Springs Construction

I have worked with Springs on several projects over the last year and it has been a pleasure. Daniela is always great with her communication and she is always very pleasant and helpful. Jim has always been very helpful and detailed with work scopes to make sure that everything is accounted for and goes smoothly. They are one of my favorite contractors to work with and I am always quick to pass on their number when I am asked for a contractor reference.

Very very disappointed. I chose this construction company because of their listing thru Diamond Certified Directory and showing good ratings.
The Contractor or the owner came to look at our house last 11/12/20 that was damaged by the fire last 10/16/20. He promised that he'll review the Farmers Insurance worksheet estimate and will get back to me and the adjuster after 2 weeks. That was the last I heard of him anymore. Made a follow up call and email on 11/25/20. The call last 11/25/20 was the last straw for me when I found out that the owner went on vacation.

NO MORE CALL BACKS.

So much for being listed as Diamond Certified.

There is a citation from the California State Licensing Board (CSLB) against Springs Construction for failure to provide proper change documents (search at the CLSB license number 232003, Complaint Disclosure). They do not want to be a repeat offender, if they did not provide change orders, you are in a strong bargaining position.

Springs threatened to sue me for libel over this review and others, offering to not pursue a suit if i deleted the reviews. When i refused to do so, they dropped the threat because they were well aware that everything here is true.

I contracted with Springs Construction for a project of sizeable scope, adding approximately 1,000 sq ft to the area of of my home; adding a 3 tiered deck system on the hillside in the back of my house and a balcony deck on the second floor, for a total of about 1,400 sq ft of deck. There were also upgrades of windows and new siding put on the house.

Springs suggests in their response that no quality issues were raised and that they got all that they wanted from me. They got what they wanted because i did not want to drop my complaint with the CSLB and wanted to file honest online reviews; i felt it my civic duty to do what i could to prevent others from having a similar experience. As to quality, they have agreed to replace the concrete pier caps on 26 of 32 piers on my deck due to problems such as failure to properly install hardware and to follow plans. Also, their flooring sub-contractor had to try twice to fix the flooring as it was buckling to such an extent that it was not usable.

Springs never provided change orders, although the final job cost was approximately $175,000 over the contract price. Having no prior experience with such a large project, i did not question when Springs relied on emails and verbal agreements regarding changes. When they did provide quotes via email, the quote did not include everything; they later charged me for things associated with the work that were not in the quote. But there were also changes that i was charged for that were not approved by me, and that i had no idea were extras. According to my estimate of legitimate costs, Springs ran up a bill that was about $108,000 over what it should have been.

Some charges were egregious in nature, e.g. the cost of 'upgrading' the decking material to Cumaru, similar to Ipe, resulted in a labor charges for an average labor time of approximately 1 hour to install each deck surface board, resulting in a charge of $35,000 for the deck board installation (not including posts, beams or joists). The extra work required for Cumaru is fairly minimal.

When we finally did discuss the excessive cost, Springs provided me with a spreadsheet that had their version of the contract price and the costs of construction. The contract price that they indicated on 3 separate occasions was the correct contract price, was $45,000 more than the actual contract price. In their version of the contract price, the decking material was the price of an Ipe deck, as i had specified; they claimed that the actual contract price was based on redwood, but their document indicates that they were aware of the Ipe requirement but did not clearly indicate that they had changed the contract to use redwood. While any explanation for the widely divergent prices,13%, would be a bit speculative, one explanation is that they provided a lesser contract price by substituting items, e.g. redwood for Ipe, relying on 'upgrades' to increase the costs well beyond what was originally quoted.

When they did provide an accounting, there was a lot that they could not explain, e.g. there is a $44,000 amount in their accounting that they attributed to a broad range of items, 17 total, a few as small as approximately $500 and the largest of which was $10,500; they did not provide an explanation of what the individual costs were, despite multiple requests. They charged a 25% profit & overhead, so the $44,000 resulted in $11,000 in extra charges.

