Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

The list of complaints goes from false diagnosis to taking payment before and not finishing the job. Now, the Better Business Bureau tells consumers be wary you may end up with customer satisfaction issues. The owner of Rooks Gameday Bar and Grill is one of a half a dozen customers who hired Lesco appliance to repair an appliance. In this case it was an exhaust fan for the Maryland Heights restaurant. Peggi Strange co-owns Rooks. She says the Lesco Technician would visit the restaurant and convinced her to buy a maintainence agreement since she uses so many different appliances. He fixed one appliance for her. But one of the four exhaust fans on the roof needed repair.

He went up on the roof said yeah that fan, you need a new motor for that fan and the other two motors they`re getting ready to go out too. They`re not really working. Peggy had to do something to keep the business open.

We had all kinds of smoke in the kitchen. We had to use fans blow it out. He said it would be four hundred dollars for that motor. So I had to pay him then so he could go ahead and order the parts.

That along with a service agreement she bought meant she spent almost a thousand dollars but then had to hire another company to fix the fan. And that second company technician gave her some surprising news.

He started working with the other two motors and all that was were, fuses were blown. And like other customers, she wants a refund. We called the co owner/technician who says he and his partner have agreed to refund money to Peggy and homeowners.

Promised repairs on dryers, washing machines, dishwashers and stoves were either partially completed or never started according to the BBB. The owners say it could take them 30 days to refund all of the estimated 3000 dollars due the customers. But they want to resolve the complaints. Some of the customers tell us its been over six months since they scheduled their service call. The promise of a refund is welcome news. Dont forget the Better Business Bureau offers tips when hiring an appliance repair service.

Things like, find a company with a proven track record, pay with a credit card get a second opinion if you feel uneasy about the diagnosis. . If you have a consumer issue call Contact 2 Mon thru Thurs 11 till 1pm. 800 782-2222. Remember when you spend your money, you should get what you pay for.

The BBB offers the following tips when hiring an appliance repair service: Look for businesses with good track records for service. Ask friends, relatives and neighbors for recommendations. Do not rely solely on information contained in advertising or on websites. The material can be misleading or inaccurate. Pay with a credit card whenever possible, so if there is a problem you can challenge the charge. If you feel uneasy about a diagnosis, contact another company for a second opinion. Check for BBB reviews at http://www.bbb.org or by calling 314-645-3300.

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Contact 2: Customer Satisfaction Issues With Lesco Appliance Repair

NORTH MANKATO The developer of the Marigold project in North Mankato unveiled a new project Tuesday that would bring a $16 million, six-story, 101-unit rental housing complex to lower North Mankato.

With mostly one- and two-bedroom units, the complex would aim for higher-end renters those making $50,000 a year or more with rents estimated at $1,100 to $1,800 per month.

The developer will seek an estimated $1.8 million in tax-increment financing spread over 24 years to help finance the project.

Van Moody built and opened the first phase of the development just over a year ago and had planned two future phases. Architect Bryan Paulsen told the North Mankato Port Authority on Tuesday that the proposal combines phase two and part of phase three with the plan being called Marigold 2.5.

Sometimes bigger is more cost effective. Thats the case here, Paulsen said of the proposal.

The building would include underground parking, along with some covered parking on the first level as well as outdoor parking. The first floor would also contain a lobby, bar/lounge area for tenants, and a fitness room.

The five stories of housing would include amenities such as granite countertops and individual balconies on each room.

City Administrator Wendell Sande said details of the proposal will be firmed up during the next 60 to 90 days after which Moody will have firm budget numbers and a formal financial proposal for the city.

U.S. Bank is providing primary financing and President Todd Loosbrock said the bank is continuing to do its due diligence on the loan package.

If the financing and other details come together in the next three months, construction could begin in July with the building opening in 2013.

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Developer unveils six-story, 101-unit apartment building for North Mankato

A photo from the East Norwich Avenue apartment fire.

Columbus fire responded to a fire in the 100 block of East Norwich Avenue at about 5:30 a.m.

Firefighters pulled two victims, 34-year-oldChris Lennonand 31-year-old Jessica Walker, out of the burning apartment. They remain in critical condition at The Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center.

