Renovation Nightmare - Ashley Hoffman

Ashley Hoffman from Reds Construction was appointed to renovate and build 80m2 on my property. The initial completion time was supposed to be 10 weeks, and while there was some additional work (possibly about 2-3 weeks extra) ... 6 months later we still can't use the area.

Things that went wrong:

- He has limited tools, his guys kept having to use mine

- Has no transport, so he can't come to site to check up on the guys often enough

- Laminate flooring had to be removed twice to redo floors as he can't screed floors, he now says that there was nothing wrong with the screeding. Even though you could feel the laminate boards give way due to unlevel floor, and some boards were starting to come apart due to this.

- Requested payment without completing the roof, something I only found out later when I went up to look

- Ripped the aircon unit out the wall by sitting on it causing over R2000 damage. He did not pay for these repairs and despite multiple promises to refit the aircon to the wall, he did not do so even after 2 months.

- Had no measurements done for the fall of a major sewerage line which runs through my new build, requiring floors to be lifted and be chopped up again as the sewerage line blocks up. He said measurements were done, but when checking on CCTV footage I can prove that he was standing with his arms folded while his unqualified plumber was messing around with the pipes without any form of measuring.

- Concealed cistern toilet needs to be chopped out for the second time because it's not straight. I have since gotten my own plumber who showed me how the toilet waste wasn't connected properly to the sewerage line, they just squeezed a smaller pipe into the sewerage line to make it fit.

- Doesn't pay his guys on time and they are unable to come to site because of no petrol/transport money, when I confronted him about this he told me they are lying. Which puts me in the middle of a payment dispute between him and his guys.

- Forced him to remove the first plumber/electrician due to shoddy work, leaving us without water for 30 hours. The second plumber was just as bad. He was asked multiple times to have pipes coming out of the walls at even heights, yet even after chopping out half a bathroom he still put pipes back in unevenly. I also just discovered water dripping out a electrical plug outlet. When I poked a hole next to it in the cement water came running out. This is a huge safety risk and I now have to chop open this wall to have this leak fixed.

- Needed early advances throughout the build due to poor cash flow management

- Guys often sat for hours on site waiting for materials. I often drove out to buy stuff just to keep the job moving

- He kept telling me that he will fix things and I must be patient. Yet in one week we had a total of 7 different appointments for various people to come out to fix things, of those 7 only 1 came. This requires me to sit at home every day waiting and hoping someone will come out.

- None of the plumbing is neat inside cupboards, so we would never be able to have a floating basin (with no cupboard) even if we wanted.

- Everything he does needs to be double checked, hardly anything is ever level or even.

We have paid him almost in full as we didn't know the sewerage line was a problem when we paid him, I had to pay another plumber to come out with a camera to check for the problem. We've now started fixing things ourselves and getting quotes from professional companies to fix things as I can't sit waiting day in day out for people to come and no one shows up.

In a recent telephone call he told me there is nothing wrong with the quality of his work, yet I'm sitting with costs of nearly R70k to finish this job as I've decided to no longer use his services. This is R70k of work required to finish a project that in his opinion the work is of high quality.

The electrician wouldn't give me my CoC because Ashley hadn't paid hi R2 000 that he owed him. Ashley then told me that I owed him R3000 still, which is laughable considering all of the above. I told Ashley I would pay the R3000 but then I'll have no choice but to invoice him for all the costs of fixing to which his response was "well then I'll also scratch up costs and invoice you for that".

We've now completely removed Ashley from our site and want nothing more to do with him. His response to this will most likely be that I didn't give him a chance to finish, which is true... but when I asked him for a timeline on when this will be done he said I can't ask him for a deadline and he can't answer a rhetorical question.

He has no money, skills or resources to finish - so my options were to get rid of him or wait months until he finds another job to take money from to come fix my problem.