Buena Vista Construction

Brendan D.

If I could give zero stars, I would. Very poor quality, no on-site management, project abandonment, water leaks, refusal to address warranty issues. Avoid this company like the plague!!

We contracted with BVC in 2021 to complete an addition and renovation, adding about 1500 sq ft to our house. The construction began smoothly with a very engaged and responsive project manager, but concerns began appearing within the initial 4-6 weeks. First, they built the addition foundation 12"" higher than it was designed without consulting with us, which resulted in several modifications throughout the project lifecycle. After about 2 months, the project manager left the company and the owner, Sergio, became our primary POC. Sergio was significantly less responsive than the previous PM and was rarely on-site supervising his crew. This resulted in our having to spend an inordinate amount of time at the work site to make sure everything was going as planned. Unfortunately, we could not be there all the time which resulted in repeated cases of re-work due to construction mistakes, and incurred additional costs for unanticipated materials. For example, our home is over 100 yrs old and still had the original redwood flooring which we wanted to preserve. When it became apparent we needed a new subfloor in one area of the house, the crew proceeded to saw the original flooring into two foot long pieces to make it easier for them to remove rendering it unusable. As a result we had to order over twice the amount of new flooring as we had planned. When it came to staining the wood we ordered, Sergio had his crew do it instead of hiring a professional. The used hand sanders that left swirl marks everywhere, applied splotchy stain in several areas, and even left footprints.

Ultimately this lack of onsite supervision led to extreme delays in project completion. I would often come on site and find the crew sitting around listening to music instead of working and they consistently took 2+ hour lunch breaks. Once we had exceeded four months beyond the contracted completion date, we informed the contractor we were invoking the delay clause included in our contract, at which time he abandoned the project at about 85%-90% completion and prior to final inspection. This resulted in us as the homeowners needing to complete the work ourselves as we had difficulty finding other contractors who would be willing to effectively complete someone else's punch list.

In addition to all of the overall project completion challenges, construction quality is incredibly poor. Doors don't stay open/closed, drywall mud work is bad in several areas, kitchen cabinets are crooked,tiles in one shower have large stains on them, the screens that came with our windows don't fit because they installed the trim incorrectly, and we have water leaks that the contractor refuses to repair. This company suffers from incredibly poor management, slow/lazy workers, and overall lack of concern for construction quality. I am filing a complaint with the CSLB and am happy to provide additional details to anyone considering hiring them, but I strongly recommend that you DO NOT!