HIS Cabinetry And Countertops

TO: Skip Fritz, HIS, Inc. HIS Cabinetry Errors & Damage Report 1. We go to your place of business and meet Lois Larus. She shows us a lot of the options for cabinet design. Lois comes to our home and takes measurements. She said Jerry would take final measurements. We come to her office and finalize plans. She tells us about all the craftsmen you have working for you. This makes us feel like we are in good hands, nothing to worry about. This is wrong. The people that came to our home were confused at best. 2. Jerry comes to our home for final measurements. I explain to him about the trim around the door by the dining room cabinets. More on this later. 3. The original three men show up to install base and upper cabinets. No tops. I don’t think I need to watch them. Lois said they are craftsmen. After they left I found all their trash bags in our garage, for me to dispose of. A pile of sawdust was left in our flower bed. 4. A partition is installed between the refrigerator and next cabinet. This is not shown on our plans. Lois comes to our home. We show it to her. Now we must pull the refrigerator all the way out to see if the ice maker line is leaking or unplug the refrigerator. Before we only need to pull it out about six inches to do either thing. She said they would remove it. We keep it because removing may create an unusual look for the remaining cabinets. 5. Our vinyl floor is installed. Two of the original three return to install kick plates. They install kick plates in the kitchen, dining area and master bath. They leave. My builder asked why. The tub bath and master closest are ready. I call your office. They return and install kick plates in the tub bath. Not the closet. 6. These guys return and ask my contractor if they can use some of his material to trim the rear of this cabinet in the master closet side. He said ok. 7. You send out a service person. He said the closet in the master closet was not built correctly so the installers did not know what to do. He was able to install kick plates for this cabinet after calling your office. 8. Prior to this you sent out a person to search for material that was missing from the job. He did not find it. 9. Now the cabinet top installers come. I will refer to the boss as straw hat. He calls me to the master bath. The cabinet top does not fit on the cabinet square with the wall. I tell him I told Lois the wall is not square. She said just tell the installers and they will recess it into the drywall. I told Straw Hat that we are going to install tile as a black splash per my wife’s design to match the shower. I leave the house. When I return your installers have installed backsplashes in both bath rooms without authorization from us. I look at straw hats work order. No black splashes in both bathrooms. He tells me I need what he installed because when you wash your hands water will get everywhere, and they are free because of the error. We don’t need him advising us how to be sanitary. We confirmed several times with Lois that we were doing our own backsplashes. We had already purchased tile for our backsplashes and it is now too late to return them even if we wanted to. 10. A new window sill was to be put on the window over the kitchen sink per Jerrys recommendation to match the new kitchen top. The installers did not do that and when it was brought to Straw Hat’s attention, he said no, there is not to be one, then he went to look at his work order or truck and came back with a new window sill. He then started breaking the original sill out without putting any protection for the new counter top; window or our new floor. Pieces of sharp marble window sill were flying over our kitchen. I got cardboard protection for the floor and put it down. Then opened the window to protect it. Straw hat used a lot of vulgar language while removing the sill. 11. The top on the cabinet in the dining room extends into the door trim. Straw hat wants to cut the counter top, he says it will be ugly. He calls your office, and you sent out someone the notch the door trim. We allowed that to happen just to get it installed. The measurement on the countertop was not correct as this should not have happened. 12. The corner of the kitchen counter top (back side is unfinished) extends into the family room. Straw hat could have easily cut the top to be flush with the family room wall before the holes were cut for the sink. Your installers damaged our property by installing back splashes in both bathrooms without authorization and to have this damage repaired will require further damage to the walls; countertops and possibly cabinets. To fix the countertops in the kitchen and dining room will require the countertops to be removed and re-cut which may also damage the cabinets. We have saved for a long time to be able to afford to do this remodeling project only to have it ruined by your installers. Your representatives told us they were good craftsmen. Your representatives sent these individuals to our home to do a job which we paid for in good faith. They did not speak English well; were not supervised by your company to make sure the job was done properly; and obviously didn’t know how to read your installation instructions. So, yes, we are livid. There is no way to resolve this issue because we have already paid you and we will not allow anyone from your company back into our home to do further damage. We will continue to speak of our dissatisfaction with your business practices and if it affects your company in a negative way, perhaps you will take the time to re-visit the way that you treat your customers and improve your training program. You stated there are always punch list items. These are not punch list items. Wanda and Art McKay 5/25/18

