Cambridge Home Renovations

Rod and his team did an amazing job doing our bathroom renovation. The work was beautifully done and Rod paid attention to all the details. He was very helpful with decision making and provided excellent input to the design of the bathroom. Rod was present every day and very easy to communicate with. He is dedicated and passionate about his work. We had a few unrelated items that needed fixing in our home and Rod was thankfully willing to do the extra work for us. We would readily hire CHR again....definitely 5 stars!

Rod is a genius. Not only can he beautifully renovate a house from bottom to top, but he also can work within the complex legal restraints of the town, with inspectors whose every whim he understands, while pacifying neighbors who have their own needs. And all of this, on time exactly when he promised. I cannot recommend him highly enough.

CHR did a great job to finish our basement. We were so enthusiastic with their work that half way we asked them to remodel our guest house bathroom and kitchen. They were very responsive and the results were fantastic.

Unfortunately we had a very unpleasant experience with Rod Vaca and Cambridge Home Renovations. This was surprising since we had a positive first impression of Rod, and were impressed with his reviews online. I strongly recommend against using Rod’s services. We paid an unnecessarily high price for our reno, yet received low quality work, and went through an exhausting and unpleasant process. After more than 8 months, our renovation is still unfinished and Rod stopped responding. We are now pursuing legal action. We hired Rod in September 2020 to renovate our home. Rod’s team worked on multiple rooms, doing woodwork, painting, and finally, doing a small remodel of our kitchen. Rod charged a high price for our kitchen, but he assured us of high quality workmanship. Then we went out of town and Cambridge Home Renovations performed poor quality work while we were gone. Our kitchen shelves were not level, the window trim had gaps, our range hood was twisted and not level, and they left an electric plate in the middle of our wall. Rod said deficiencies would be fixed later on the “Punch List” and told us our full payment for the kitchen was due. We trusted him and we paid him. It is 8 months later and Rod has not returned to fix the Punch List items. In addition to the kitchen deficiencies, he also left gaps in our expensive wainscoting, peeling paint in our bathroom, and a light switch that doesn’t work. Sadly, Rod is attempting to gaslight us and tell us these deficiencies are not his responsibility. For example, he said the kitchen shelves are fine, yet they are very slanted (see picture below). Rod refuses to acknowledge that they are not level. We cannot believe the thousands of dollars we paid for these low quality, slanted shelves. It has been a sad and exhausting experience. It’s not worth your risk to work with him. If you do hire Rod Vaca, be prepared to actively manage his team and regularly perform QC checks on their work, otherwise they will cut corners. You will need to confront Rod regularly about the workmanship. Do not pay him until everything is adequate. Do not believe him when he says things will be fixed “on the Punch List”. He will simply stop responding and leave your Punch List money behind. The most disappointing part is how Rod repeatedly gaslighted us. He will say that the deficiencies are due to problems with your home. He will make you feel uncomfortable and unreasonable when you highlight deficiencies. But unless you do this, Rod's team will do sloppy work whenever possible.

I live in a 100 yr. old triple-decker in Mid-Cambridge in an historic neighborhood. I needed to replace my windows. My neighbors had hired Rod Vaca, Cambridge Home Renovations, to replace their windows among other projects. They highly recommended him to me, so I hired him for the job. I’m very happy I did. Rod knows all about the Cambridge permitting process and how to get a project through it. He knew exactly what type of windows to install and made it so easy for me. The pandemic arrived during the installation timeline, which stretched it out, but Rod kept me up to date with what was happening all through the delay. Finally, Rod and his crew arrived. They came punctually from 8 am-4 pm every day for 5 days, wearing masks and protecting my furniture. They did a meticulous job with the installation and surprised me by repainting the window frames and sills. Their workmanship is remarkable. Their clean-up of their work great. And I am thrilled with my new beautiful windows.