Don't Waste Your Time with Heights Woodworking
Friends — Don’t waste your time having Heights Woodworking come out to spec out any woodworking jobs — they will not deliver estimates or follow up with you. Almost a month after the owner came to my house, they still haven’t delivered an estimate on my job. The owner claims it’s taking so long because…
Friends — Don’t waste your time having Heights Woodworking come out to spec out any woodworking jobs — they will not deliver estimates or follow up with you. Almost a month after the owner came to my house, they still haven’t delivered an estimate on my job. The owner claims it’s taking so long because the job is not “cut and dry.” Basically, I need two doors made (plain doors, not pocket doors), and some pricing on a few other minor decorative items. I think it’s pretty straightforward, and even if it’s not, pricing should be a big part of what he does — it’s not brain surgery and it shouldn’t take a month. I had read that the company is slow on the Forum before, but thought maybe that was a fluke. It’s not. HEights Woodworking will give you a headache, and they won’t ever come through! – Rachel
To add a voice to the chorus AGAINST Heights Woodworking, i’ve posted before on them, and I’ll do it again. I had a terrible terrible experience working with them. We’ve done extensive renovations to our brownstone in park slope over the last few years, and i have been my own contractor of sorts, and they were by FAR the least professional of any of the tradespeople I’ve dealt with in the last few years. That includes plumbers, masons, roofers, gardners, windows, heating, electrical, plasters/painters, woodworkers, kitchen design & installation, etc.
I tried to have my two front doors (standard brownstone type doors) remade out of mahogany, along with all the original shutters redone (built from scratch) on our parlor floor, and new flooring and floorboards on several floors. It was a huge job.
I had read some good things about Heights Woodworking on this site, so i didn’t seek out a lot of other bids (2 others). Also, because i’d read good things, i active sought out their bid.
Alas, I must have called SEVEN times over the course of 1.5 months to try and get a bid submitted. The other two bidders took 2 weeks to get back to me.
I called several times and spoke to Amor directly and on the first two calls he promised he’d get to it. Then i called a third time, he picked up and he couldn’t even remember that he had been at my house to take measurements!
I called so much that i got to know the woman Annie that answers the phone and i felt bad for her because there was nothing she could do to get him to fill out the estimate….i finally had to say that i needed it in the next hour or i wouldn’t consider it (it was a very big job) and her answer was that he’d gone on vacation.
But because it was a big job, she tracked him down and they did submit a proposal that was so grossly uncompetitive, that it just simply wasnt worth the premium i might have paid.
Judging from what I’ve read over the last few years on this site and have heard from neighbors, IMHO Heights Woodworking was at one time a good carpenter to use, but that the quality of service have gone down tremendously over the years and thate there are a lot of other places doing much better work with customer service to match.
No contractor that I’ve dealt with in this renovation odyssey has been a perfect blessing to work with, but this experience with Heights Woodworking was at the top of my worst experiences list.
Woodworker, I’m a freelancer dealing with the public (not construction based business). I have my interviews, which yes, IS time consuming, and then I let people know that I’ll give them a week to get back to me if they want to book me. If another party calls for that date (usually my jobs are date specific), I’ll give them first refusal. If I don’t hear from them, that’s it. 80% of the people who don’t hire me don’t bother calling and I’m fine with that because I expect it. You have to let it slide. It’s part of the business.
I haven’t had the best experience with contractors. Half of them don’t even return my initial call. Some of them come over for an estimate, spend an hour, and then never get back to me with the estimate. I don’t chase after them, because if they can’t even give me a price, how are they going to work on my house? Of those I’ve hired, some were good and some were bad. But at least they showed up to work.
Ranter –
I agree with rachel and anon 12:08. I have had so many tradespeople pull the exact same stunt on me as with rachel. I don’t see how it makes any of us unreasonable to feel its an unacceptable way to do business. If a job is too small or a tradeperson is too busy they should not waste people’s time by making promises they can’t keep. I know very good tradespeople that have simply told me they either didn’t have the time or the project didn’t make sense for them. I respect that and i think that’s a legitimate way to do business.
Thank you Anon 12:08. In what universe is it OK for a vendor to promise an estimate within a few days, and then blow it off for a month, leaving the customer hanging. And ultimately never delivering? In what business universe is that good service? And for what it’s worth, we don’t have unreasonable expectations about cost. We are doing as much exact replication and restoration as we can — we’re history buffs. We were not expecting the doors to be $59.99. As Anon 12:08 notes, it would have been just fine with me if HW had told me they didn’t have time for my job at the moment.
Ranter–
I don’t think it’s too much for someone to actually give a quote in a timely fashion. OP said a month has passed and the business hasn’t even furnished a quote. Don’t blame her for the time crunch if the company can’t even get a simple quote together. Yes, everyone knows that you need to budget a hell of a lot more time and money than the job should take, but what do you suggest? That she budget 6 months to get a couple of doors made? 12 months? 24 months? Plus, she’s having two freaking doors made…how is that more than OP can handle? Are you kidding? I don’t think OP’s being unreasonable at all. If they don’t want her business, they should just say so, so she can make other arrangements, instead of keeping her hanging for 1 month plus.
Rachel-
You hit the nail on the head. Most homeowners, understandably so, and myself included, get overwhelmed by the cost and stress of renovation and tend to take it out on the businesses, rather than realize that it is likely themselves who are to blame because they bit off more than they can handle. I’m an architect and a homeowner and I’m guilty of ranting and I’m guilty of overtaxing myself on my own renovation as well. I also have to deal with other homeowners all the time who get upset by schedules that can not realistically be met and by businesses that have other clients they need to attend to as well. Yes, it’s a service industry, but you need to remember you are not the only person being serviced. And if your schedule is insane, it’s not the servicers fault.
Breath.
Anon 11:09, We want the doors to match our existing doors. They don’t sell them at Lowes or the Depot but thanks for the idea. To suggest that I have sticker shock is a ridiculous mischaracterization — it’s just not the case since we never got an estimate. If HW didn’t want to do the work, they should have told me, rather than stringing me along for weeks. We have a small child, and we need these doors soon. Amor is a big boy and should be able to take the heat, so I am not issuing any apologies for my criticisms.
Rachel,
If they were plain doors, why not go to Lowes or the Depot? I am in the remodeling business in the PS/BH for may years, I cannot remember ever hearing anything negative about them other than price. Usually a negative comment comes from a homeowner who is hit with the reality that they cannot afford what they want. You claim the time you waited for a quote was too long, I am sure Heights will say different. Three sides to every story you know. If you waited longer than you felt was necesary, too bad. To insult a mans business over it is another thing. Switch to decaf and take a deep breath.
“My rant concerns people that won’t spend a few minutes (less time than it takes for me to find parking to see their job) to call and say no. So there’s 2 sides to this coin. The next time you call someone about work that you want done, PLEASE…at least have the courtesy to get back to them one way or the other…in a timely manner.”
Yep. I get this a lot too.
–an architect in Brooklyn