Building Solutions
2171 Francisco Blvd E c, San Rafael, CA 94901, USA
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2171 Francisco Blvd E c, San Rafael, CA 94901, USASee Your Business Here!
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Buyer beware. These people are smart, nice, and appear knowledgeable. HOWEVER: *IF* their business model is legit, it's only for a very select type of client. We already had architectural plans and estimates from 2 or 3 general contractors for our home renovation. My husband decided he wanted one more quote, and Building Solutions were very aggressive in seeking an initial meeting with us, via their admin Adina. We finally consented and did a 2+ hour Zoom call with them. They said in order to give us accurate pricing for our remodel, they would need to do some discovery work, billed by the hour. We agreed. Several weeks later, they scheduled time to present their findings. We paid something like $2K for the initial work, which felt like a lot given that the other contractors had developed their bids free of charge, but we thought: We'll have our quote and can move forward with our project! Not so. On the next 2+ hour Zoom call, John Fraine gave us a protracted explanation of their recommendations. He suggested relocating the kitchen to the dining room, which I clearly told him I did not want, and he went on to describe the additional discovery that would be required to give us an accurate estimate. Surprising, and annoying, but stupidly we agreed. Repeat, repeat. In subsequent calls, John Fraine tried to convince me to relocate the kitchen to the dining room, which I had already said I did not want (and seemed needlessly disruptive). Finally, after the fourth call and approximately $8K paid to them in billable hours for their exploratory and design proposal work, one of the team members informed us that they still needed to do some more analysis before they could give us an accurate quote on our project. At that point, we were angry and said "We're done." We have asked them for a refund, or at least a partial refund, and they have not complied. What we sought from Building Solutions was an estimate for our home renovation. We did not want them to re-do the architectural design, which we already had. We spent months in this process, and paid them over $8K, and never received a quote from them. What a monumental waste of time and money. We can't recover the time. They should show us the respect of refunding our money. We paid them $8K and have nothing useful to show for it. An additional observation: When you hire Building Solutions, you are paying for a cast of thousands. They have at least two admin people who schedule meetings, set up Zoom links, and take notes during meetings. They've got an estimating team of at least two people that I could gather, in addition to the main guy, John Fraine. And at least one other "architect/design" person. You are paying for all of this.
We purchased a home, intended to go through a major remodel, and Building Solutions helped us cost it in a very transparent way, much more than we saw with other contractors. We ended up not going through with the remodel, thanks to the diligence of Building Solutions.They were able to use their significant expertise to supply us with all the documentation we needed to make the decision to sell the home and find something else. We owe them much gratitude for their diligence and reliability. I would recommend this team to anyone going into a remodel project. They are worth it.
John and Adinah helped us explore home addition possibilities and to understand the permit and construction processes. I highly recommend them if you are looking to improve or expand your home.
BSI did a great job with both design and build of my master bedroom addition overcoming many obstacles and design challenges and completed the project with excellent quality and on budget, while being a pleasure to work with!
I have used Building Solutions for two projects - the first was to remodel my residence and the second assist me with insurance adjusters and rebuild of my demolished garage (hit and run driver while I was at work). In both situations they were responsive to my job requests, excellent at keeping the projects moving forward on time and within budget. They kept me updated on project status, partnered with me on fixture purchases and monitored sub contractors as well as being available even after work hours to answer my numerous questions. The whole experience was made as easy on all of us as possible (including my 2 toy poodles). I would not hesitate to use the again.