USModular

I hired USModular to put a room addition on my home.
Summary: USModular never finished the design phase, and despite many unanswered questions attempted to force me into a construction agreement. They refuse to refund the money paid in advance for the design phase. In my opinion, homeowners should stay away from this company.
The first phase of work, the «Feasibility Study» cost $ 3,500 and although it was slow, the company did give me a feasibility report. The second phase «Conceptual Design» had a separate contract that called for USModular to provide «preliminary conceptual floor plan including four (4) side elevations and a color rendering of the front elevation». At the end of more than five months of prodding, I had a conceptual floor plan for just one room of the addition, and elevations that had no detail at all for the entire ground floor (and multiple errors in the roof line), and no color renderings. The elevations showed the second floor mysteriously floating in space, next to the existing house. Even though there was no finished conceptual design, USModular tried to get me to do a construction agreement for $ 194,568, a contract which couldn’t possibly have resulted in what I wanted, since the design wasn’t done. I guess they were just going to wing it for the ground floor. Of course, any disagreement over the mysterious downstairs would have turned into a «change order» that would increase the price.
The final straw was a conference call arranged by USModular to resolve my concerns about whether I should proceed at all with this company. No one from USModular even showed up on the call — they blew it off, which was completely consistent with the many months of ignoring my questions (emails and calls) during the design phase.
The company has refused to refund the $ 5,000 I paid in advance for the design phase, and I guess I have to take them to court. In my opinion, these guys are much better salesmen than they are builders, and I’d advise anyone considering USModular to find another builder. They are even threatening legal action over this review, which is entirely truthful, and based on my own direct experience and my opinion. It’s almost funny how they are spending more energy huffing and puffing over this review than it seems they ever did on my project.