TO: Skip Fritz, HIS, Inc. HIS Cabinetry Errors & Damage Report 1. We go to your place of business and meet Lois Larus. She shows us a lot of the options for cabinet design. Lois comes to our home and takes measurements. She said Jerry would take final measurements. We come to her office and finalize plans. She tells us about all the craftsmen you have working for you. This makes us feel like we are in good hands, nothing to worry about. This is wrong. The people that came to our home were confused at best. 2. Jerry comes to our home for final measurements. I explain to him about the trim around the door by the dining room cabinets. More on this later. 3. The original three men show up to install base and upper cabinets. No tops. I don’t think I need to watch them. Lois said they are craftsmen. After they left I found all their trash bags in our garage, for me to dispose of. A pile of sawdust was left in our flower bed. 4. A partition is installed between the refrigerator and next cabinet. This is not shown on our plans. Lois comes to our home. We show it to her. Now we must pull the refrigerator all the way out to see if the ice maker line is leaking or unplug the refrigerator. Before we only need to pull it out about six inches to do either thing. She said they would remove it. We keep it because removing may create an unusual look for the remaining cabinets. 5. Our vinyl floor is installed. Two of the original three return to install kick plates. They install kick plates in the kitchen, dining area and master bath. They leave. My builder asked why. The tub bath and master closest are ready. I call your office. They return and install kick plates in the tub bath. Not the closet. 6. These guys return and ask my contractor if they can use some of his material to trim the rear of this cabinet in the master closet side. He said ok. 7. You send out a service person. He said the closet in the master closet was not built correctly so the installers did not know what to do. He was able to install kick plates for this cabinet after calling your office. 8. Prior to this you sent out a person to search for material that was missing from the job. He did not find it. 9. Now the cabinet top installers come. I will refer to the boss as straw hat. He calls me to the master bath. The cabinet top does not fit on the cabinet square with the wall. I tell him I told Lois the wall is not square. She said just tell the installers and they will recess it into the drywall. I told Straw Hat that we are going to install tile as a black splash per my wife’s design to match the shower. I leave the house. When I return your installers have installed backsplashes in both bath rooms without authorization from us. I look at straw hats work order. No black splashes in both bathrooms. He tells me I need what he installed because when you wash your hands water will get everywhere, and they are free because of the error. We don’t need him advising us how to be sanitary. We confirmed several times with Lois that we were doing our own backsplashes. We had already purchased tile for our backsplashes and it is now too late to return them even if we wanted to. 10. A new window sill was to be put on the window over the kitchen sink per Jerrys recommendation to match the new kitchen top. The installers did not do that and when it was brought to Straw Hat’s attention, he said no, there is not to be one, then he went to look at his work order or truck and came back with a new window sill. He then started breaking the original sill out without putting any protection for the new counter top; window or our new floor. Pieces of sharp marble window sill were flying over our kitchen. I got cardboard protection for the floor and put it down. Then opened the window to protect it. Straw hat used a lot of vulgar language while removing the sill. 11. The top on the cabinet in the dining room extends into the door trim. Straw hat wants to cut the counter top, he says it will be ugly. He calls your office, and you sent out someone the notch the door trim. We allowed that to happen just to get it installed. The measurement on the countertop was not correct as this should not have happened. 12. The corner of the kitchen counter top (back side is unfinished) extends into the family room. Straw hat could have easily cut the top to be flush with the family room wall before the holes were cut for the sink. Your installers damaged our property by installing back splashes in both bathrooms without authorization and to have this damage repaired will require further damage to the walls; countertops and possibly cabinets. To fix the countertops in the kitchen and dining room will require the countertops to be removed and re-cut which may also damage the cabinets. We have saved for a long time to be able to afford to do this remodeling project only to have it ruined by your installers. Your representatives told us they were good craftsmen. Your representatives sent these individuals to our home to do a job which we paid for in good faith. They did not speak English well; were not supervised by your company to make sure the job was done properly; and obviously didn’t know how to read your installation instructions. So, yes, we are livid. There is no way to resolve this issue because we have already paid you and we will not allow anyone from your company back into our home to do further damage. We will continue to speak of our dissatisfaction with your business practices and if it affects your company in a negative way, perhaps you will take the time to re-visit the way that you treat your customers and improve your training program. You stated there are always punch list items. These are not punch list items. 5/25/18

