Green Attic Insulation

TLDR: We paid Green Attic $45,164.20 for them to do significant damage to our home and they refused to fix or help pay for all the damage and then threatened to place a lien on our home. We engaged Green Attic to insulate the attic of our historic 19th century home. While the crew insulated the attic, some cracks in the plaster ceilings started to worsen and drip so we had the crew halt their work. After discussion, we agreed that Green Attic would remove the plaster ceilings and replace with drywall, which is where the trouble started. When the plaster ceiling was demoed, the crew didn’t seal off rooms with plastic so the entire house was covered in black dust, which we were breathing in. We rushed out to Home Depot to purchase plastic and seal off rooms ourselves to prevent further spreading of dust and risk to our health. The crew threw plaster and drywall debris out of 2nd story windows damaging our lawn and front garden. The crew regularly left large pieces of plaster in our lawn despite our requests that they be cleaned up, and we had to shop vac our lawn multiple times to clean it up. Green Attic did not offer any compensation in recognition of these unacceptable work practices and cleanup, and the owner responded “Green Attic dose it best to respect every client’s house. However during construction things get dirty and things get damaged. Crew could vacuumed the gras upon request.” That unfortunately was only the beginning of the negligent and disrespectful practices (and responses) we endured while Green Attic worked at our home. The crew shockingly dumped and flushed drywall mud down our bathroom toilet into our newly-installed plumbing, which caused our pipes to clog and required an emergency plumber to come fix. It took weeks to get Green Attic’s subcontractor to reimburse us for the cost of the emergency plumber, and Green Attic offered no consideration on the final bill for the stress and personal time wasted bailing overflowing water out of sinks and our basement. They also used our bathroom as a storage area and splattered paint on the walls, which Green Attic never fixed. Further, the crew only protected our upstairs white carpets with a thin layer of paper, which was punctured during the ceiling demo. Ceiling dust and debris was ground into our carpet over the monthslong project, permanently staining the carpet. To Green Attic’s credit, they did shampoo the carpets, but after this didn’t remove the stains, Green Attic refused to reimburse us for the $1k+ it cost to replace the carpet. To sum up Green Attic’s approach to customer service, the owner responded “We won’t cover for carpet replacement due to being old and replacement is needed regardless of the stains. Green Attic sent a carpet cleaning company after client decide to keep the old carpet.” The carpet was in good condition before the project and of course we did not accept the stained condition after it was “cleaned.” This was a common theme for Green Attic – whenever there were issues with the work and cleanup, Green Attic’s common excuse was to tell us how our house was just old and that things needed to replaced to begin with or that they were under the impression that we renovating the entire house so that’s why they didn’t take more care – something we absolutely NEVER said. After Green Attic’s carelessness shorted a circuit in the home (and we didn’t have electricity on our second floor for a week!), the owner baselessly blamed us and stated “electric work in the attic is old and not up to code. Green attic is not liable for any electrical issues,” despite the fact he had never once seen our home and our entire electric service was upgraded in June 2021. Green Attic also damaged many other parts of our home including the historic woodwork on our staircase, left a gaping hole in our bedroom floor after losing parts of the floor during the job, left paint stains all over hardwood floors, discarded original historic built-in shelves, broke blinds, and lost original window brass hardware. Oftentimes Green Attic would not approach us about issues encountered such as the lost window hardware. Instead of pointing out this issue and offering a solution, Green Attic simply installed only 1 handle per window (instead of 2) to cover up the issue. After weeks of requesting the hole in our floor be fixed and paint be removed from other hardwood floors, we were forced to hire a company to refinish the floors and Green Attic did not provide any compensation for this damage. We even had significant issues with Green Attic’s insulation work, which was surprising given that is their specialty. Per the statement of work, Green Attic was supposed to insulate the floor and walls of our master closet, but failed to do so. We had to point this out, and even after Green Attic attempted to insulate the closet, it was only partially insulated and walls in the closet were hot to touch during the day with temperatures exceeding 105 degrees on an infrared gun! Another incident demonstrating Green Attic’s lack of care when prepping and cleaning after work related to our front deck which we had freshly painted along with the entire exterior of our home in May 2021. During the months long project drywall dust was ground into the deck and stained it (Green Attic did not use a drop cloth on the front porch during the work). Green Attic attempted to clean it at the end of the project by power washing the porch, but stripped paint and wood off the deck in the process. We had to point this out and the crew had to return and use wood filler and repaint the deck. Only problem is that they rushed and got the dark deck paint all over the banister so we had to have Green Attic return once again to repaint. While the deck finally returned to an acceptable condition, we were left stressed and exhausted by having to point out damage and problems day-in and day-out. A supervisor or manager rarely ever came to inspect progress and we were forced to point out many of the issues, oftentimes with no follow-up or corrective action. A cleaning crew sent by Green Attic even showed up with a broken vacuum and then used ours and proceeded to break it! All of this was never rectified or reimbursed by Green Attic. They also took advantage of us by installing baffles in our attic for $1k when we don’t have soffit vents – rendering the baffles useless! Another huge problem we dealt with was being caught in the middle of Green Attic and its subcontractor Nixon’s personal disputes (multiple arguments with raised voices occurred in our house between Nixon and Charlie while we were home trying to work ourselves). Nixon was friendly during the beginning of the project, but the relationship deteriorated as we had to point out many obvious touch ups including fixtures not reinstalled and lines not painted straight. Meanwhile, Nixon started to request payment from us multiple times before the work was complete and then harassed my wife by telling her that we were too demanding and he didn’t have time to do all the proper touchups, and that we got him in trouble with Green Attic. He had been cooperative throughout most of the project, but at the end he turned to us to make us feel guilty for expecting a good job and blaming us for the very ugly and public dispute between him and Green Attic. Nixon also did very sloppy work on requested touch ups and actually ended up doing more damage to our house than good. Subsequently, Charlie (a Green Attic supervisor) came to our house, yelled at Nixon, then took my wife outside of our house to tell her to only pay him and not Nixon. At that point we informed Green Attic to not send Nixon back to our home, which Green Attic obliged. Subsequently, Green Attic sent out a new crew to re-do most of Nixon’s work; however, not all the work issues were corrected and Green Attic refused to offer any consideration in the final bill for all unprofessional behavior of its employees and subcontractors which resulted in significant delays and permanent damage. Throughout the work we routinely had to point out poor work that required fixing and we struggled to reach James or Green Attic when issues arose or when there were repeated no-shows. The crews themselves rarely spoke English and could not explain what they planned to do to the house and we could not communicate with them effectively about problems they had caused. We had to go through James and Charlie instead, who were often unreachable or argumentative. We remained patient to a fault in hopes Green Attic would make things right, but we were let down again and again. We communicated with owner via email regarding all of the issues and after his response did not rectify all the issues, we responded, but never heard from him again. Instead, 5 months later Green Attic sent an email stating they intend to file a lien on our home with no consideration of all the damage and tremendous inconvenience they caused! We paid $45,164 for subpar work and had to spend thousands fixing damage caused by Green Attic along with the personal time wasted cleaning up after the Green Attic team. If you want your home treated with care and respect, Green Attic is not your company.