The quality of the work is poor to fair. Besides the deck foundation that they have agreed to fix and the flooring that had to be fixed twice, several of their other sub-contractors also did poor work. The plumber installed sewer pipes so poorly that there was a raw sewage leak under my house; the electricians left live wires dangling outside of a junction box in my crawl space and a loose wire coming into the breaker box.

The project management skills are poor. Springs drilled and filled 2 extra concrete piers of a 10 ft depth. They did not develop a quote for deck railings until the project was nearly over, resulting in a delay of several weeks. An attic fan that could have been easily installed when the area was just framed was not put in until the area was completely sheet rocked and wired, requiring significant extra work including rerouting wiring. For the deck remediation, they could not figure out how many phases or inspections, despite knowing all that needed to be done.

The entire Springs Construction team is such a pleasure to work with! They are all so friendly and all around great people. You're in good company when you are with Springs Construction!

Jim at Springs Construction is a great contractor. He follows up on calls in a reasonable amount of time and stands by his quotes. Everyone we have met at Springs Construction has been professional and competent.

We used Springs Construction a few years back on the recommendations of several satisfied customers. Unfortunately we did not have a good experience. The only thing they were expert on was collecting their payment. We have had to hire several people to fix their work. And just recently found out that they did not install a sewer clean out . I could have easily be installed during construction and we will now have to pay another 2,500 to have it done. Please check out other companies before you make a choice.

We worked with Walter M Springs Co. many years and they are truly professional, reliable and an honest company.

I have worked with Springs Construction for decades. They have remodeled not only my homes and those of my family members but those of my clients. I have been a real estate broker on the Peninsula for more than 20 years. Springs has done extensive work for my clients including assisting buyers in assessing whether they can remodel a particular house on the market to meet their needs and budget. Mel and his team are not only knowledgeable but do quality work on jobs ranging from building an entire house to a bathroom remodel. They also stand behind their work even many years after the job has been completed.

We worked with Springs Construction after a fire in our home. The team at Springs was amazing to work with and helped guide us through a major overhaul of our house (roof, floors, walls, kitchen, bathrooms, etc.). They were supportive, knowledgable and professional for the entire job. They helped us brainstorm solutions that would fit into our budget, and offered suggestions based on their experience in the field. Everybody that worked on our house was friendly and hard-working. We could tell that they all were invested in the outcome, and took pride in their work. We wholeheartedly recommend Springs Construction and would be very happy to share our experience in further detail.

Picked Springs out of the the Diamond Certified list. I realize that's probably more a marketing medium than a real review site, but we were new to San Mateo county and pretty limited in terms of where to get a recommendation. We got two bids. The competing one was for a certain price, but he omitted specific pricing on some aspects and only would say what the hourly labor rate would be. The competitor also refused to give us a fully itemized bid. Spring's came in with the same price as the competitor but their bid included remediation of 100% of the items on our buyer's inspection AND they didn't have a problem giving us a fully itemized breakdown. Furthermore, I researched their license and read the negative review on Yelp. I was upfront with them about concerns related to their license status and issues raised on Yelp. They had absolutely no problem talking us through what happened and where things stood with their contractor's license. So, we felt we were getting a fair price (we wanted to avoid both over AND underpaying) as well as full transparency upfront.

Probably the two most complex things on our work order were a shower remodel and installation of recessed lighting on some large/sloped ceilings. The shower remodel is perfect and we love the recessed lighting; the other contractor didn't even want to install them. In his bid he said it would be too expensive to even bother.

Communication, timeliness, quality, attention to detail and making sure we were satisfied with the work was all spot on. Costs came it to estimate and honestly they probably did a few more things without billing us which was very much appreciated. We didn't feel nickle and dimed and any changes we requested were always documented.

In addition to the home we live in we have 2 rental properties in San Jose. If we ever need work on any of our locations Springs is the first and last we'll reach out to without hesitation.