Kitchen remodeling
Bathroom remodeling
Home additions & ADU
Roofing
Windows & doors
Driveway & pavers
FenceFree written scope consultation - allowances, timeline, and change-order rules on paper before a single trade is scheduled
CGI Construction in San Francisco, CA | Iron Beam Contractors
We provide independent CGI cabinet and building product service across San Francisco, from CGI in Mission District to the Outer Sunset. If you’re dealing with delaminating thermofoil doors, swollen sink bases, or racked cabinet boxes in a pre-1950 row house, we can diagnose the problem and repair or replace what’s actually failing. What makes our CGI work different here is simple: we understand how this city’s fog, raised foundations, and seismic retrofit rules affect cabinetry, not just the structure behind it. Call (833) 756-5936 for a free estimate, and we’ll tell you exactly what’s in the wall before we touch it.
Why San Francisco Residents Choose Us for CGI Service
We work on CGI sales & service cabinetry every week, and most of that work involves pulling boxes out of homes built before 1950. Nolan Driscoll, our owner, spent two-plus decades framing, pouring, and reinforcing structures across California before founding Iron Beam Contractors, and he’s pulled enough swollen particleboard sink bases out of raised-foundation Victorians to know exactly what CGI boxes do after 20 years in a fog belt. We’re not a parts broker or a handyman crew guessing at trim. We’re a general contractor that understands how a cabinet box interacts with the floor it sits on, the wall behind it, and the moisture moving through the room. That matters in San Francisco, where the housing stock is older, wetter, and more structurally active than almost anywhere else in the state. We handle CGI cabinet installation, refacing, and full kitchen or bath remodels under one contract and one point of contact.
Styles & brands we work with
Common CGI Construction Problems We Solve in San Francisco
- Thermofoil door delamination along the bottom rail and hinge edges. This is the single most common CGI failure we see in San Francisco, and it’s not random. On north-facing and fog-belt walls, kitchens stay damp for months at a time. The cabinet backs never fully dry out, and the thermofoil film eventually lifts wherever moisture concentrates, usually along the lower rail and the hinge-side edge. In the Outer Sunset and Richmond, we replace delaminated doors with matching CGI doors when the boxes are sound, or reface the full run when the peeling is widespread.
- Swollen particleboard and MDF cores at sink bases and dishwasher openings. The kitchens we open in Inner Mission and Noe Valley sit over raised foundations with open crawlspaces. Moisture wicks up through the floor and into the toe-kick, then into the cabinet box itself. By the time the homeowner notices the doors no longer close square, the core has already been absorbing water for years. We replace swollen boxes with plywood-core cabinets on an elevated, vapor-barriered base. Reusing a wet box is throwing money away.
- Hinge and drawer-glide fatigue on 15 to 25 year old CGI hardware. Original CGI hinges and glides were never designed to carry the load of overstuffed San Francisco rental-unit kitchens. Screws pull out of the box material, doors sag, and drawers bind long before the door face itself fails. We match CGI’s own replacement doors and hardware where the box is still sound, and we switch to aftermarket Blum-style concealed hinges and full-extension slides when OEM parts are discontinued. The hardware upgrade is usually permanent.
- Racked, out-of-square door reveals from settling foundations. We’ve opened CGI kitchens in Noe Valley and Bernal Heights where the boxes were fine and the floor had moved a half-inch. When a raised foundation settles or a soft-story ground floor shifts, the cabinet run twists with the wall. Doors that closed perfectly in the showroom now hang crooked, and the reveal lines drift. Re-shimming and re-aligning can restore square, but if the structure is still moving, we address that first. Otherwise the problem comes back.
- Odd-run fit issues in Victorian and Edwardian kitchens. San Francisco’s pre-1950 kitchens were never designed for modern cabinet runs. Walls bow, corners aren’t square, and original chimney breasts eat floor space. We use CGI specialty storage and pantry components to fill odd runs without leaving dead gaps or fake panels. It’s a detail most cabinet installers skip because it takes time. We don’t skip it, because the dead gap is always visible.
CGI Service in San Francisco: What Local Conditions Mean for Your Equipment
Here’s the part most cabinet pages never mention. In San Francisco, a CGI kitchen tear-out in a pre-1950 row house can’t be scheduled like a suburban remodel. The city’s 72-hour pre-demolition notification rule and the Planning Department’s shadow and historic-resource review mean we have to file the notice, confirm the building isn’t a designated historic resource, and only then set a demo date. On hillside streets like 20th Street in Bernal Heights or the steep blocks where CGI service in Noe Valley is needed, any excavation deeper than 5 feet also triggers shoring plans and slope stability review. For a kitchen remodel, that rarely applies. For a bath that involves moving drain lines or a vanity on an exterior wall, it sometimes does. The point is, we sequence the permit and notification work before we open a single cabinet box. If the structure makes sense on paper, it’ll hold in the field. If it doesn’t make sense on paper, we fix it before we touch a beam.
