Alpine Builder

So glad we chose Andre!
My husband and I were dreading the necessary house repair project. After foundation repair, our 35-​year-​old house needed to be rebuilt. We met with more than five contractors and began our education.
Andre worked with us and lead us all the way. He spent time listening to what we wanted and made suggestions/​improvements along the way.
Andre did a lot of the work himself. He took care of all the permits. He also suggested vendors and worked with ours too. He accompanied us to many appointments and helped with options.
Andre was easy to communicate with and any glitches were amicably settled. We are very pleased with the end result and would recommend Andre for home improvements.

We have been using this company for all our big and small projects, they have been very reasonable and caring. They listen to all your needs and help you with their input
also.I would recommend talking to Andre the owner, manager for all your projects.

It started off fine. Made a call, had Andre come to look over what we wanted done. We agreed verbally to go with alpine builder b/​c it was slightly cheaper than our other estimate (big mistake). He went over the contract, which I liked b/​c everything was documented. He broke up the work into sections (demo, paint/​tile, finish etc) and I agreed to pay him as each project was being completed.
The demolition in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom was the first project. No problems there. Prior to starting the renovation, Andre told us to pick out our cabinent colors as well as buy the granite pre fab, handles for cabinets, tile for bathroom flooring etc.
One thing I noticed after day 1 of the demo was that even though Andre set out a lockbox, he or his worker clearly didn’t lock the door. It was completely unlocked. Sh*t happens once again but this is where the customer service nonsense was happening. Instead of acknowledging that they didn’t lock the front door, Andre got defensive, while continuing to say, «we locked it, there’s no way!». I have no damn reason to lie. I opened the front door with my own hands without a key and it opened, bottom line. The other thing was that I was very cordial when I asked him about the front door yet he came off as abrupt and defensive.
Moving right along, during mid week, Andre calls my g/​f and she tells me that he forgot that we needed to pick up some grout. I had to pick some up on my lunch break. Sh*t happens so I just dealt with it.
Once the downstairs bathroom tile flooring was complete, it was okay but there was a strip that was part of the bottom portion of the bathroom that we asked to possibly be spared. They stripped it and without telling us threw it away. What was left was an ugly almost black residue all along the base of the bathroom tub. When I asked Andre about it, he told me they threw it away and told «US» to get some adhesive remover and scrub it. I’m paying someone else to do the job yet he’s telling me to do the job. At this point, I despise this guy. So my g/​f and I scrubbed the sh*t out of it and finally got it out. It gets worse people so bare with me…
The upstairs bathroom had no problems, thank God. However, before going to bed, my g/​f noticed that our wall clock was cracked at the bottom base of it. One of the workers clearly cracked it while removing the door during renovation, picked it up and put it back on the wall. I called Andre and left two messages but he never returned my call (typical behavior throughout the entire process).
The following day I called him again and his words literally are, «this is Andre». Me: Did you get my messages?”. Andre: No… pause for about 6 seconds. That’s it, nada. I tell him about the cracked clock and once again he goes into defensive mode stating, «are you sure you guys didn’t crack it?» WTF. If the Loma Prieta earthquake hit last night, than it’s a possiblity. But it didn’t so no we didn’t crack it. He states he will talk to his worker.
The next day he leaves a message stating that his worker did admit to cracking the clock and that he would credit us for the damage. The clock doesn’t bother me b/​c it’s a cheap clock and sh*t happens. What irritated me was that once again he never apologized for the inconvenience, nada. Had his worker denied doing it, I bet for sure Andre would have taken his workers’ side but it didn’t get to that point.
The granite installation for our kitchen was quick. However, hours later, the granite looked very porous with wet spots everywhere. We were concerned (first time using granite) not knowing that it would evaporate in a few days. Once again, we left messages and he never returned our call. I wasn’t sure if it was bad granite or what. We were left in the dark once again. Eventually he answered and told us it would evaporate, and that he would apply a sealer at the end, which he never did.
The paint job was done on a Monday and we didn’t get workers to move back our oven and kitchen till Friday late afternoon. left multiple messages and finally when Friday mid afternoon hit, I told Andre that if this wasn’t complete in the next 24 hours, that I would hire someone else to move our appliances b/​c we didn’t have a kitchen for almost 3 weeks.
When they arrived, I reiterated to them what needed to be done and they looked at me with a «dear in the headlights look». They had no clue what I was talking about. Andre may have told them but clearly there was no communication between them.
After everything was complete, two mysterious blue spots appeared on our granite. Andre took a look but didn’t make any effort to try and fix the stain. In addition he could not fix the leak from our kitchen faucet as well, telling us incorrectly that we needed a new faucet when in reality he simply didn’t tighten the pipes enough.
There’s more but i’m done (him showing up at my door). Stay away from this train wreck of a company. Sorry so long but it’s a must.

I worked with Arman and he was great with communication which is important to me.