Hellyer Custom Builders - 1999 Bucktail Lane #4, Sugar Grove

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Reviews about Hellyer Custom Builders

• Nathan Duff
  ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆
  My experience with HCB has not been overly pleasant. We have had a number of concerns with finances and timeline, as well as other aggravations. I am well aware that construction projects are notorious for going over budget and behind schedule, but I feel HCB is as bad or worse than other builders out there. Dave Hellyer (the owner/president) and his coworkers are nice people and will create an aesthetically pleasing home for you, but they put in a lackluster effort when it came to my time and money. If you do not have a tight budget and don't mind living away from the home for an extended period of time, then I would recommend HCB. Otherwise, you might want to shop around a bit. For lengthy details, read on.
  
  The good:
  HCB will provide a house that looks very nice and makes your neighbors jealous. We have received a large number of compliments about how great our house looks. Dave and the folks working at HCB are also generally nice people and are easy to talk to. In general, my wife really loves the house.
  
  The bad:
  Our project includes a 1,000 sqft 2nd story addition and 1,000 sqft 1st floor renovation. Downpayment was provided to HCB early December 2016, we moved back into the home late July 2017, and as of this writing (9/12/2017), there are still a number of items which have not been completed (carpeting, electrical mistakes, exterior cleanup/painting, fence repair, downspouts, cabinet repair and other small punchlist items). I'll leave it to the reader to decide what a reasonable timeline is, but we were originally quoted at 4-6 months. IMO, 9+ months is much longer than should be necessary and HCB did absolutely nothing to make up for lost time when they fell behind schedule. We have been living in the house for almost 2 months now and HCB visits only on rare occasions to work on one or two punchlist items at a time. We also went WAY over the original budget I proposed to Dave. Dave said he was confident that our project plan would fit my original budget. Slowly, over time, his estimates kept increasing and our final cost was 25% over budget and would have been worse if we did not make as many cuts as possible in the costs that we had control over.
  
  There were a number of aggravations during the project. For example, we requested that the finished basement be untouched, or at least damaged as little as possible. By the end of the project the entire drywall ceiling was removed, a wall was knocked down, the carpet and floor were ruined, the light fixtures needed to be replaced and drywall dust covered everything but was not included in the final cleaning.
  
  The ugly:
  I have reason to believe that HCB deliberately gave us bad information regarding the budget in order to move forward with the project. After indicating the original budget was achievable, when it came time to sign contract and pay downpayment, Dave increased the number. My wife and I had decided to do the project, so we moved forward with confidence that she and I could keep costs down. Once I was granted a construction loan HCB provided a written budget that magically totaled the exact loan value. It became apparent that this value was total BS to begin with. They underbudgeted almost every single line item. Permits were under by 28%. Framing labor was under by 16%. Framing lumber was under by 18%, etc. When I noticed they budgeted $0 for construction fencing, I knew something was amiss. They knew they had to rent a construction fence. They just wanted to provide me with an initial budget under the value of my construction loan so that when we went over the excuse of "unexpected costs" could come into play. If it weren't for really reducing our expectations on things like cabinetry and HVAC systems, we could have exceeded 50% over budget by the end of the project. At this point, we seem to have been forgotten by HCB. Our communications are often either ignored, or replied to with promises that are eventually broken. Once HCB receives the final payment, you can expect to be dropped to the bottom of the priority list.

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