CGI Models & Products We Service in San Francisco
We service the full range of CGI product lines common in San Francisco kitchens and baths: the RTA all-plywood cabinet lines used in refacing and rental-unit work, the thermofoil and laminate-door series installed in mid-range condos and rental renovations, the vanity and bath cabinet lines sold through big-box channels, and the specialty storage and pantry components that fill odd runs in Victorian-era kitchens. Our parts approach is straightforward. We match CGI’s own replacement doors, drawer fronts, and hardware where the box is still structurally sound. When OEM parts are discontinued or only available as warranty replacements, we use quality aftermarket hinges and full-extension glides. We’ll always tell you honestly when a box is swollen and racked enough that refacing is throwing money at a failing core. At that point, replacement is the cheaper long-run call.
See the difference
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterCGI Service Pricing in San Francisco
CGI cabinet and kitchen work in San Francisco tracks the city’s labor rates and the age of the structure. What drives the cost is what we find when we open the wall: knob-and-tube wiring, a soft-story floor that needs retrofit before cabinets can go in, or a sink base that’s been silently absorbing crawlspace moisture for a decade. Our free estimate includes a thorough inspection of the existing cabinet run, the wall behind it, and the floor condition. Some jobs are a simple door and hinge replacement. Others turn into a partial box rebuild or a full reface. Here’s what our San Francisco customers typically see, based on the scope of the job:
| Service | Typical Range |
|---|---|
| Cabinet Installation | $4,720 – $15,340 |
| Countertop Installation | $2,360 – $7,670 |
| Backsplash Installation | $945 – $2,950 |
| Small Kitchen Remodel | $10,620 – $23,600 |
| Bathroom Vanity Installation | $945 – $3,540 |
| Small Bathroom Remodel | $5,900 – $14,160 |
Call (833) 756-5936 for an exact quote. Estimates are free, and the number won’t change when we open the wall unless you approve a change order in writing first.
Serving San Francisco, CA — Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the San Francisco area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage — if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs – CGI Construction in San Francisco
It depends on the building. If the ground floor is a soft-story space with reduced wall area for parking or commercial use, San Francisco’s mandatory retrofit ordinance may apply before we can pull a permit for kitchen work. We’ll check the building’s status during the estimate and tell you what’s required. If seismic work is needed, we handle that scope too as your San Francisco General Contractor, so you don’t have to hire separate crews. Call (833) 756-5936 and we’ll check your address.
That’s thermofoil delamination, and Visitacion Valley CGI service areas like the Outer Sunset are the worst in San Francisco for it. The fog belt keeps kitchens damp for months, and the moisture settles exactly where the film wraps the bottom rail. It’s a material failure, not a cleaning problem. If the boxes are sound, we replace the doors. If the core is also swollen, we replace the cabinets.
Swapping cabinet boxes and doors is a finish-level change and generally doesn’t require a building permit. But if the work involves moving plumbing, electrical, or a wall, the scope changes. We confirm permit requirements as part of the free estimate.
Often yes, if the floor has settled and stopped moving. We can re-shim the cabinet run, adjust the reveals, and reset the hinges so the doors close square again. If the slope is structural and moving, we’ll tell you that too, because re-aligning cabinets on a shifting floor is a temporary fix. Call (833) 756-5936 for a free inspection.
A CGI vanity works in a windowless bath as long as you manage moisture. No window means the exhaust fan carries the entire ventilation load. We recommend a plywood-core vanity over particleboard for those conditions, and a vapor-barriered base if the floor is over a crawlspace. A thermofoil door in a windowless, poorly ventilated bath will delaminate faster than one in a room with airflow. We’ll spec the right box for the conditions. Call (833) 756-5936 for an exact quote.
Service Areas Near San Francisco
We serve San Francisco and the surrounding communities. For CGI cabinet and kitchen work in neighborhoods like Chinatown, the Inner Mission, Noe Valley, Bernal Heights, and the Outer Sunset, we’re your local crew. We also take jobs across the bay and south of the city, including Tiburon and the Peninsula. Our full San Francisco service area coverage includes the ZIP codes 94127, 94128, 94129, and 94130.
Book Your CGI Service in San Francisco Today
If your CGI cabinets are delaminating, swelling, or out of square, call (833) 756-5936 for a free estimate. We’ll inspect the boxes, check the structure behind them, and give you a written line-item quote before any work starts. One contractor, every phase.
Written by Nolan Driscoll, Owner at Iron Beam Contractors, serving San Francisco since 2004.