YOUNGSVILLE, N.C. (WNCN) – A pair of home builders from Youngsville are reaching out to help a family after seeing their story on CBS 17.

The family’s home was damaged by fire last August and they hired CMC Flooring Enterprises to do the repairs.

But the family says the contractor stopped showing up in January without completing the work to the Creager’s Youngsville home.

After seeing CBS 17’s series of stories about the contractor accused of disappearing after taking $34,000 in insurance money – the builders from Youngsville contacted CBS 17 saying they wanted to help the family.

“We saw the news story on Facebook and we like that we can help someone on a local level,” said Brandon Wiggins, the co-owner of Atlas Custom Builders. “Youngsville is a small town and we wanted to be able to help a neighbor in a small town.”

Before making any commitments, Wiggins and his partner Michael Keith walked through the home with the Creager’s to see what needed to be done. As he looked at repairs to the rear porch where the fire began, Wiggins pointed to burned rafters that had new beams attached to them.

“The previous contractors were not any good because you’ve got smoke and fire damage up here in the rafters but they haven’t re-addressed that,” he said.

A tour of the home also revealed other repair work by the previous contractor that will probably need redoing.

As he looked at the first floor, Wiggins asked, “Has any insurance adjuster or estimator given you an indication of plumbing or HVAC systems being compromised?”

He says plumbing and wiring will need to be brought up to code.

As the builders took note of the past repairs and what was left unfinished, they tried to give Katie and Chris Creager a realistic expectation of what needs to be done to get the house to the point where more insurance money can be released to continue to pay for repairs.

“You need to get this part figured out in order to get to your 50-percent threshold,” Wiggins explained.

The builders say the availability of permits, insurance inspections and other factors all need to be taken into account before any work is started.

After the tour, Wiggins told Chris and Katie Creager, “The first steps would be to get some certified professionals, an electrician, probably an engineer in here to look at what’s here.”

He said, “It looks like the structure of the house and the electrical could be your two big unknowns. The house looks savable by all means, but we have a few unknowns we want to check out first.”

Even so, it’s the first positive thing that’s happened to the family since CBS 17 first reported their story.

Katie Creager told consumer investigator Steve Sbraccia, “If it wasn’t for you guys we might still have been sitting here wondering what we are going to do.”

Meanwhile, while they wait for word on help from the builders, Chris Creager continues to do what repair work he can to get the family back in the house.

Next week, Atlas will ask its plumbers, electricians and other vendors to take a look at the Creager house to see what kind of repairs are necessary.

Those folks will report back to Wiggins and Keith who will then decide what help, if any, they can provide the family.