Battalion Chief Michael Fowler told NBC4 the male victim is not an Ohio State student but the female either is a student now or is an alumnus. The victims have not been identified while family and friends are told about the fire.

Brad Defauw lives next door to the apartment on East Norwich Ave. that burned Tuesday morning. He said it could have happened to him.

"But as far as, you know, a real fire during the night,I guess right now we don't even have any sort of protection at this point, said Defauw.

Thats because the two smoke detectors in his apartment are broken.

"This is right up here. This is where our smoke detector should be (pointing to a smoke detector without a cover)but obviously you can see that it's not really in place right now. We have a battery, but that battery is dead, explained Defauw.

What about the smoke detector upstairs?

"The battery has been beeping for quite some time, Defauw said.

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North Campus Apartment Fire Has Students Thinking About Safety

There was a significant drop in the number of new homes and apartment buildings under construction in the final quarter of last year.

Bureau of Statistics data show the total number of new homes under construction fell 6.9 per cent in the December quarter of 2011 in seasonally-adjusted terms.

It also found the number of apartments being built plunged 13.9 per cent.

The result came on top of a decline of 5.8 per cent in the September quarter, downwardly revised.

Housing Industry Association senior economist Andrew Harvey says the apartment sector has fared worse than private home construction in the past year.

"You've had the removal of the last bits of the government stimulus flowing through in the public sector, and that's coming off as well," Mr Harvey said.

"The public sector does have a high degree of apartment buildings, so that's flowing through there." Mr Harvey says the figures should send a signal to the Reserve Bank on interest rates, after it kept the official cash rate on hold in February and March.

"They probably should have cut at the last meeting," he said.

"We've seen a pretty weak GDP result for the December quarter, and continuing signs that much of the economy isn't as strong as it should be, and some rate relief really is needed." Although the figures reflect activity from last year, TD Securities head of Asia-Pacific research Annette Beacher says they are a key leading indicator of construction activity, and this latest result does not bode well for the sector in the near term.

"While mining, business investment and exports as a share of GDP continue to surge, dwelling investment as a share of GDP in 2011 was 3 per cent, back to levels usually associated with an outright recession," Ms Beacher said in a note on the data.

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New home construction continues to slide

Hooray, Los Angeles County now allows restaurants to decide if they want to let dogs on their patios! Boo, one TV star recently let her puppies rubs their butts on a restaurant table and the health inspector had to come in.

The "doggy-style" incident happened last week at Toast, and involved "Celebrity Apprentice" star Aubrey O'Day and her doggies. O'Day "let her puppies wag their naked asses all over her table at Toast for several minutes ... before finally putting the poochies on the ground," reports TMZ.

Having dogs on the table is in direct violation of the newly modified code that lets restaurants welcome pets on their patios--pets are not permitted on chairs, seats, benches, or tables.

Toast was not cited, but a rep tells TMZ the popular restaurant intends to be "extremely vigilant" about dog heinies on their dining surfaces.

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TV Star Lets Her Doggies Rub Their Bare Butts on Restaurant Table

Memorial Day weekend always has been the official kickoff to patio season. But this year, that rule has been broken. With record-breaking temperatures in the 70s, Twin Cities area restaurateurs scrambled this week to hose off the patio furniture so sun-starved customers could take advantage of the nice weather.

"We're ready to rock," says Jenna Churchill, a manager at Pier 500 in Hudson, Wis. "Because of our location overlooking the water, (owner) Andy Kron takes pride in always being the first to open for the season and the last to close. Since Saturday we have had a steady flow of people on the patio through the dinner hour. Everyone is getting the itch to eat out."

Pier 500 is far from the only restaurant where customers are dining al fresco this week. Most of the popular rooftop patios were open for business, including Brit's Pub, Sea Change, Moto-I, Seven Skybar and Stella's Fish Cafe, all in the Minneapolis. Cafeteria in Minneapolis plans to open Friday. In St. Paul, W.A. Frost always has been the No. 1 spot customers flock to for their patio fix, and the Cathedral Hill restaurant didn't let them down by already opening. The popular Salut Bar Americain opened the patio for lunch Wednesday, and everyone wanted to eat outside. Burger Moe's patio was completely packed Tuesday night with Wild fans downing beers

But some restaurateurs aren't ready to take any chances. The Liffey in St. Paul with its large, second-story deck with wrap-around bar is still closed and doesn't have any immediate plans to open. Joe's Garage in Minneapolis plans to wait until April just to make sure the cold weather is over for the season.