When we first contacted Lois at HIS she appeared sincere and readily avialable to help with our project. Things started turning south when the project was turned over to our General Contractor. The first issues surfaced with the seaming of the corner section of the kitchen sink countertop. We had specified it to be in one area, but when installed, it was located in a different area causing us to reject the piece prior to installation. Once fixed, the solid surface was beautififully installed, but is now scratching and maring....a sign of cheap material. The second - but main issue - was the installation of the kitchen island quartz countertop. The piece arrived, but was not the right color, much less the right size as it was over size due to the template that was cut. They cut the range insert out while in the house, causing major cleaning problems and air conditioning duct clean outs as the A/C unit was not turned off by anyone prior to the inside cutting. Again, a lack of care by the installers. Once we came in and saw the mess and the wrong countertop, we again rejected the piece. Within several days, the correct colored countertop with cut out was brought, but was not to the right size. They refused to remove this piece as according to the many phone calls - and visit by Lois - their position was that it fit the industry standards for correctness....but not to the measurements provided by us. We were left with a non-functional countertop which caused us added delays as Lois at HIS refused to work with us further to remedy the issue. We contacted another provide and had the countertop replaced and were finally able to install the gas range top that led us into getting final permit approvals from the city.

We used HIS for our entire house newly constructed. The design is beautiful and everyone that sees it is in awe but....the service is absolutely terrible. The original install was done starting April 30th and today is July 24th and we are about to move in. About 2-3 weeks ago I started asking when all the items we were still missing would be completed. We were missing a portion of backsplash, 5 slide out drawers and a few other things so this was not trivial punch list type items.  It took my daily asking (and this is with holding back a retainage) to get any response at all. Then it becomes one guy for the cabinets and another for the granite. For the first 2 months of this nearly 3 month wait supposedly the salesperson was following up on these things. That's a bad business model; he is busy selling to new customers as he should be. Meanwhile we are moving in tomorrow without a portion of backsplash in the laundry room and I was just informed today that there is no more material to match up to it. Maybe there would have been 3 months back who knows. Definitely cannot recommend this company. I really thought I would be as it's custom built, locally owned but it just wasn't worth all the hassles. Use them if you have a lot of time on your hands to follow up.

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Quality was excellent.  Very helpful.   Work was done exactly as we expected. Everyone that has been bye to see the finished job has nothing by high praise for the look.   We are very very happy.

Communication was horrible, but I chose to stay with them based on my contractors recommendation.  The backsplash was not installed correctly.  I have called to talk to them about it and they said they will call me back with a solution.  They never call back and have now stopped taking my calls.  I understand people make mistakes but I don't understand them not fixing the mistakes.  They don't do good work and they don't stand behind the work they do.  I dealt with a rep named Andy.  I hope you will avoid this company.

This was, bar none, the worst experience of my life with a goods and service provider. My contractor had a past experience with HIS and strongly urged me to use them, although I had chosen 2 other companies as finalists. Because my contractor is a really great guy and we have worked on several successful projects together, I decided to go with his suggestion. After all, HIS provided the cabinets for his own kitchen - what better reference could you have?
Well, the only thing they're great at is saying "I'm sorry," and asking for you to pay them on time. They were a week late with my design; 3 weeks late with the original cabinet delivery (they missed 2 delivery dates in the interim); they changed the specs without telling me or the salesman; 4 of the 13 had wrong-sized boxes; all of the doors and drawers were too small for the boxes; they installed several cabinets crooked and failed to account for the slope in the floor so that a base cabinet on one side of the range was 1/2" higher than the other side of the range; they installed the counter tops with silicone only and they buckled and popped up the next day; they lost 10 of the bin pulls and had to reorder (you guessed it, the pulls were on back order and I had to wait); and they failed on several occasions to provide the correct door stops. They measured for cabinets the first week in June and it is now mid-October. I actually need them to fix custom doors I also ordered but I'm so tired now I just can't deal with them anymore. The surface is visibly uneven and the painting is substandard but I just can't stand talking to them anymore. My contractor wanted me to sue them....I just want to be sure that no one ever uses them again. Truly, the most awful experience of my life. 
For reference, this is my fourth kitchen remodel. I am a semi-flipper and love to remodel old homes. I do not have unrealistic expectations. I typically act as my own GC and ordered the range from France, the handmade tiles from California and the custom range hood from a local metal shop in Tampa. Everything else came without a hitch or with a reasonable number of issues. I could have handled a few problems from HIS Cabinetry- in fact, I always expect and plan for some things to go wrong. This experience simply exceeded the bounds of fair play. I would not wish them on my worst enemy.
Please please please choose someone else if you are in the market for custom cabinets.

