Built on Reputation: How Diego Tovar and Essence Construction LLC Are Earning Trust in Quincy
From remodels and roofing to rental turns and restoration, Diego Tovar has built Essence Construction around honest work, careful prep, and doing the job right the first time.
In a town like Quincy, a good reputation still matters.
That is especially true in construction, where one project can put your name in front of a whole neighborhood. One roof, one remodel, one patio cover, one rental turn done right can lead to the next call, and the next one after that. For Diego Tovar, owner of Essence Construction LLC, that steady word-of-mouth growth has been the foundation of his business.
He is not a transplant trying to figure out the community. He grew up here.
Tovar said his family moved to Quincy from the Yakima area in 1990, when he was just a year old. He graduated here, stayed here, and built his company here. Long before he was running jobs, he was the kid fixing things around the house because they needed to be fixed.
“I think it was just growing up humble,” Tovar said. “Anything that would break around the house, I’d tackle it.”
That started early. He remembers redoing his parents’ shower when he was about 14 or 15 years old. He laughs about it now, but the pride is still there too: it is still holding up.
That instinct; to fix what is broken, learn by doing, and take pride in doing it right still shows up in the way he talks about his work today.
But construction was not always the plan.
Before launching Essence Construction LLC, Tovar worked in a mining processing facility and spent time working for other companies, including established contractors in the Wenatchee area and even shadowing Seattle companies. The skills came together over time, first through necessity, then through experience, and eventually through a decision that changed everything.
In 2020, during a season when a lot of people were pressing pause, Tovar went the other direction.
After being laid off for a couple of months, with a new baby at home and a lot of uncertainty in the air, he made the decision to start his own company. It was not the easiest time to launch a business, but for him, it became a pivot point.
He got licensed, got organized, and got moving.
By July, Essence Construction was up and running.
A business built around remodel, repair, and restoration
Today, Essence Construction LLC, a Quincy-based company owned by Diego Tovar (not affiliated with similarly named businesses in the Wenatchee area), covers a wide range of work, with a primary focus on remodels, repairs, and restoration.
Tovar and his team handle kitchen and bathroom remodels, flooring, fencing, siding, windows and doors, patio covers, pergolas, decks, roofing, real estate and rental turns, and more. They work in both residential and commercial settings, and Tovar said the business is split fairly evenly between the two. The company has also done some state and federal work.
Even with that broad scope, he is careful about what kind of work he wants the company to be known for.
He is not chasing massive developments. He is not trying to be everything to everyone. He said he looks for the gaps in the local market and tries to fill the places where he sees the community has a need.
That approach has helped define his lane.
“We stay very focused on kind of separating ourselves from what’s not being done in Quincy,” Tovar said. “Then I tackle that.”
That local awareness matters. Quincy has grown, and the surrounding communities have grown with it. New neighborhoods continue to go in, and areas like Crescent Bar and Sunland Estates continue to see investment and change. With that growth comes demand for everything from interior remodels to outdoor living spaces.
Tovar said one of the biggest requests he sees on the exterior side is patio covers and shade structures.
A lot of newer homes do not come with much outdoor cover, and in this part of Central Washington, that matters. Families want a place to barbecue, gather, and spend time outside without baking in the sun or getting chased in by the weather.
Some projects are simple. Others turn into full backyard-scale covers stretching the length of the house.
Pergolas are part of the mix too, especially in places where homeowners want to preserve a view while still adding style and function to the space.
The details people do not see are the details he cares about most
If you listen to Tovar talk long enough, one word comes up again and again: preparation.
For Tovar, preparation is something that applies from the first call to flooring, roofing, bathrooms, kitchens, and pretty much everything else.
He is the kind of contractor who does not just talk about the finished look. He talks about the subfloor under the flooring. He talks about the moisture behind the wall. He talks about the ventilation in the attic. He talks about the little things that will not show up in a photo the day the project is done but absolutely will show up six months or five years later if they were skipped.
That mindset comes through most clearly when he talks about finish carpentry, which he says is probably his favorite kind of work.
He describes himself as a carpenter at heart. He enjoys the detailed work. The part where you spend hours fine-tuning something most people will never consciously notice, unless it is wrong.
Cabinet doors that line up. Drawers that slide smoothly. Trim that sits clean. Doors that close right. Floors that do not shift because the prep work underneath was ignored.
“I enjoy doing very detailed work,” Tovar said. “You might spend three hours fine-tuning a kitchen where nobody is going to notice. But I like things to be working just fine.”
That is the kind of answer that tells you a lot about how someone works.
He is not chasing speed for speed’s sake. He is thinking about how the finished product performs.
“I like doing things right from the beginning and even after.”
That standard also shapes the type of customer Tovar says is the best fit for his company.
He said his typical client is someone who values quality work and understands that doing a project right often means spending more time on the preparation than people expect. That can mean sanding, leveling, drying, sealing, replacing hidden damage, or addressing conditions that existed long before the surface problem appeared.
It is not always the glamorous part of the job, but it is often the most important part.
That also means he is willing to tell clients when the project they want is not the project they need first.
If someone wants a new kitchen, but the roof is leaking badly enough to threaten everything underneath it, he is going to say that. If he finds mold or moisture behind a wall during a bathroom remodel, he is not just going to cover it up and move on. He said he makes clients aware of those realities upfront because there is no point in installing something beautiful on top of a problem that is still growing.
Why he keeps coming back to ventilation
There are some people in construction who have their “thing,” the issue they keep returning to because they have seen the damage it causes when it gets ignored.
