Sonoma Contracting

Mike and his team are excellent! All very well experienced professionals doing great work--each and every one of them were fantastic. I highly recommend Mike and his team. How does this co have so many high ratings? They are great. I didn't know them before I read about them here. Yes, they are that good. Thanks guys! :) P.

We hired Mike Flammia and his team to finish our basement, as he had finished my parents' basement several years prior.
We were very pleased with Mike and his team's personal attention and suggestions to deal with specific issues (such as low ceiling combined with non-ideal HVAC layout in our case), and flexibility on certain decisions as the project progressed. The work moved along at a quick and dedicated pace. Mike and his team were also responsive in addressing our questions and concerns. I would not hesitate to recommend Sonoma Contracting to others.

We had employed Sonoma a couple of years ago to finish our basement and were so happy with the whole experience that we decided to use Sonoma again to build a fence along our property line and repave part of our driveway. We needed to use someone we could trust because it was not a straightforward job: part of the fence was along the concrete pad where our (now demolished) garage used to stand, so the fence posts could not be buried in the ground, but needed to be attached to the pad. Sonoma’s owner, Mike Flammia, came out and measured and he and I talked about what we wanted the fence to look like. He also measured the area of asphalt that needed to be excavated and replaced. A few days later, we got a quote that was about what we expected to pay, and booked in the work. Everything went smoothly: Chris carried out the driveway repaving quickly and without any problems and then the wood was delivered, the fence post holes dug, and Aldo and Tony built the fence over the course of a couple of days. As with the basement, we are very happy with the whole interaction and the finished product is even better than we had hoped and Sonoma had no problems with our little idiosyncrasy - leaving the fence posts much higher than is usual.

We got Mike’s contact from True North Underpinning, the company that we used to underpin our basement, after we had some very inflated quotes to do the finishes in the basement. We had numerous contractors come through the house and Mike was by far the most reasonable quote. Immediately we had a good feeling about Mike and his partner Aldo and after reading his Homestars reviews we felt confident hiring him. From day one we were happy with our choice. Mike and Aldo have built an impressive roster of tradespeople and every person who entered our house did a superb job. From the start, Paul (the HVAC specialist) did an impressive job with our rad lines and was able to provide guidance on how to proceed with the reno with limited detriment to our aging boiler, Alex (the painter) did a remarkable job – I have never seen such clean paint lines. Mike and Mark (The electricians) were extremely accessible when I had questions about the work and the carpenter (name?) was a bit quirky, but his work was top notch. Aldo was at our house almost every day making sure everything was going smoothly and he has a memory like an elephant! I would make the smallest suggestion or request and Aldo would remember and deliver within days. The team was also so good about managing our ever expanding scope and was able to help us with odds and sods outside of the basement renovation for a very reasonable price. We went a bit crazy with our bathroom tile and Mike did his due diligence and made sure we were aware of the cost overruns before we went ahead with the purchasing. My only real complaint was the timeline. We were expecting baby number 2 and really wanted the work complete before she came. Unfortunately we were running 2 months later than expected, but at least the super messy part of the reno was complete when the baby came. All in all the quality of work is impressive and six months after the project is complete I am still thrilled with the result. I would absolutely recommend Mike and Aldo to anyone looking to do a basement reno.

We were in the market to have our old east york basement refinished so that it can be used as a guest suite. After browsing around on homestar for a while, we contacted Mike to come out to give us a quote. Right from the initial meeting, Mike was very professional and treated us with respect. He took measurements and noted what we wanted in our basement remodeling. A few days later he sent over a very detailed line by line estimate of the job.

We had a few negative experiences with some of the larger (well rated) GC companies on homestar that just brushed us off right off the bat. His price estimate was in the same ballpark as some of the other ones we've received so we went with him because of his professionalism.

What we wanted:
Waterproofing
Widen the staircase so we can fit 24" washer dryer units in.
Put in a new bathroom
New laundry room
We were also under a 2 month time line.

Based on our requirements he gave us helpful input on our vision for the new basement.

Along the way we decided to add a few things to the project and Mike’s crew gave us very reasonable prices for the add-ons.

Overall we had a very positive experience working with Sonoma contracting Inc and would recommend them.

Pros
- Handled the permits and inspection process
- Very responsive to our requests
- Polite and respectful crews
- Mike if very personable
- Made sure any concerns we had were addressed to our satisfaction
- Final cleaning service was very good.
- good quality work for all the finishes: tiles, painting, trims, doors etc.

