AP Advanced Construction

$17k project was straight forward - demo bathroom, eliminate existing bathtub, build new shower, paint bathroom and install new customer-provided vanity, faucets, mirrors, toilet, and flooring. AP Advanced estimated a 4 week project from start to finish - actual completion date was almost 14 weeks from the starting date. In general, AP Advanced tried to cut quality corners at every opportunity. Almost every task took 2 or 3 return visits to correct each item’s problems including: 1. running out of grout material so several shower tile areas were under grouted (originally identified by other AP Advanced contractors). AP Advanced finally agreed to finish the grout task after I bought 2 more grout bags weeks later to finish the work myself. 2. They tried using flexible (accordion) sink drain pipes rather than proper pvc smooth drain pipes for connecting the vanity sinks to the drains. Flexible drains can clog from hair & other debris filling up over time within their plastic crevices. 3. Back wall was painted by AP Advanced prior to the final spackle smoothing step so lots of drywall imperfections from the old wall mirror removal. AP Advanced came out twice to try to complete but the quality just wasn’t there. I spent a couple of hours re-doing it myself after I bought more paint, spackle and sanding blocks . 4. The laminate flooring were improperly installed the first time and individual flooring strips could be pulled up in places. Their second attempt was a much better flooring install effort. 5. Shower entry marble threshold was installed using 2 separate pieces (their originally ordered threshold piece was 1 foot too short for the shower length). They later ordered proper length (and reinstalled it) after an AP Advanced contractor saw the quality. 6. AP came out 4 times to fix a 2 foot crack that kept reappearing on the shower’s existing half wall. Their 4th visit fixed the issue. Shower grout also cracked in several shower areas to which they added a new grout layer later in the project to fix. 7. Demo scrap material was stored in our garage for several weeks as a 20 yard dumpster was not utilized as specified in our contract. They did subtract a portion of the dumpster cost at the very end of this project. Note a few items went very well: 1. Daily project communications went very well until their 2 project managers that were assigned to all customer projects were fired/resigned in early 2021. AP Advanced hired a new project manager several weeks later that seems very responsive for future customers if he can scale to the large number of concurrent customer projects. I believe my emails to office based management team were read as they were acted upon but their “next steps” communications were minimal without these assigned project managers. My wife and I simply made sure that we were available in case any contractors showed up each day. 2. shower glass measurement and installation quality was completed VERY WELL on their first attempt. As for an overall rating, the final bathroom project was a solid 2 out of 5 stars. They would have earned more stars by slowing down and doing each task correctly the first time rather than requiring multiple visits to do it right. Two regrets - not asking salesman about project manager’s current number of projects (helps level set customer’s project expectations) and me allowing “TBD” to be inserted into all references to the project dates within their contract.