For Tovar, that is ventilation.
He came back to it several times during our conversation, especially when talking about roofs, crawl spaces, attics, walls, and the hidden health of a home.
In his view, proper ventilation is one of the most overlooked parts of a house and one of the most important. When it is wrong, moisture lingers. Heat builds. Mold grows. Roof life shortens. Small issues turn into expensive ones.
He said homeowners often wait too long to call when they see water damage, especially when it starts as something minor. A constant drip can do far more long-term damage than a dramatic leak because people put it off.
“A thousand dollars can turn into 10,000 easily,” Tovar said.
That same theme came up when he talked about work he has had to fix after others. He was careful not to make it about calling out other contractors, but he was direct about what he sees.
A roof can look fine from the outside and still be failing because the ventilation system behind it was never done correctly. An attic can run far hotter than it should. Mold can build underneath. Materials can break down faster than they were meant to.
Those are not always the problems a homeowner sees first. They are the problems that show up later, usually with a bigger bill attached.
“Ventilation, ventilation, ventilation, man. It’s the most important thing in my opinion.”
That attention to hidden issues is also why Tovar said he never quotes jobs over the phone.
He wants to see the project in person, take measurements, take pictures, look at the materials, and understand what he is actually dealing with before he gives someone a number. He said that protects both sides.
The process starts with a phone call and a few basic questions. What is the client after? What is the timeline? Is this a serious project, or is someone just price shopping? Does the schedule even make sense?
Essence Construction is typically booked out between two and a half to four months, even in slower seasons, so those questions matter. Tovar said he would rather be honest about timing and fit than waste someone’s time or his own.
Once the project moves forward, the communication style depends on the client. Some want updates constantly. Others want to leave town and come back to the finished result. Tovar said he works with either approach, but documentation stays part of the process all the way through. Before pictures, progress pictures, final pictures, especially if hidden issues show up along the way.
Helping homeowners think bigger than the surface
One of the more interesting parts of the conversation came when Tovar talked about what he wishes more homeowners understood before starting a project.
His answer was not really about materials or trends. It was about clarity.
He said many clients know they want something to feel better, look better, or function better, but they are not always completely sure what the best path is to get there. A family may think they need brand new cabinets when what they really need is to improve the layout, or repair and fine-tune what they already have, and use the rest of the budget elsewhere.
That is a different kind of conversation than simply selling the most expensive version of a project.
He wants clients to think about their actual end goal. Is the issue cosmetic? Functional? Structural? Is the house being updated for resale, long-term living, or simply because something is no longer working the way it should?
Sometimes the best recommendation is not the biggest project. Sometimes it is the smarter one.
That thinking also shows up in how he approaches resale value.
Tovar said the best return on investment is not always a luxury kitchen or high-end cosmetic upgrade. Often, it is a house that is healthy, tuned up, and working the way it should.
He talked about squeaky hinges, poor weather stripping, crawl space issues, worn seals, maintenance items, minor repairs, rodent prevention, and other seemingly small details that add up to a house that feels cared for and performs well. That is part of why he created what he calls a 30-point inspection—something designed to help homeowners, older residents, landlords, and agents identify and handle the long list of smaller things that can otherwise pile up over time.
That may not be the flashy side of construction, but it is often the practical side that matters most.
A company rooted in Quincy
What may stand out most about Tovar is not just the work itself, but the way he talks about doing business in Quincy.
He likes that this is a smaller community. He likes the relationships. He likes being known, and knowing people. He understands that in a town this size, you can either burn bridges fast or build them carefully.
For him, word-of-mouth has been enough.
He said he does not market heavily. He stays busy through relationships, referrals, and the visibility that comes from doing work people can actually see around town.
That includes local commercial projects many residents will recognize, including work on the Windermere building on Central Avenue, the Instant Quick Lube building in Quincy, updates at the Port of Quincy commercial kitchen, and other projects around town where Essence Construction has quietly left its fingerprints.
He also described the satisfaction of working in a place where former teachers, neighbors, and longtime community members become clients.
That is part of what makes a local business profile like this worth doing. It is not just about what a company sells. It is about who is behind it, how they work, and why they have chosen to build here.
“I don’t market heavily. Word of mouth for me has worked perfect.”
Tovar said he sees Quincy in a strong position right now. The town is growing, the area continues to attract attention, and the long-term outlook feels positive. He is not trying to chase every part of that growth, but he is clearly paying attention to it.
Essence Construction is not trying to be the biggest name in the room. It is trying to be a dependable one.
And in a community like this, that still means something.
For Tovar, the goal is simple: be honest, be clear, do the work right, and do not put his name on something he does not believe in.
That may sound old-fashioned. Around here, it still sounds like a pretty good business model.
“I think that’s really where it starts, with honesty and doing things completely right.”
What this means for Quincy-area homeowners and property owners
If you are looking at a remodel, repair, roof issue, rental turn, or commercial update, Essence Construction LLC is one of those local businesses worth knowing exists.
Not because Diego Tovar promised flashy shortcuts or instant turnaround, but because his whole approach seems built around something a lot of people want more of when they hire a contractor: honesty, preparation, communication, and work that is meant to last.
In a community where recommendations still travel neighbor to neighbor, that is probably the strongest profile a business can ask for.
Full Interview with Diego Tovar - Essence Construction LLC
Full Transcript of the Interview with Diego Tovar - Essence Construction LLC
