Kaestner Contracting

Chris has a great eye for design and detail. The bathroom tiling and gutting was transformed into an oasis of calm and white. The flooring on the top floor with engineered hardwood was done well. The staircase and spokes were also done well.

The timing of our agreed upon workplan was not adhered to, and it took ~1-2 months longer for the project to get done. I also felt the need to be behind Chris and his staff (project managing from my side) since he was working on multiple home jobs at the same time.

Chris was hired via a Kijiji posting. I was impressed with his approach and detailed mindset. He started off doing a small project for us and he did a great job so we negotiated him to do more and he gave a reasonable price. He told us the job would take 4 - 5 days. We were so impressed initally we referred him to a friend. One day into the expanded project then it started, his girl friend cut her hand, then his apartment flooded, then he had to go give a statement to the police, then his girlfriends parents had an irrigation leak, then his Dad has been in and out of hospital sporadically all through these other stories (the dad story is popular if you look at other reviews on chris). My favorite was he got in a car accident so couldn't come to work, but his truck didn't get damaged due to the trailer hitch (good thinking Chris), but he still couldn't come to work. The ironic part is we are overly reasonable and if he had told us first thing in the morning that he wasn't coming we probably would not be so irritated, but Chris won't show up and then after mulitple unanswered calls and texts then we get a story. So 5 days has turned into 2 1/2 months, he's done alot but nothing to completion. The best part is he will turn your house into a workshop, and again he is respectful about trying to stay clean, but when a project goes from 4 days to now nearly 3 months having tools all over your home is not okay. He is at this moment at my friends house who I referred doing work for him. He doesn't pick up the phone after he gets money and randomly will respond to text messages. If you threaten to sell his tools he will get back to you. This kid is a nightmare and I would tell anyone to STAY AWAY. His positive reviews on here are clearly his own, because the seem to magically directly oppose the truthful person below. The problem is Chris is very nice but has no sense of obligation or loyalty to finisih his work and completely disrespsects peoples time. He left my friend (who has had the exact same experience) waiting all day for him to show up and then after multiple calls and texts Chris will respond with one of his stories. So if you have no timeline and don't mind being told stories over and over again Chris is your guy - because the major flaw with him is not his work, its 100% his work ethic and integrity.

I had hired Chris based on a referral from a friend of mine that had him do some work on their home. With myself also being in construction I was able to recognize right away that Chris knew what he was talking about and was realistic in terms of timelines. Not only did he stay within the estimated time frame but he did so without exceeding my budget. Like any project there were some small items that were not expected but Chris dealt with them effectively and efficiently. I would highly recommend Kaestner contracting to any of my family, friends or co-workers of mine. Thanks for the great work Chris & Team.

Chris Kaestner was referred to me by the designer I was working with. He had a thorough, detailed quote that compared favourably with others I received, and had excellent references. The designer had worked successfully with him in the past, and thought his work was of good quality.

Chris Kaestner and I signed a preliminary agreement on May 22, 2014, and I provided a deposit of $5,300, or 10% of the estimated renovation cost. Chris committed to getting me the completed contract within 2 business days, and projected a start date of June 16, 2014.

Beginning the week of June 9, I attempted to contact Chris by email, phone and text to determine the final start date. I heard from Chris only once during this period, when he let me know the start date had been delayed about 2 weeks because his father had been ill, and that he would get back to me shortly.

After continuing to try to contact during the first two weeks of July with no response and no final contract yet in place, I sent Chris a registered letter on July 17 advising him that I would not be proceeding with Kaestner Contracting Services, and advising him that I needed my house key and full deposit returned by July 25, 2014. I heard from Chris immediately, and met with him that same day. At that meeting, he committed to returning my deposit and key by Friday, July 25.

On July 24, I emailed Chris to set up a meeting time for the following day, but did not hear back from him until the afternoon of the 25th. At that time, he asked for a two week extension, and committed to returning my house key that evening, half of my deposit on August 1, and the final half of my deposit on August 8th.

Chris did not return my key on July 25. On July 30, I emailed Chris to set up a time to meet on August 1, and did not hear anything from him.

On August 5, 2014, I sent Chris a second registered letter advising him that I would proceed with legal action if I did not receive my deposit by August 8th. On August 8th, I received an email from Chris timestamped 7:02 pm, asking me to not proceed with any action against him, siting the illness of his father, and stating that he intends to honour his commitments.

Chris has yet to honour any of the commitments he made to me since May 22, 2014. I will update this post if and when he does.

We hired Kaestner Contracting services in October of 2013 for a large project. This $100,000 project was to renovate our kitchen and bathroom and to build a rental unit (including a walk-out) in our basement. He approximated would take 3 months. Nine months later the project is not finished. He has left an unsafe construction site and substantial damage to our property and our neighbour’s.

We are splitting our review of Kaestner Contracting services into two separate posts. We are hoping for some resolution over the week, so will wait to comment on all of the rest of our experience (good and bad) of hiring Chris Kaestner as our general contractor but did not want to wait on sending out this warning.

We have paid him 97% of the total cost (including the almost 20% increase in the estimate as the costs came in higher than his initial quote), despite the standard holdback of 10%, because he is inexperienced and we wanted to support this new business. We get details of this in our second post.

Although communication was fine in the beginning, the past few months have been incredibly frustrating. There is significant work yet to be completed yet we did not hear from Chris Kaestner for a month, despite sending him numerous texts, e-mails and voice-mails. Communication had been getting unreliable as challenges mounted, and we had many conversations with him where we expressed understanding for the mounting obstacles. All we asked for was honest and timely communication. This ceased entirely one month ago.

This past winter, we passed Chris’s name on to a friend’s neighbour for a job with a much smaller scope. They experienced the same break-down in communication when things started to become challenging. Chris Kaestner stopped returning calls, texts or emails.

Chris Kaestner did finally set a meeting time with us last Tuesday, but did not show up for it, and communication has ceased again. We have sent him numerous emails, texts and phone messages since that non-meeting, and we have heard nothing back from him.

In our second post which will occur before August 1st, 2014 we will review our experience with Chris Kaestner on the following basic expectations of a general contractor:

Quality of work
Management of permit process
Hiring of and managing sub-trades
Disposing of waste and general tidiness
Care of purchased supplies
Monitoring schedules and cash flow
Reliability and work ethic