We needed two custom double sized (8 ft and 8 1/2 ft)  vanity counter tops for a house we were remodeling and moving in to. My wife called around to several granite counter top companies in the Tampa Bay area to discuss and get quotes. I believe we might have looked at Angie's List for the leads.
We were not of the mindset that the lowest price wins. Look, low price is good but we were really looking for a combination of price and quality.
Somehow my wife found HIS Cabinetry and the pricing they gave her over the phone was coming in substantially lower than the other companies that she was talking to, so we checked them out. I stopped by their location and the sales person my wife spoke to (I think his name was Keith  ) seemed like an okay guy. Not high pressure or anything like that.  He took me and a buddy of mine to see their inventory of granite and they had quite a bit available. Picked out what we liked and then checked out their under-mount sinks and the price was excellent on those.
After picking out the look and letting my wife approve it (gotta do that or else), we discussed the details. He was showing me the bevels and my favorite one was an upcharge.  They had several nice bevelled edges that were not an upcharge although the one I wanted was. When I went to put down the deposit, he ended up throwing that in for free. Not sure if he forgot that he quoted me a higher price for the bevel or if he found it in the goodness of his heart to do so although either way, he did. BTW-It wouldn't have cost them any more to do the bevel I wanted. I put down a 50% deposit, they did the work and overall did a great job. 
They only thing that I would say is that they tried to give me a back splash, in one of the two bathrooms, with a SEAM down the middle. My guess is they were trying to use the materials as efficiently as possible and they tried to sneak that in on me. As soon as I noticed the seam, the guys doing the install (they did not speak English but they knew what I was saying about refusing to accept the seam)  called their office and brought out a new backsplash a day or two later.  They did the entire install except for the backsplash that first day and when the job was done it really turned out very nice. 
HIS really were everything that I was looking for. Quality was there, price was there and I cannot complain. 
I would say two things...
Only give a 50% deposit so you can make sure they finish the job properly (and that would be any company you go with for any 
and make sure they do not try to give you a backsplash with a seam in it.

The installation went smoothly, without problems.  The workers were on time and completed the work on schedule.

They charged me $5800 for all the materials and labor.  They did an excellent tile job.  When I had any problems, they came and corrected them.  Just like any other contractor, if there’s a problem one needs to report immediately and make sure that they follow through and get it fixed for them.  They were a little pricey.  This is the first time that I’ve ever used a contractor and so I couldn’t say for sure about the price.  They did a good job.  I would consider using them again in the future if I need to.

I spent about $4000 on that service. They did the work just fine and I liked the final product.

Their salesman/designer, Paul Piterski, designed us a great kitchen at a good price. About 4 weeks after the deposit the cabinets were installed. Their template guy then came out to create a template for the countertop. The countertop was delivered and installed about 2 weeks later.

Very helpful and easy to work with. Salesman Andy was knowledgeable and good at returning calls and making sure I was getting what I wanted. I was nervous about there being so many different people involved in the process; salesman, template person, installers but my fears were unfounded as the job was well done. I am very happy with the product.

Salesperson Andy Nguyen responded promptly after a call for an estimate. He was on time and listened to my countertop needs. He was able to answer all my questions regarding granite, timelines, and the installation process. He returned my calls promptly when I had additional questions. The person doing the template work was on time and completed he work in about an hour. I selected the granite from their granite yard with the assistance of Andy. The installers were on time and took less than a day to install kitchen and 3 bathroom counertops. They were professional and did excellent work. Clean-up was well done. The finished countertops look great - exactly what I was expecting