That will never again be a problem at Patrick McGovern's in St. Paul. Owner Pat Boehmer just enclosed his popular patio with retractable glass walls and ceiling so even if the weather becomes a bit chilly, all he has to do is push a button. "It's a one-of-a-kind," he said. "It's way cool."

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Sure sign of Spring? Area patios are open

Memorial Day weekend always has been the official kickoff to patio season. But this year, that rule has been broken. With record-breaking temperatures in the 70s, Twin Cities area restaurateurs scrambled this week to hose off the patio furniture so sun-starved customers could take advantage of the nice weather.

"We're ready to rock," says Jenna Churchill, a manager at Pier 500 in Hudson, Wis. "Because of our location overlooking the water, (owner) Andy Kron takes pride in always being the first to open for the season and the last to close. Since Saturday, we have had a steady flow of people on the patio through the dinner hour. Everyone is getting the itch to eat out."

Pier 500 is far from the only restaurant where customers are dining al fresco this week. Most of the popular rooftop patios are open, including Brit's Pub, Sea Change, Moto-I, Seven Skybar and Stella's Fish Cafe, all in the Minneapolis. Cafeteria in Minneapolis plans to open Friday.

In St. Paul, W.A. Frost always has been the No. 1 spot customers flock to for their patio fix, and the Cathedral Hill restaurant didn't let them down. It's already open. The popular Salut Bar Americain opened the patio for lunch Wednesday, and everyone wanted to eat outside. Burger Moe's patio was completely packed Tuesday night with Wild fans.

But some restaurateurs

That will never again be a problem at Patrick McGovern's in St. Paul. Owner Pat Boehmer just enclosed his popular patio with retractable glass walls and ceiling, so even if the weather becomes chilly, all he has to do is push a button. "It's a one-of-a-kind," he said. "It's way cool."

ANOTHER RUSTY TACO

Residents of Northeast Minneapolis soon will be sipping margaritas and tucking into shrimp tacos.

Rusty Taco, which started in Dallas and opened its first Minnesota location last year at Lexington and Randolph avenues in St. Paul, is expanding.

Owner Bruce Ringgenberg plans to open a second spot next to the former Wilde Roast Cafe on East Hennepin Avenue. Unlike the one in St. Paul, this one will have a full liquor license, a bar and a patio.

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Restaurant News: Patios are packed with diners looking for a side dish of rays

For the past couple of years, a street cleaning vehicle has been washing, brushing and vacuuming the streets of Basel in northwest Switzerland. While there's nothing unusual about that, what is noteworthy is that the vehicle, known as the CityCat H2, is powered completely by hydrogen. The street sweeper is part of a project to practically test the feasibility of hydrogen-powered vehicles under real-world conditions and the results from the trial indicate that, although hydrogen-powered vehicles can save energy, are environmentally friendly, and technically feasible, the prices of fuel cells, pressurized storage tanks and electric drives must all drop significantly before such vehicles are cost-effective.

The project is being conducted by a team consisting of researchers from Empa, the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI), vehicle manufacturer Bucher Schoerling, electric drive specialist Brusa, hydrogen manufacturer Messer Schweiz, and the city of Basel Environment and Energy Department. The CityCat H2 first took to the streets of Basel in 2009 after 18 months of development and ran into problems early on.

"It became clear relatively quickly that the fuel cell system, which had been developed as a one-off specially for the project, was not yet ready for use in a real-life setting," explains project leader Christian Bach, head of Empa's Internal Combustion Engines Laboratory. "On top of that, the various safety systems kept interfering with each other and bringing everything to a halt."

The team replaced the initial fuel cell system with a more mature unit and fitted the vehicle with a single centralized safety module. Shortly after these initial repairs, the voltage converter between the fuel cell system and the battery died, and the electric motor drive and two cooling water pumps had to be replaced. Since these components were tailor-made for the vehicle and took some time to be delivered, the vehicle was off the road for some time.

