About Us

A Foundation of Integrity

Sentry Builders was founded in 2006 by Chet Wilkins. Prior to constructing steel buildings he worked as a general contractor building custom homes. The problem he kept running into is that his sub contractors didn't hold themselves to the level of quality he expected from himself.

He began work on steel buildings in the hopes that with a smaller project size he could maintain tighter control on quality. What he found was in many cases just as frustrating as the custom home market. Pushy salesmen, deceptive marketing, long work delays, etc. He resolved to offer more honest business practices to an industry that badly needed it.

Since then we've worked hard to do business the right way. That attitude has worked well for us. Turns out, if you're willing to put in the work, you can make a living without compromising your integrity.

With that in mind here are a few of our core values:

We Are Experienced Professionals

We've been erecting steel buildings for over 19 years now and some of us have been working in construction longer than that. We've finished more than 600 steel buildings across the state of Arizona and we bring that expertise to every project we do.

All Our Work is Done in House

Permitting, earth-work, foundation, framing, insulation, sheeting, doors and windows. We order our steel from a trusted supplier and contract engineers for design and certification. But everything else is done by members of our own team.

This helps us maintain the highest level of quality, and ensures that everyone on site is respectful of the owner and their property.

Every Customer is Important to Us

That's not just a slogan, it's our reality. Last year we built about 30 buildings. At that scale, every job has a measurable impact on our yearly finances. When you work with us you can rest assured, your project will have our full attention.

We Prefer Human Connections

You may have noticed that around this website our phone number is prominent, but our email address is not. This is very much on purpose. We'd rather talk directly to a person and we believe you would too.

We don't have a customer service department. We have a single consultant, Chris, taking our calls. This is the same man who coordinates with municipalities and engineers to get site plans approved. When he receives customer calls he's not reading from a script, he's speaking from experience. We find that customers are helped more quickly and are more satisfied this way.

We deliver all our proposals on site and in person. The person who typically handles this is Denver, one of our managers. We find that giving our customers the face and name of a real expert helps build trust. Also having an expert on site from day one helps us plan projects better and avoid difficulties.

We Believe in Being Honest

Easy to say, but how do we back up words with actions? One way is to structure our deals in such a way that honesty make business sense. As an example we've dealt with businesses, and helped customers who have dealt with businesses, that front load their pricing. After these contractors have their large initial payment they drag their feet about doing the work.

As I'm writing this I have on my desk a contract where we took an initial deposit of 20% for $16,000 and then immediately purchased a steel package for $22,500. On the day we signed that contract we took a loss of $6,500. Dragging our feet after that would be a business disaster. We make that money back in later draws as work is completed. The sooner we can complete it the better for us and our client.

This isn't one special case either, all our contracts tell a similar story. We can remain honest because there was never the temptation to do otherwise. Our business relies on it.

We Don't Just Work in Arizona. We Live Here!

We prefer to live in friendly, happy, beautiful communities. The only way that happens is if all of us do our part and this is our part. We strive to be the kind of company we would like to do business with and construct the kinds of buildings we'd like to own. We'd like to believe our neighbors will do the same.

We take pride in a Job Well Done

We're craftsmen here. This is how we feed our families and contribute to our communities. A person needs some pride in self to be happy, and a job well done is how we develop that pride. We couldn't sleep well knowing that we represent ourselves with poor work. For us this is more than a job. It's part of who we are.

We Rely on Customer Satisfaction

The service we offer is large, costly, and long lasting. Our customers don't have the luxury of giving us a try and seeing how it goes. They rely on our reputation when making a decision, and we rely on our reputation for new work. Most of our customers last year learned about us through word of mouth. Receiving those recommendations happens only when our customers appreciate the product we deliver.

And They Do! You can read our customer reviews on Google and the Better Business Bureau. To date we've never had a review with fewer that 5 stars!

We'd be Happy to Work With You

If we sound like the kinds of people you'd like to work with then give us a call! We'd gladly show you the kind of difference our business philosophy makes.