G F Construction

If there is a minus star that I should pick… Gf doesn’t worth a star… Run away from this guy or you will be in trouble. Sammy was right. This henry Huang will mess up your life … Run away and pick some other honest contractor. He will apply a builder permit under the owner’s name. Using inappropriate material, unfinishing the job. Extort money, report to Department of building inspectors, and sue you. If you don’t believe it and hire him, read the contract that it contains a line that under no situation, the own is prohibited to file a law suit against him. It showed that every single owner will likely want to sue him for incompleted job, out of building code, or shady job… Good luck if you fell on his trap. Please text me if you had him already and having situation with him. We should come together and fight back.

The owner/​contractor Henry Huang is a crook. Consider yourself warned. Stay away from this company. No, Run way. Before I dive into why he was fired, let me say first of what happened after he was fired so you get an idea of what type of person he is.
On the day he was fired, he tried to exhort $ 500 from us for hush money. He said he would complaint to the Building Inspection about us unless we pay him. We were confused. For what? I asked him. «For construction work that is not up to code.» He said. Huh? But Henry’s the one who did all this work for us! We hired him and he sucked so now he was threatening to complaint to the BI about his poor job and somehow this is bad for us? Now, we were really confused. «Doesn’t matter,» He said, «They won’t come after me. They’ll go after you.» Turns out, if my general contractor screwed up, I am responsible as the homeowner. I didn’t know that. So basically he threatened to report me for the shoddy work that I had hired HIM to do, unless we pay him. Does it sound preposterous or what?! We told him to get lost.
Next day, building inspector came and proceeded to inform me of three things — 1. Someone filed a complaint about my house (hmm…). 2. A lot of the work that Huang performed were indeed not up to code. 3. Many work were performed without permits.
Now, the last item floored me. When we hired G F Construction, our agreement is to pull permits for everything. Turned out, Huang didn’t bother for a lot of things. And yes, he basically reported to BI what a horrible job he had done in order to get back at me. Wow. You can’t make this stuff up.
We tried to explain to the inspector that the contractor we hired, G F Construction, basically F_​_​_​up the job and that we never had any intention to do things outside of code or not to pull permits. The inspector was sympathetic but the law is the law, and it says to remedy the situation I have to hire another contractor to finish the job that Huang had screwed up within the time frame that BI imposed. If I don’t fix it on time then I can get fined for 6X the amount that it cost to do the job. That’s a LOT of money. Man, do I feel screwed by G F.
I watch Holmes on Homes and I had always wondered about the contractors who screwed up job sites for Mike Holmes to come in and save the day. Never did I imagine one day I’d ended up hiring one.
At any rate, here are the things that got Huang fired.
1. He charged us for new materials but recycled old parts. He even tried to use the old toilet that was gutted out on a bathroom remodel (can you say, «Ew!!»). When caught he always brushed it off by saying, «But the old stuff still works!»
2. The work he did, not up to code, as previously mentioned. When he told us that his expertise is constructing illegal in-​law units in the garage, alarm bells should have gone off in hindsight. His «expertise» requires NO inspection so he doesn’t actually know the building code; he just knows that whatever he is doing is not code compliant.
3. Shady business tactic. Before he started the job, we agreed on the price and scope. He gutted the bathroom, and then demanded an extra $ 500 or else he wouldn’t finish the job. Did the same for the kitchen, other bathroom, garage, etc. We call him the «$ 500 Man» because he always demands an extra $ 500 for everything, after the contract been signed. Then he proceed to not finish any of the rooms.
4. Lonnnnnggggg Delay. He would disappeared for days, not returned phone calls. Things that he promised would finish in two weeks, ended up not finishing after several months. Sometimes he would show up for five minutes, took a look, and then left and be gone for the day. I have no idea what he was doing. Instead of working room by room, he would start on the bathroom, and moved on to the kitchen before the bathroom was finished. Who does that? There is no plan or strategy, he and his crew just worked on whatever they felt like doing that particular day. Including some days that they didn’t feel like working at all.
5. On the day he was fired. The bathrooms, kitchen, and garage are still not finished.
If you still insist on hiring this guy after reading my post, I want to alert you to his contract. There is a clause in there that say essentially — «General contractor is not liable for any damages incurred by said contractor, work that is not completed, or work that is not up to standard. General contractor cannot guarantee the finished work passes inspection. Homeowner forfeit to right to sue general contractor for any damages.»
Yes, in that contract, it says Huang is not responsible for shoddy work and you cannot sue him. LOL. It would be funny if it isn’t so sad. Guess what, lesson learned, next time I will read that contract from top to bottom.
Learn from my mistake. Run, don’t walk, from these guys.