Zach Building Co. - Oconomowoc, Wisconsin

Michael T.

Wanted to share our experiences with using Zach Builders as they recently built our custom lake home. We moved in Memorial Day weekend and the house is perfect. We built this house while living 800 miles away and Matt made us felt a part of the process all along the way. Everything we set out to do in the ideation and design phases came to life and exceeded our expectations. Well Done Team Zach!

Bill & Matt Zach have built many incredible custom homes over many years. That experience has given them a working model from design to move in that is smooth, professional and high quality. The process requires tight connectivity with the home owner and works to seek input and alignment every step of the way. They have learned and implemented many high quality techniques over the years. We can see and appreciate that in our house. They have been a pleasure to work with and have listened to all our input while having to deal with many external issues…example are covid and shortages of building supplies and local labor. They delivered our build on the schedule we agreed to at the start and within 1% of the cost we signed up for. They have a stable of sub contractors that do high end quality work. The subs are very professional and incorporated all of our input as we watched the process go from a drawing to field construction/completion.

We highly recommend using Zach as a high quality high end home builder. We will build another house with them if we ever build again in the future.

TJ G.

Our family broke ground in late April, 2013, with Zach Building Co., moving into our new home in November of the same year.

We've waited to write a review until we'd lived in the house a couple of years - to let the newness and wow factors wear off. The house is now truly 'lived-in', two young kids running around, mom and dad coming and going, and a small dog.

As first time home builders, the entire building experience was new. We chose Zach over two other local builders, and are very happy we did so. Bill and Matt made the design and building processes laid-back and low-key, a perfect fit for our personalities. We met with subs on our own to design cabinets, trim, floor materials, etc. and found that we enjoyed the level of involvement.

During the design phase, Bill came to our home and offices multiple times to go over the home design. Appointments were on our schedule – evenings and weekends to accommodate work and family schedules. During construction, Matt was at the house multiple times a week and was always a phone call or text message away. The subcontractors were good people and didn’t mind us stopping out at the house almost daily. Our new neighbors also had no complaints during construction – no loud music, swearing, littering, etc. The road in front of the house was blown or swept to keep dirt and gravel to a minimum.

After moving in and now spending over two years in the home, our family has found that the design and quality perfectly suits our needs. The home is sturdy, the grading and yard turning out exactly as we wanted. Landscaping completes the picture. Visitors always comment on the high quality.

You can get the same size house for less money. But where you’ll miss out is the items that you don’t see – the stronger floor joists, the Advantech subfloor, the Tyvek Drainwrap vs regular Homewrap, the lumber grades – little items that you can no longer see when the house is built. It all adds up to a well-built house that will last. We’ve lived in a 90’s builder spec home – the difference is amazing.

Our endorsement is pretty simple: if we could go back to the beginning of the process and change builders, we wouldn’t. We choose Zach. If we ever build again, we’d choose Zach.

Scott L.

I cannot recommend this builder based on our experience of poor overall project management, contractor management, lack of effective communication and improper material/sizing throughout the build process. Also, in comparison with our experience with a different builder, we understand in contrast what a good experience with a residential builder should be.

We understand that not all aspects of a build project will go as planned. That is why many people use a home builder instead of contracting individual services to build a home. The builder is to provide a solid plan and effective oversight, including ability and accountability to respond to issues and nuances as they arise. Unfortunately, our experience was just enough effort to provide us with a habitable home. Many of the issues we encountered we had to coordinate the resolution ourselves.

Our entire HVAC system was incorrectly sized and installed. We identified the issue after living in our home and the system had to be replaced, disturbing what was finished drywall and outdoor landscaping. Our front entry door was not installed plum and needs to be replaced. Four people came out to look at it, all pointing to someone else as the problem, and nothing was ever done. The mudroom floor was installed incorrectly causing loud snaps when walking on it. The installer came out, said it was a problem with the product and we never heard from anyone again. The siding, which should have been installed in 3 weeks or so, took over 4 months to install. During this time, it sat on the ground and was run over by various other contractors. This led to a huge waste of material and paint mismatches after installation. The brickwork mortar was allowed to spill down onto windows without cleanup, requiring the replacement of windows. Overall poor floor planning led to numerous issues with layout and many areas had to have workarounds to solve basics, like having light switches on the outside of a room, or around the corner of a wall. Another example includes having to drop the ceiling in a room to make up for improper planning of HVAC. We would also suggest if you request high energy efficiency products, make sure you receive proof of products prior to build/install.

If you do decide to build with Zach, we suggest you ask for the “cost plus contract”. We learned, too late, that without this not all invoices would be provided to us.

Unfortunately, based on our experience, I cannot recommend this builder.

Carolyn T.

We highly recommend using Zach as a high quality high end home builder. We will build another house with them if we ever build again in the future.