Reviews

Review Details

• Review fromChristine H

  Date: 09/08/2023

  5 stars
  Working with *********************** from Northern Exteriors has been an amazing experience! Our previous contractor filed for bankruptcy part-way through our project after putting us through 18 months of h*** and taking our money with him. **** stepped into our project half-way through summer and was willing to manage our project during this very busy time, working with what had already been done on our complex project. **** and Northern Exteriors seem to have great reputations in the industry as **** was able to get us the best people to work on our yard in a timely manner. We have been amazed at how quickly **** moved on our project and got things done. **** has great knowledge of different materials to use and gave us many choices. He worked very hard to find us good deals and quality materials to help us recoup some of the money we lost with the previous contractor, without compromising on quality or aesthetics. **** has been so agreeable and pleasant to work with every step of the way. **** has been very responsive to our messages and concerns and has great knowledge and solutions for different situations. I highly recommend **** and Northern Exteriors!

• Review fromCambrea M

  Date: 09/06/2023

  1 star
  Please take the time to read to avoid using this company and making the mistake I did. To give a little background I’m an aerospace structural engineer involved with air vehicle design and build, so understanding installation requirements is what I do for a living. Northern Exteriors replaced my roof, siding, soffit, facia, and gutters. The project started off rough as materials were dropped off way too early. Roof materials were stacked on the roof and left for about a week through winds that sent things flying off the roof and around the yard. Siding material (Hardie plank) was dropped off without warning and stacked in a location that prevented the roofers access, so they decided to move all the material by hand. Hardie has handling/storage requirements which weren’t followed causing material to get damaged. All avoidable with a little coordination. The roof was done first and went OK besides the material issues. The vents that weren’t replaced were spray painted black in a very sloppy manner. I brought this up multiple times and they assured me they would touch up. They still look terrible. A couple cans of paint and some patience would’ve fixed this. The siding is where things really got out of hand. I noticed early on that the attention to detail wasn’t there. When I called Sam and expressed my concerns he asked for me to send pics since there was no one on site that was managing the project. He got the pics and said no big deal, all that will be dealt with during touch ups. I should’ve stopped the project right there. Things continued to get worse and as I dove into the Hardie installation requirements I realized how bad the entire project was. Butt joints in lap siding should separated by two stud bays, so 32” for 16” OC spacing, which is what my house is, and all joints should land on a stud. All joints on my project are 16” apart and do not land on studs. When I brought this to Sam’s attention he tried to argue and said this is not required. 
  
  
  
  The Hardie install guide and Hardie Rep I spoke to disagree, but this was never corrected. Starter strips are required for the first row in a run to set the angle of the lap. This was not done in some locations and is not aesthetically pleasing when viewed from the side as the angle difference is obvious. All protrusions for plumbing/electrical were cut sloppy with square holes for round penetrations and then 1” gaps filled with caulk. Sam said the material is hard to cut so that’s all they could do. I guess he doesn’t believe in hole saws (they have some designed for Hardie material). The soffit was put on so poorly that it was visibly wavy with an inadequate number of fasteners and could be pushed up by hand. Once we got this far I requested Sam to come out in person. Mike, him, and his wife walked around the property and took pictures of everything. An example of the dialogue during the visit: I pointed out how they removed some outlet covers and didn’t remove others and the Hardie trim was cut improperly (again huge gaps filled with caulk), outlets would not be serviceable and covers would not fit properly. His response was that they aren’t electricians. Do you really have to be an electrician to remove/replace a cover? This kind of push back was received every step of the way. I had to constantly site the Hardie install guide. The initial crew was sent back to try to fix some things and ended up making it worse than it was to begin with, but this time the crew left trash seemingly on purpose, maybe out of frustration, including their own food, paint bottles, and nails. They drove over the paint bottles and leftover caulk spreading over the driveway and street. Still not cleaned up today. Our cameras caught them drinking on the job and Corona bottles/caps scattered as further evidence. After that I fired that crew. Inconsideration of that level is not welcome on my property.Now we had more issues to deal with. None of the cut edges of Hardie, z-flashing, or trim was painted prior to install so the crew spray painted it all after it was installed leading to overspray all over the adjacent color-plus Hardie siding. Paint drips everywhere, some pieces of plank only a few inches long as they didn’t plan the run properly, planks were not parallel, over-driven nails, inconsistent butt joint spacing, caulk everywhere - randomly wiped on siding, roof, and anywhere convenient to clean the gun or fingers, caulk joints over 1” wide, missing starter strips, missing trim, uneven cuts around windows/trim leading to variable gaps from 0 to 1” along same joint, damaged/broken lap, etc.Sam and team knew about all of this and decided not to fix it just yet, but install gutters instead. A new siding crew showed up and did fix some the issues - somehow managed to cut round holes for round penetrations despite Sam’s resistance. At this point it was entirely on me to manage the crew. I was expected to point out every flaw I wanted fixed, monitor the progress, and inspect the completed work. I would mark as many defects as I could with blue tape, but sometimes the crew wouldn’t come back for a week or more. So tape would fall off, things would get missed, and we’d iterate again. Zero project management was present after the first crew was fired. It was left up to me, my limited Spanish and blue tape, and the new crew to see this through to the end.As of today, gutter downspout is still crooked from being removed to replace trim/lap, caulk and paint still need to be touched up, and the property still needs to be final cleaned. What I’ve described here is only some of the issues I had. To describe it all would take a short book in how poorly the project was planned and managed. I wouldn’t want this experience for anyone so I hope this help you make an informed decision to avoid Northern Exteriors.