Cons
- Sometimes things happen last minute without much heads up time.
- There were some lulls in the project where we had to ask Mike for status updates
- Had to remind the crew to put up a plastic tarp so that dust didn't get all over the house
- miscommunication about leaving the home overnight while the spray insulation off-gassed

I contacted Mike based on the recommendation of our basement underpinning contractor and the strength of reviews I read on Homestars.

Our project required a full basement renovation, starting with the coordination of in-floor heating installation with the concrete pouring of the floor. I was very pleased with how seamlessly Mike's team worked with the TrueNorth crew. For example, one of the floor joists had to be reinforced and it had a temporary fix by the TrueNorth crew, and then finished later at a later stage by Mike's guys.

Overall, I am happy with the final results of our basement. Right off the bat, Mike recommended a layout to take advantage of the few windows we have to maximize natural light. He recommended some basic things such as installing a laundry closet instead of a laundry room to save floor space in our small basement. The quality of workmanship was excellent for wood and trim work. The foreman Aldo and the carpenter Tony were both terrific, hardworking men who took obvious pride in their work and taking care of small details. The younger man who did the bathroom tile work was less experienced and I felt that it was a little sloppy i.e. some residual mortar and grout was left around and I have had some trouble cleaning it off. Some of the tiling errors were identified by Aldo and the work had to be redone.

There were definitely some delays and issues encountered during the renovation that could not have been foreseen, mostly to do with permitting issues. While these caused added time to the duration of the overall project, Mike was good a communicating these issues with me.

There were a number of things that Mike guys took care of, or added with little to no additional cost that I have been extremely happy with. For example, he added a stair railing leading down the stairs to the basement for the inspection. He offered to leave that in place for no additonal cost and just painted it to match the stairs. At my request he also sourced some rubber treads for the stairs that have provided durability and safety.

Finally, the specialty tradesmen used by Mike were all top notch. The plumbing, hvac and electrical contractors were all outstanding and took time to explain everything that they were doing, especially if additonal added scope work increased the cost from the original estimate.

I would recommend Mike to anyone contemplating a basement renovation.

Mike, Aldo and his crew were amazing!! We needed to have a fully finished water damaged basement gutted from top to bottom so our architect can draw up plans for an underpin project. Mike showed up a few days ahead of schedule with an amazing crew and had the job done in 8 hours flat! I couldn't believe how quickly they did it!! He left the place spotless. He is also very easy to talk to and very accommodating. I would high recommend Mike....I hope to work with him in the near future to do our basement reno.

Our original contractor informed us about 2 weeks before our basement was about to start that he would not be available so we were in a bind. Someone we trusted recommended Mike and Aldo. We were not disappointed. From the very first meeting we were impressed. I naturally ask a lot of questions and never once did I feel like I was bothering anyone. All of my questions (stupid or otherwise) were answered in a way that never made me feel like a big dumb dumb.

We hired Mike to come in immediately after the the underpinning was complete. We required all the framing, a new bathroom, all electrical, all above grade plumbing, including sump pump and sewage ejector, a new set of stairs, a laundry room, flooring, painting and windows.

Everyone who came to the house was amazing , and did their best to give us what we asked for, even when I changed my mind 5 minutes before they started. When things did not go as planned I was never kept in the dark. Mike and I had constant communication through out the whole job.

Most importantly I think, was how any mistakes were handled. In a job the size of ours their is bound to be a few things go not as planned. One time was a broken tile, another was a miscommunication on what trim was to be put around a window, the last was again a miscommunication about the size of one window. I was treated more than fairly on all three incidents and none of them were an issue after they were repaired.

Lastly, we are currently having an issue with one of the doors installed (6 months later) and Mike did not hesitate sending someone to check it out. This is proof that the service before, during, and after was all excellent.

We enjoy our new basement everyday, and would have no issues recommending Sonoma to anyone.

We just got our house and were waiting on a few projects before moving in. Thankfully, Sonoma Contracting was able to do our hardwood floors within the week of calling! We couldn't be happier with the work-- the floors look fantastic. Very good attention to detail, and extremely attentive service. Definitely recommended!!

After hunting for a good contractor to work with to complete flooring and kitchen renovations in our new condo within our budget, we we so happy to find Sonoma Contracting who came recommended to us. From the beginning to the end Mike ensured the whole process ran smooth, efficient, on time and on budget. Mike has valuable experience in the field and his input on our project and recommendations of other trades were highly valuable. The finished product looked fantastic and we could't be happier! I appreciate Mike's expertise, responsiveness and prices, which are very reasonable in this market. We would use Sonoma Contracting again and would recommend them to others.