Montano Building Projects

Such a coincidence that all the previous reviewers are so similar! — I hate to break Montaño’s 5* record but I would seriously question the validity of previous reviews given our experience.
My wife, son and myself moved in with my in-​laws in order to speed up and make the job easier, quoted timeline was 3.5 months.
Contract started a month late (March 4^th). JM stated plans were delayed by city, when I went to the city to ask what the delay was they told me plans had only been submitted 5 days prior.
Demo was great, took 2 weeks of long days to dig and lay foundations, then the framing was up equally as quick. JM had not ordered the windows and doors so the complete contract came to stop while we waited for them to be delivered. Occasionally one of the guys would turn up for an hour, just to show face, but basically nothing happened for just over 2.5 weeks. Doors and windows went in and work resumed, walls were moved etc. Any time we had a problem or question, we would call of text JM, whether we got a reply was a crap shoot. Quite often his voicemail box would be full so you couldn’t even leave a message. At one point in mid April, Joel and his guys disappeared for 10 days. Joel would not respond to emails, phone calls or text messages to get an update. Literally nothing happened for another 10 days. When my wife finally managed to get in touch with Joel, he said he had «been out of coverage» — at 10am on April 28^th, Joel scheduled a meeting with us to review the plans and catch up. The meeting was set for 1pm that same day. Reluctantly we agreed as it was our sons 3^rd birthday. We waited from1pm — 2.30pm for JM to show. Nothing, no text or call. At this point we instructed JM to give us a drop dead date or we would remove him from the project. We had (stupidly) agreed in our initial conversations with JM that we wanted to provide the vast majority of our finishing items ourselves. This then extended to the kitchen and tiling bath tubs, primarily because the items offered by JM were lowest quality and usually you had 1 or 2 to choose from. The credits we received for supplying our own kitchen I believe was $ 2k (we brought from Ikea, JM refused to send his guys to collect it citing his $ 2k kitchen would have included delivery) — We had numerous problems while work was being carried out inside the house with damage to our wood floors. When moving appliances JM’s guys gauged a large scratch through the paint in the living room. We decided to have the whole house refinished and made JM contribute to the cost. After the refinish was done, «rose paper»? was laid down to protect the floor, this failed miserably as even now we have numerous dents and scratches from careless contractor throughout the house. The kitchen fitters took over 2 weeks to finish, despite being Ikea «specialists». The kick boards are out of line already. The granite was a fiasco, JM had zero samples of any granite, tile or paint to offer. We ended having to drive to Anaheim twice, all while living at my in-​laws and managing a 3 year old son. In the midst of this, I travel a lot for work and returned to find 1 golf shoe and 1 running sneaker in my closet. The other 2 had been thrown away, upon further investigation, a new and very expensive pair of dress shoes had disappeared (Note: the closet in question should never have been opened by anyone as it was nothing to do with the remodel) We used JM’s subcontractors for the stucco, our vinyl fence, garage and driveways was/​is littered with their mess, windows and frames had to be cleaned but stains remain. The permitting process was pretty bad, we couldn’t get final sign off from the city as numerous permits had not been applied for on time. I think we were able to move back in on or around July 4^th weekend, the snagging/​punch list was long and still remains. Numerous painting mistakes, floor damage, poor caulking, incorrectly installed faucet, cracks in the ceilings have appeared and the repair job is shocking. At some point in September I sat down with JM to attempt to thrash out a final settlement, which we did. The only proviso was that the backsplash for the kitchen needed to be installed, I withheld $ 300 in credit for this while we chose tiles etc. The tile was special order so there was a delay, but 1^st week of December we were ready to go. JM finally sent someone to install the tile January 26^th. It took almost 10 days for the tile to be installed. Between Feb 2^nd and 5^th — no workers showed up, and JM would again be «out of coverage». The attempted repairs (carried out by Joel’s teenage nephew!) are shambolic. Joel has been missing for 5 weeks again and we have a huge repair patch in the middle of our living room ceiling that is a different color and texture to the rest of the room.
We have been more than patient and given Joel enough chances to correct the issues, but now we will have to spend addition money to sort out his disgraceful workmanship. An absolute disaster of a company.

Mantano Building is an excellent construction contractor. They perform the work on schedule and within estimates. The workers are highly skilled and knowledgeable. They are also very hard workers and provide many good ideas. I recommend this company to
anyone who likes quality work.
Harry R.

Our home addition was similar to the previous reviews. We added almost 500 square ft. of master bedroom/​bath, and laundry room. Joel was fantastic to work with. From our first meeting we knew he was a kind and easy going individual. He was easy to talk to and seemed to understand exactly what we wanted without selling us on more or coming in with a price or a plan that was clearly out of our budget/​plan.
When the work started, it never stopped. His crews were kind and respectful and we always knew what the next step was. Most importantly, Joel was incredibly easy to communicate with! You could call/​text/​email and he ALWAYS got right back. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when spending so much money and Joel seems to understand the anxiety that comes along with that. He never made us feel as if we were bothering him or over thinking things-​he always listened and heard us out.
We can’t say enough about how happy we were with the whole process and how happy we currently are with the end product. The whole neighborhood noticed, constantly coming by to commend the speed and efficiency at which Joel and his crews worked.
Nobody believes us when we say our addition went smoothly, on budget, and finished early. But it’s true. We highly recommend Montaño Building Projects.

Coincidentally, our scope of work was very similar to the previous reviewer and we also own a 1940’s home in Long Beach. We added on a 500 square foot master suite, balcony off of the addition, and new fencing. Here are some highlights:
Workmanship — The place looks great — paint, moulding, tile, baseboards, flooring, doors, windows, and roof look very professional and blend seamlessly with the rest of the house.
Budget — No surprises. Joel charged exactly what was on his quote and any upgrades or changes requested by me were always quoted out separately before work was performed so there would be no surprises
Project length –It took exactly the length of time that was originally estimated (12 weeks)
Customer service — this is where I think Joel really differentiates himself. Joel is easy to communicate with, always pleasant, always eager to make the customer happy, and most of all honest, hardworking and trustworthy. In fact, this is why we ultimately chose Joel. I will also add that Joel’s team is great and helped me out by taking the dog out to the back on days when I didn’t have a dog walker.
Roadblocks — like any large project there were a couple of miscommunications and mistakes, some on my part and some on Joel’s. The important thing is that they were dealt with in professional and satisfactory manner.