Howard Construction, Inc.

"We lost our home in the 2017 Tubbs fire and were agonizing over the mountain of decisions and challenges we would be facing over the next few years as we rebuilt. We wanted to make sure we chose a contractor who would be transparent, easy to work with, and fair as we would be intertwined with him for the next several years. We interviewed several contractors before meeting Phil and his wife, Michelle, through mutual friends who had worked for him for years as subcontractors. When we first met Phil, the first thing we noticed was the genuine care he had for our situation and his eagerness to help us in any way he could. We also liked that his reputation and quality of work was incredibly important to him. He wanted to make us whole and build us a beautiful house that we could continue raising our children in. At the time, we had a 1.5-year-old and a 3-year-old, so in addition to having to ease our family into a new temporary living situation, navigate and handle insurance, I had to learn about the construction process as well. We had no shortage of questions for Phil, often texting or calling him multiple times a week asking him to help us understand some aspect of construction. When we requested meetings to go over our budget, consult about design styles, or help us with some difficult aspects of our insurance, he always made himself available. When we asked him for meetings, Phil and Michelle often met with us later that day or the next -- both incredibly prompt and easy to get ahold of. There were several times throughout the rebuild process when we asked Phil to help us work with our insurance company since they were refusing to release funds. Phil spoke with our insurance agent multiple times, penned several letters on our behalf, itemized those disputed costs, and eventually got those funds released. He also wrote to our bank when we were having issues with some financing. All of his correspondence on our behalf to third parties was always done within a few days so there was very little waiting around on our part. One thing that made Phil and Michelle above-and-beyond contractors was that they worked with their subcontractors to give us the best price possible for absolutely beautiful finishes. We are still amazed at some of the prices he was able to get us for so many different aspects of our home. Phil’s guys are also incredibly special. Every time I drove by, his crew was always working diligently and willing to explain what they were working on to us. They are truly amazing craftsmen, and an absolute joy to work with. Phil is also incredibly fair and has incredible professionalism. When we dealt with a leak from our refrigerator that caused a bit of water damage to a section of our beautiful hardwood floors, he came within the hour to look at it, and had the floor removed two hours later so that the subfloor could dry out. Since it would take a couple days to replace that section and have it sanded and sealed, he worked with us to find a way to make it as minimally-invasive as possible (since by that point we had already moved in). He made sure that when we were out of town for a trip, that he had all hands on deck to replace that small section of floor and had it ready when we returned. You cannot tell that the floor was even replaced in that little area. Our home is breathtaking, and we love walking into it every day. We still can’t believe it’s ours. Thank you, Phil, Michelle, and everyone at Howard Construction for working with our family."