Although Piotr is a capable contractor, I have learned the hard way that he is not to be trusted or recommended.
Initially, I hired Piotr to build a new deck. Without first checking with me, he made some extremely undesirable changes from the original deck, but I felt that the actual work was good enough to have him to do some additional work.
For example, in the stonework pathway to my front door, two stones were too low potentially causing someone to trip. Piotr needed to lift the two stones out from amongst the others, add sand to raise the height, and put the same two stones back in place. He said the job would cost $800. I naively assumed that the job must be fairly difficult and time consuming and agreed. But I watched him do it from beginning to end; it took less than two hours. That means that Piotr was charging $400 an hour.
After several other extremely expensive jobs, I eventually decided that, although it was inconvenient, I really needed to get another estimate for comparison. First, I provided detailed professional drawings and asked Piotr what he would charge to put in a small metal support beam in the basement, under the staircase. His estimate was $8,000. In the meantime, I contacted a company from Homestars.com with a 9.7 rating and they agreed to do it for $4000.
Not only does Piotr overcharge for each job, he also fails to show up on the agreed upon day. If (and this is a big “if)” he calls to let you know that he’s not coming, he claims that he doesn’t want to make up excuses — that he needs to work on another job. But eventually, when it literally happens far more often than not, his fabricated excuses become obvious (I’m not feeling well, it’s going to rain, my truck broke, my assistant quit, my truck broke again, I have a doctors appointment, my wife has a doctor’s appointment etc.) Or, if he does show up, after about a half hour, he says he needs to go to Home Depot and is gone for hours (obviously has gone to another job where they are also frustrated with his failure to show up on the appointed day.) He is like a man dating 3 different women at the same time, juggling each with promises, and deceptive excuses. On one occasion, he showed up at 3:00pm on a day when he wasn’t scheduled to come at all. But because I had a doctor’s appointment at 3:30, I kept explaining that I had to leave, while he insisted I stay and make some renovation decisions. He was angry with me for not being available when he showed up unexpectedly and kept me long enough that I was late for my appointment.
If for some reason you do decide to hire Piotr, I recommend holding back several thousand dollars to avoid having him make promises that he does not keep. I am left with a china cabinet that he built which is still missing the hinge he promised to install to keep the door from banging into and chipping a hole into the adjacent wall, four mismatched skylights that he failed to return for four that matched, and a defective, splintering piece of wood on the deck he built that he promised to replace. But in the end, since I didn’t hold back any money, he was free to leave without completing these jobs that I had already paid for.
Should you wonder if I am a difficult to please client, please check out my previous six reviews on Homestars.com. I gave all but one a 10 star rating.
