This page we would like to share our experiences about the contractor/builder companies we used for our home improvement in Lake Conroe (Also Willis, Montgomery areas).
After we bought a house in Lake Conroe in Texas. We had some projects we wanted to upgrade the house to the way we like. There were 3 different contrator/builder companies we want to share our experiences about them.
- Royce If you are looking for someone to get YOUR JOB DONE, Royce (the owner) is the one you might want to talk with. Royce will ask $125 upward for estimate, it will be refunded later if you do the project with him.
Royce was the 2nd company that we called for our house projects. But he was the first one who walked into the house with the TAPE MEASURE! We had listed about 10 projects with him, example Interior and Exterior Painting, Garage, Laundry Room, Dormers, Workout room, and Generator installation…
Royce took more than 7 days to get back to us for the estimate price.
His price will tell you how much for each project is, and what materials he is going to use for those projects. He seems to know what he’s going to do.
The surprise costs for us were things like the tandem axle dump trailer at $7xx per load! Our house project took 2 loads!
At the end, There will be the extra costs which it’s called “OVERHEAD” and “PROFIT”, each of them are additional 7.88% from the total price. For our projects, we paid about $16,xxx for both OVERHEAD AND PROFIT.
Eventhrough, his price could be adjusted if he found somthing he needed to do during the job, some projects could be cheaper or more expensive after the end of project – but he will discuss with you during the job!
We completed all the projects with ROYCE for about $10x,xxx
Well, once he started the job…I think we were both was so happy with the amount of workers that he put on our job!
Royce took about 3-4 weeks to finish all the projects, IT WAS AMAZING!
But wait for it….for your house, you didn’t want them to just finish and leave, What about AFTER SERVICE???
Ther where at least 2 projects that I DON’T REALLY LIKE the after service.
1st the painting team
Royce will gather all the painters he knew to walk to the house (YOU DON’T HAVE TO REPEAT WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, ROYCE WILL TALK TO THEM).
The painters started painting. He even told us, these painters have been paining for 14 years!
The cost for interior painting was $5.20 per SF. We also asked them to also re-paint the closet/shelving and yes, it’s another cost for us.
Several weeks after they left, we started putting up our stuff on the shelves and we found lines that were un-paint behind each adjustable shelf. We called ROYCE about it, he responded right away and get the painter back to fix it for us.
*Technically, he just sprayed all over it. It’s very disappointed, their price was very high to paint over this.
I remember the painters face and how upset he was about coming back to fix it. After he painted it, he said to me (not to my husband), ANYTHING ELSE? Because WE WON’T COME BACK HERE ANYMORE!
NOW – I don’t think we have to go into the details of why we didn’t like this painter before, but it’s a done deal after he said that to me.
We had to have several things to re-painted, but we never called him back! (TH: เนลซัน)
Fun fact, we were told that this painter was the cheapest one and he also got complains from other homeowners.
My husband liked ROYCE, he likes people that can get the job done!
My husband also planned to do an OUTDOOR KITCHEN and REMODEL a MASTER BATHROOM with Royce. I was the one to tell him that I want to try other companies but my husband kept saying that we will tell ROYCE to not use the same painter…
2nd…THE GENERATOR
This is my husband’s heartbreak with ROYCE.
The cost for the generator was almost $20,000 (24kw), it was a big job and included concrete work and a long run for the gas line.
First hard freeze night in Texas, water is not running and the power out! The first time in a month after we had the generac that ROYCE installed for us and – IT’S NOT WORKING. My husband tried to figure out the generac at 1am in the dark and cold…
In the morning, he called ROYCE to come and check –
We never heard from ROYCE or his electric guy about our Generac anymore. THAT’S THE LAST TIME WE EVER TALKED TO ROYCE EVER.
So what happened to OUR BRAND NEW GENERAC? We were asking for the right size of Generator for our house but Royce and his electric guy told us, YOU DON’T NEED A BIG ONE – this one will covered your house.
Well, the first night that it’s not working, we had to pay $5xx to get someone (else) to look into it. And he told us, this generac is too small for our house – so it just shut down!
He told us what we have to set up the priority units for our house to run essentials, like if the power is out, which parts of our house we need the power? (Kitchen, Garage, Master bedroom…etc)
And that costs us another $1,6xx and we ended up paying an additional $1000 for an extended 10 year warranty with the new company. My husband (now) is very happy with our new new Generac service company.
The company we’re talking about is “ARK GENERATOR” which our neighbor recommended.
5 months later, we had another power out and the Generac still NOT WORKING. We called ARK to come to look at it again and we found out the original batteries are rotten! We could get the free batteries if we talked with ROYCE but we preferred to pay another $145 to replace them and get them under the same warrentee with our new service company.
In total we paid another $3,xxx after we had installed the Generac with Royce. But our generator is now under warranty with ARK and THE GENERAC IS NOW REALLY WORKING after 6 months installation!
Yes, we would like to recomomend ARK Generator Services (936) 441-4275 if you want to install Generator!
It was our mistake to do too many projects with ROYCE. We were thinking to get all done and moved in our new house as soon as we could!
Royce is 5 stars review on Google (based on 45 reviewers as of 2023).
I would give ROYCE “7 out of 10″ for all the projects he has done for us.
But we won’t be using ROYCE again…
Recommended!!!
FYI The painting company we would like to RECOMMEND after we’ve been here for 6 months and we have several projects to repaint with, is MONROE PAINTING COMPANY Ashley – 817-209-4227
The Few months later after we re-painted the house with ROYCE and his painter. It appeared the crack between the new color and the old color (wall and ceiling).
So we tried MONROE PAINTING COMPANY. They gave us a very reasonable estimate and they did a very good job!
We also re-painted our vanities with this company. We really liked this company. They will take the part off the vanity (drawers/doors) and spray them at their company shop. They will take them back in a week.
Left: Midnight Blue Color, we paid $8xx and Right: Thai Teal Color we paid $3xx!!!
Read more our PROs & CONs in Lake Conroe, Woodland, Tomball, Huntsville, Houston (Texas, USA)
