what value it brings to this kind of business. I was trying to schedule an estimate request over the phone after being on the phone with Lilia for sometime and explaining to her what I want/​need she interrupted me with a «ummm I’m sorry what is your name again… I’m just going to have to call you back» 5 hours went by and she hasn’t called back. Really? All that for an estimate? I guess a place like this doesn’t need business.
Even if I do get a call/​email back in few days i highly doubt that I want to give this business my 20−28k for siding job when people don’t even know how to be nice on the phone.