Coulter Construction

If I ever build another house, which I one day hope to do, I will use Scott Coulter again. What more do you need to know? I had to knock down my old ranch-style house which was only standing because the termites were holding hands. In it’s place my architect Fritz Johnson Jr. http://www.fritzjohnsonarchitect.com designed a fabulous modernist house – mine is Hill House #2 on Fritz’s site. I decided to take charge as an owner-builder. Scott demolished the old masonry and foundation, excavated, prepped the site which included compacting several hundred cubic yards of fill material to meet the requirements of the soil engineer, poured the footings, foundation and slab, framed the house, installed the DensGlass and built the carport. The results are hard to argue with. If I had used another steel-frame contractor, it would have cost me more and taken longer. Scott is hands-on: he works incredibly hard and drives his crew hard. He has worked in the building trades since he was a teenager, knows everybody in the business and has an encyclopedic knowledge of his profession. He leads by example, takes enormous pride in his work and is a perfectionist with a meticulous eye for detail. He’s highly intelligent, he has an extraordinary memory and he’s always interested in exploring innovative building techniques. He will not cut corners, even if he’s in the middle of a dispute with a client, and his pre-fab steel frame construction technique leads to solid, precise buildings that can be erected extremely fast. That said, Scott is not for the faint of heart. He can be brutal to work with. My wife claims she has PTSD from our construction project! Scott expects his clients to be as hard-working and decisive as he is. Nothing is more precious to him than time. If you cannot make up your mind, if you cannot make swift decisions, then Scott is not your man. It will not end well. As delays mount he will get increasingly upset and he is not shy about showing it. He can be a sweet guy and he can be not so sweet and, while he has contractors and subs who have worked with him for years, there are others who can’t speak his name without spitting. But a construction project is like a battlefield and in a fight I want Scott on my side. Scott has an in-house team who can do most of the engineering and produce detailed drawings for the steel fabrication. If you include him in the design phase (which I, foolishly, did not) I think you could save a lot of money, as he can help to “value-engineer” your project. As you can see from the photos, my house has a 60 foot wide by 12 foot deep cantilever. Our bedroom sits on top of the cantilever. We had some really powerful winds during the course of the 15 or so tropical storms that hit Hawai‘i in 2015, yet not once have we felt the floor shake, wobble or bounce. The old adage in construction is that you can pick two out of three goals: good, cheap or fast. If you enter the relationship with Scott determined to respect his advice and to react fast to his requests, you may be able to get all three.

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the professionalism that my company received while using Coulter Construction. We used Coulter Construction for our 3000 square foot office and show room at our new location, two stories. I was very happy with all phase's of this build out. His knowledge and usage of Steel Frames was fabulous and saved us time and money with the whole project. This was a completely new operation with much design with telecommunications, electric and plumbing needs for our Dealers and our Staff. Serving the Pacific for our Company, American Underwater Products, we have multiple of clients thru out the Pacific and Asia so being able to contact, show and shine for our business is important. I have no problem suggesting Coulter Construction for any building needs you could require. Thank you again Scott, you rock!!!!!!

Coulter Construction used state-of-art technologies to build my modern steel-framed house. They demonstrated expertise in every phase of the project, from site preparation, foundation /masonry work, shop drawing, steel component production and onsite framing. Team members are hardworking and courteous. Scott is easy to work with and always makes sure things are done right. He provided valuable advice beyond his scope of work and always accommodated last minute changes. Quality work and client's satisfaction are their highest priorities. I highly recommend Coulter Construction to everyone in Hawaii who wants to build a solid dream house that will last for generations.

Contractor (Scott Coulter) walked off the job and never finished. Quality of work was poor. There were problems with work (roof leaked, drywall never finished) and safety issues (bags of roof tiles slid to ground from second floor, damaging neighbor's fence). Contractor was absent from jobsite and failed to supervise subcontractors. Contractor was unresponsive to requests to address problems and unresolved issues.