Paul Davis Restoration of Vancouver, WA

Paul Davis Restoration

4510 NE 68th Drive, #114
Vancouver, WA 98661

To Whom It May Concern:

We felt it was imperative to inform the Paul Davis Restoration, Inc. corporate staff of how dissatisfied we have been with our recent experience working with the Paul Davis Restoration in Vancouver, WA. My wife and I live in Portland, OR, and recently contacted a handful of mold remediation companies to help us with a minor project in the home that we recently purchased.

The scope of our problem was focused on an unfinished utility room where our water heater and furnace are located. The old water heater was leaning slightly and had been slowly leaking, and the tray for it was rusting away. This had been going on for quite some time before we moved in, and it had caused significant moisture damage to the particleboard floor covering in the space. The particleboard was moldy, and we were looking for someone who could remove the moldy flooring in a safe manner, and address any additional mold issues with the underlying plywood. We also wanted to put down new flooring (linoleum this time), and we were going to need to replace the water heater as well.

After comparing bids, we specifically chose to work with Paul Davis Restoration because we were assured that all our planned work could be included – whereas other mold remediation companies would have focused on the mold removal and floor repair, leaving us to handle the flooring and water heater separately. It seemed like a good idea to work with a single company to organize the various steps that would need to occur, but it soon became clear to us that we would have been better off avoiding Paul Davis Restoration.

The first warning signs occurred when both the person who did the original bid, Matt, as well as our project manager, Randy, were largely non-responsive to phone calls and emails. It required multiple reminders before we finally were contacted to go over the details of our work and get things scheduled.

The source of our biggest complaint appears to be a nearly complete lack of communication between Matt, who provided the quote, and Randy, who scheduled and organized the work. When Matt had said that we could choose which water heater to install, we had told him of the specific Kenmore Elite gas heater that we wanted. After the fact, it became clear that this detail did not make it into the bid, nor was it communicated to anyone else.

After scoping out the work, Randy also said that he would be by again the week before we began to sign some papers and collect a monetary deposit, but he never did show up again.

When he had visited the house to understand the project, I discussed with Randy the need to remove both the current water heater, as well as a second large water reservoir that was no longer in use. These both needed to be removed to allow all the moldy particleboard to be fully removed and replaced with linoleum. When the Paul Davis employees showed up the morning that they were scheduled to start the job, they were completely unaware that there was a second water tank to be removed. Fortunately, despite the further lacking communication among Paul Davis personnel, we were able to resolve this issue, and get back on track.

At this point, after they removed both tanks, and the moldy particleboard, it was found that the underlying plywood was too wet to install linoleum on that day. We understand this was out of anyone’s control, and we fully expected to go that night without hot water – the new water heater was going to be installed the following morning, according the the initial plan - so we were not bothered when we were told that the plywood would have to dry out overnight before the linoleum could be installed.

This delay, in itself, was not a problem, but it seems that the response to the delay, to try to get everything still completed on the second day, just caused further problems. The next morning, Paul Davis personnel returned to collect the dehumidifiers, and then left us without any understanding of what was to come next. With no hot water, and no further contact from Paul Davis, we waited in the house until people showed up in the afternoon to install the linoleum, and put in the new water heater.

The water heater that ended up being installed was not the Energy Star rated Kenmore Elite we had been expecting. It was a “low-end” Bradford White model, which retailed online for about half of what we were being charged for it on the bid.

In addition, we later discovered that the water heater and pan had actually been installed first, directly on the plywood flooring, and that the linoleum had been cut to go around the pan.

The entire purpose for having this work done was to eliminate a mold problem, and prevent one from occurring again in the future. Because of the apparent cutting of corners in the rush to get the job done, we are left with the water heater pan still sitting directly on wood, with the possibility of water getting underneath the linoleum now if there is ever a leak.

When we discovered on Tuesday that the wrong water heater had been installed, we attempted to contact both Matt and Randy, and we did not receive any response at all, until late the following evening. Finally on Thursday evening, Randy had confirmed which water heater we had, and confirmed that he had not been told about the request for the Kenmore Elite. He stated that he couldn’t easily just return the heater since it had been hooked up, but that he would send all the specs/information about the Bradford White heater for us to compare it against the Kenmore Elite. After never receiving that information from Randy, we looked it up ourselves, and found the specs and pricing online. Despite what the plumber apparently wanted to convince us of, they were most definitely not equivalent models.

By Friday morning we reached an agreement with Randy for him to reduce the price of the invoice to only include the actual retail price of the heater, and he was also going to have an AC/HVAC company fix some duct work which was found to be damaged when the new water heater was installed.

At this point, things just went further downhill. The AC people were supposed to arrive by late morning or noon. When we finally got a call that they would be late, my wife voiced her frustrations of being stuck at home when she could’ve been running errands while our toddler was with his grandparents. Randy chastised my wife on the phone and stated some things were just out of his control. When the AC company guys did show up, they promptly tracked mud through our house to get to the utility room (waking up our toddler from his nap in the process). They turned around and came back out only to say that they hadn’t been given a correct description of the problem and that they didn’t have the equipment/parts that they needed to fix it. So, after waiting ALL DAY for them to show up, they left and now have to come back on Monday.

To be clear, we understand that in the line of home restoration work, there are going to be a lot of unknowns and things that are genuinely out of the control of the contractor. But, organization and communication are fully IN the control of the contractor, and should be an utmost high priority, as they are at the very basic foundation of doing business.

So, after a litany of missteps, miscommunications, and general rudeness from Paul Davis Restoration and their affiliates, we are left with the feeling that we want to just cut all ties and wash our hands of this whole fiasco. Ideally, we would want to make things right, and have the linoleum re-done correctly, and have the correct water heater installed. But after our experience dealing with Paul Davis over the past week, we are so infuriated with the lack of professionalism and accountability, that we do not want to see anyone from Paul Davis in our home again, even to attempt to fix what was done incorrectly.

We do hope that Paul Davis Restoration will take this feedback and make the appropriate corrections to avoid a similar lack of service in the future. In the meantime, we will be sure to share our Paul Davis experience every chance we get, with anyone who is considering mold remediation, or other insurance restoration work.

Respectfully,

us