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Uncle Howard's Barns is a company to stay away from. They promise that a building can be built in a little over a month. Ours was more like 6 months. They would show up, work a couple days, then leave. The employees would leave since they were not getting paid. I can't blame them.
Howard would promise things would be delivered in two weeks. It was really over two months. Naturally he had my money the whole time. The design is nice. Any place where they could cut corners, Howard had them cut corners.
I needed to hire another contractor to come in and fix what they screwed up.
Howard is taking money from new projects to finish old projects. He couldn't even pay for small itmes. No money.
You will lose your money if you deal with him.
Take the design idea and go to someone else. You will be way better off.
The complaint has been investigated and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction.
The following is the actual project timeline, taken directly from this owners emails to Uncle Howard's. I think the facts speak for themselves.
3/12/08 - Owner Inquiry
3/12 through 3/28/08 - Exchange preliminary designs and quotes
3/29 - Owner requests move RV Doors and add 4' to RV Bay
4/3 - Owner signs agreement and makes 20% initial payment
4/19 - Owner sends signed wind, snow, and seismic information and Uncle Howard's staff begin CAD drafting
5/12 - Our design department sends CAD plans to owner for review
5/15 - Owner requests redesign
5/24 - Resubmit plans to owner - windows changes made
5/26 - owner requests redesign and more changes
6/3 - Uncle Howard's forwards revised plans to structural engineer
6/20 - UHB receives redlines from engineer for final drafting
6/23 - engineer overnights stamped plans to customer
7/15 - Customer still has not applied for permit
7/16 - Owner requests quote from Great Western Barn Company to assemble Uncle Howard's Kit (owner's contractor not available)
7/16 - Owner submits plan to building department
8/28 - Owner signs construction agreement with labor contractor Great Western Barn Company to assemble Uncle Howard's Kit, not including concrete work. 20% paid at signup. Work to start by 9/4.
9/2 - Owner requests delay. Husband has serious hand injury while clearing land
9/30 - Howard operates rental dozer to complete site prep (at no charge)
10/3 - Owners foundation contractor not available. Requests quote from Great Western Barn Company to install foundation. Agreement is made to do the work at cost with owner purchasing materials
10/9 - Great Western Barn Co. begins foundation work
10/12 - Foundation ready for inspection. Owner changes use of building from barn to living space and asks Great Western to wait to pour the foundation. Before pouring, owner hires plumbing company. (10 day wait for plumber)
10/22 - Plumbing inspection fails. Owners plumber failed to get plumbing permit. 9 day wait
10/29 - Plumbing permit approved
11/9 - Plumbing completed and inspected
11/10 - Great Western readjusts forms
11/12 - Building department approves foundation
11/14 - Foundation poured. While concrete cures, crew goes hunting
11/14 - Owner requests that the kit package be delivered 11/25. Delivery is delayed by flooding until 12/1.
12/2 - Finally, Great Western is allowed to begin assembly of Uncle Howard's Kit
12/18 - Owner still hasn't ordered energy efficient windows for her change from barn to living space. To avoid delay, Howard offers 6 new energy efficient windows at 40% of cost (from Uncle Howard's inventory). Building shell is nearing completion. Windows have already been framed to original specifications. New window sizes require reframing. Great Western Barns does not charge owner for this work.
12/19 - Owner decides porch patios should be concrete. Great Western pours them for free to avoid further delays.
12/21 - Patio pour completed under adverse conditions. Extremely cold.
Extreme weather during Christmas break
1/2 - Work on hold due to record snowfall
1/12 - Owner notifies Great Western that snow is melted, water receding, road weight restrictions removed
1/13 - Work proceeds
1/22 - Rooftop shingle delivery
2/5 - Project completed
Howard's comment:
This owner should be overjoyed. Uncle Howard's and Great Western Barn Company rescued them when their builder and concrete contractor weren't available, gave them reduced prices, waited patiently through their delays, and in spite of the worst weather in 100 years, gave them a great product. I am proud of this project.
"Auggie's" negative rant is totally false, irresponsible, and criminal. It is easily disproven, and has left them open to lawsuit.
The statements about payments are obviously wrong since both Great Western and Uncle Howard's are paid in increments as we perform. Great Western's employees are highly skilled (I personally trained them more than 20 years ago). They are highly and promptly paid. Their skill level ensures that Uncle Howard's packages assembled by Great Western Barn Company are exceptional. Any person who wants more assurance may contact Howard for documents and references at unclehowards.com. This customer has a wonderfully designed, wonderfully assembled barn. We are not always perfect, but on this project, we were close.
Ironically, the owners still haven't paid their final Great Western labor payment.
Uncle Howard is in the process of ripping my family off right now. I, and the rest of my family, are in the process of trying to get my family to find a lawyer and find out how they can get the rest of their money back. Uncle Howard has already been paid by my family, about one year ago, and has not seen ONE THING DONE to the site where the barn is to be built. Unfortunately, it is taking some convincing about getting my family to consult a lawyer because they fear that if the 'stir the pot' with Howard, they will never see the money. BEWARE: if you dig deep enough on the web, you will find that this man has ripped off enough people to warrant serious consideration before doing business with this man.
I am in a law suit against Howard Horton as we speak. Howard in not only the most skilled liar that I have delt with, but an embarrassment to many of his own staff. Do not believe his polished lies. He hooked me with nice looking pictures on his website and a worm "Uncle Howard" intro. Not long after my initial payments were made, listening to him screem at his wife and others on staff was embarrassing. Later his aggressive nature turned towards me. A simple question on when to expect the next truck load (already 3 months late) had me listening to an irrate fool and eventuall having to hang up as he could not stop!
Howard, personally came to Louisiana several times. He supporvised the layout of the poles and the origianal foundation. He brought his top 3 builders to get the building dryed in. My crews were to take over once primary structure was done. The list of lies, delays, lack of shippments at all, rewrite of the plans, failure to place the foundation correctly, etc has taken my project fom the original 6-8 weeks $40, 000 of labor and the original project cost of $300, 000 to 18 months and over $750, 000.
He has yet to send the final millwork and lumber. I had to buy about 40% of the lumber for the kit a second time as he has never sent it!
Do not believe the positive comments about Howard. Most of them are ficticious!
He is a CRIMINAL
We are in the process of looking for a lawyer in Washington to obtain a fair refund from Uncle Howards Barns. Our project is much less money than yours and, frankly, I'm grateful we walked away after $15 grand. It took a year to get the "wet stamped" plans for a custom barn conversion, they weren't what we wanted and we couldn't get them "permitted" as the weren't to code. We just decided to cancel rather than go through any further aggrevation. Any suggestions on a local lawyer?
Agreed, we want our money back and will be likely be in litigation.
Howard truly is a scam artist. We requested a quote to build 6 sliding arched stall doors. We repeated told Howard that we wanted them to match our existing walls which are made of southern pine. He reassured us he could match anything we wanted. He provided us a quote. We wired him money to order supplies and start building our doors. He sent a pic of the first door he built and it was made out of a wood that was not southern pine like requested. He was rude on phone stating thats the wood he uses. I told him repeated that I wanted southern pine PT. He refused to give me a complete refund and kept over $3000 of mine and said thats what material cost. There is absolutely no way that materials cost $3000 for six stall doors and stsll fronts that only had to be grate area since I already buolt bottom of stall fronts using southern pine T & G. Stay far away from this con artist.