However, since returning to the streets in the Swiss summer of 2011, the team says the vehicle has been much more reliable and has only needed to be taken out of service once, due to a defective water pump. In fact, the vehicle has been running so reliably for the past three months that Basel's city cleaning services have been able to use it on an everyday basis just like a "normal" vehicle.

According to the project team, over the course of the trial the CityCat H2 consumed less than half the fuel of its diesel-powered contemporaries. Instead of 5 to 5.5 liters of diesel per hour - which equates to energy consumption of 180 to 200 MJ per hour - the hydrogen-powered vehicle consumed only 0.3 to 0.6 kg of fuel per hour - or 40 to 80 MJ per hour.

And although the hydrogen used to power the vehicle was produced using fossil fuels, the vehicle still boasted a 40 percent reduction in CO2 emissions when compared to similar diesel-powered vehicles. This would obviously be further reduced if the hydrogen were produced using energy from renewable sources.

The trial also showed that the vehicle was user-friendly and safe, with drivers refueling it themselves at a mobile hydrogen fuel station. These refueling stations, along with the garage where the vehicle was parked, were fitted with a hydrogen monitoring system, which detected no leaks throughout the trial. The vehicle also proved much quieter than a diesel vehicle - even with the suction system and brushes operating.

According the to project team, the only real practical disadvantage of the hydrogen-powered vehicle was that there wasn't enough waste heat generated by the fuel cell and electric motor to keep the driver's cabin warm on cold days. A heater unit was fitted to the driver's seat to address this.

The other big downside was the cost, with the team saying a hydrogen-powered vehicle of this sort is around three times as expensive as a conventional diesel-powered vehicle. However, they point out that the cost of fuel cell systems alone have dropped by a factor of ten in just the past few years, and that this trend is continuing.

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Street sweeper tests real-world feasibility of hydrogen-powered vehicles

NEWPORT NEWS From Jefferson Avenue, it looks just like any other new apartment complex under construction.

Five tall buildings in various stages of construction dominate the landscape, as wood frames peek out behind scaffolding. Workers are busy installing cabinets, insulation, countertops and flooring for the luxury apartments, which will rent from about $1,100 per month to $1,800 per month for a large three-bedroom apartment.

But the new Radius Urban Apartments at the intersection of Jefferson Avenue and Bland Boulevard is unlike most new apartments, as the developers are working to make them "super green."

"We just kept asking and asking, and they never said, 'no,'" said Carr, referring to Norfolk developer Sifen Inc.. "We're designing apartments that would meet the market five to 10 years from now. We wanted as many green features as possible."

One of the "green" highlights is putting in the parking lot five General Electric charging stations for electric cars, which may be the first such stations for apartments in Hampton Roads.

There will be one charging station per building, and each station will have two outlets.

"When we pitched the charging stations, we said, 'I double dog dare you to put in the charging stations for the electric cars. They (developers) said, 'OK, we'll spend the money and do it','" said Carr with a smile.

Each station cost about $10,000.

Carr said the infrastructure is also in place to install more charging stations should electric vehicles become more prevalent.

Currently, all-electric or electric hybrid cars from major auto manufacturers include the Chevy Volt, one of the Toyota Prius models, the Nissan Leaf and some Smart car models.

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'Green' apartments being built in Newport News will include electric car charging stations

THE CHALLENGE

We took a kitchen with black countertops, oak cabinets and stainless-steel appliances, and asked a local designer to give it some personality.

THE SOLUTION

By replacing the hardwood floors with porcelain tile and turning the island into a seating area, designer Allie Mann made the room a colorful place for family gatherings.

Shaker-style cabinets provide clean lines. Pair dark cherry-stained doors with light floors and countertops.

Use the backsplash as a canvas. A glass mosaic of blue, green and gray tiles is a subtle touch of color.

Bar stools encourage conversation by giving guests a place to sit and talk.

Decorate with a few accessories, such as a vase with flowers and a chalkboard for shopping lists.

Try open shelving for everyday plates. Store more formal dishes in closed cabinets, out of a childs reach.

White counters brighten the space. The material is White Cliff quartz by Cambria.

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Kitchen makeover with new cabinets, counters and backsplash