LOWE'S

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It was a disaster. It took 9 months from the time when Lowe?s came to measure the kitchen until the job was done, and we are only talking about putting in new cabinets. I don?t know the company that they used, but it was supposed to be one of their best companies. They would ship the cabinets without the doors. When I questioned, ?why are we getting the cabinets here with no doors!? They said, ?well, they come from different factories!? Then they didn?t fit. Sometimes the cabinets were the wrong size. 

It wasn?t us complaining, it was actually the Lowe?s installers saying, ?this is not right!? Then they would turn around and ship us 2 doors UPS. The UPS guy shows up at the door and says ?I?ve got 2 doors for you!? I had no idea what cabinets they were replacing. It was a ridiculous thing. It took 9 months until the installer themselves, their own sub-contractor say, ?I think now were are done!?

Doors would go up, finished wasn't right. It was supposed to be a glossy finish and it showed up semi-gloss. Another one would show up and when you would turn it over to the back, it had only one coat on instead of two. You could see the grain of the wood through it. I gave them a ?C? overall because of the aggravation. The installers that they used, they kept on the company that was supplying the cabinets, and they kept coming back. They didn?t make money on that job, I can tell you that. They have to come back, but my wife, I think bargained some price concessions with them at the end. It was a sub-contractor. We didn?t pay the guy, they did. 

Another company gave us a bid on the kitchen that we thought was high. So, we went with Lowe?s on price. When we went to the other company and went to Lowe?s, we did not see a big difference in the quality of the cabinets. The cabinets were very comparable, but Lowe?s price was cheaper. If we had known it was going to take 9 months, we would have gone with the other company to have the kitchen redone. 

Four of those months, we didn?t have a kitchen at all. That was the bad part. Having to eat out all those meals. We couldn?t put stuff back in the cabinets and stuff like that. The over 5 months was spent on waiting for this cabinet door and that cabinet door, back and forth. We were pleased with the final product, but taking 9 months to get it. We?ve three people involved in this. We?ve got Lowe?s, we?ve got the installers and then we?ve got manufacturer of the cabinets. The holdup of the whole thing was the manufacturer of the cabinets. 

I don?t know why everything went bad on our job, because I talked to several other contractors and they all used that same cabinet company. On our particular job, everything went wrong to the point where when we talked to other contractors, other people and we talked to the installers. The installers didn?t have it go bad on other jobs they were doing like on ours. Ours was like everything that could possible go wrong on a job. I asked the installer, ?did we choose the wrong cabinet company!? They said, ?No!? It was bad. 


In one of the things, they girl ordered wrong. We wanted to keep our granite countertops. When they out and measured, the first time the cabinets were delivered. The shorter cabinet where it goes above the sink, they sink wasn?t in the middle there, it was one cabinet off. There were 30 inch cabinets and 34 inch cabinets. You put the two of them together you get 64 inches. She measured wrong, so the third cabinet was where the 34 inch should be and the 34 inch was where the shorter one should be. When you stand in front of the sink, the sink is not in the middle where the notch was. Just because she, the left unit and the right unit were ordered wrong. She got the total number of inches right, but not the configuration. You want the cabinet on the top to be the same width as the cabinet on the bottom. That was wrong in some cases. 

They had to reorder. Then some of the doors that were delivered should have been left handed doors and they were right handed doors. You would have a door instead of opening against the refrigerator, it opens out. You had to stand over where the refrigerator was to open it. Stuff like that. It was just one fiasco after another. The cabinet where you put your garbage thing, they send 18-inch hardware and it was a 12 inch cabinet. I said, ?the trash can won?t even fit into the cabinet. What they had done was the 18 inch cabinet was on the left hand side of the dishwasher and the 12 inch cabinet on the right, it just needed to be the opposite. 

Some parts of it was Lowe?s, other parts, they shipped us the wrong stuff. When you are making the cabinets in one factory and the door in another and they show up. You have left handed doors on right handed cabinets. There were ones where the hinges were reset, they were all cut, so now you have them cut on the wrong sides of the cabinets. That is not something you can just putty over, because you painted it in the factory with special conditions and that. You have to ship them back and get a new one. It was really something crazy.

There is a difference in the responsiveness of Lowe?s, the responsiveness of the installers and the responsiveness of the factory. The factory I would give an ?F? to. The installers I would give an ?A? to.  Lowe?s, because they did some measuring wrong and that, they get the middle grade. We would not go back to Lowe?s again. 

They gave us a really nice professional book that had in it all the sketches, all the cabinet stuff. It was also the schedules to when they do what and what they do and all of that. By the end of the first week they had blown the schedule. They were supposed to come out on a certain day and do the demolition. That came up 3 days late. Think I said, ?well, what are you going to do now!? 

In fact, what happened was we had to park our cars in the driveway for about 2 weeks, because the cabinets started being delivered to the house. There was no place to put them in the garage, because the other people had not come to do all the other demo on the cabinets. The demo on the cabinets was held up because the special company that they had that was supposed to remove the granite countertops and store them. The demo guy showed up twice as a matter of fast to demo the cabinets. I said, ?the granite countertops haven?t been removed yet!? After they delivered the cabinets, the girl that was supposed to come from the store to inventory everything, to unpack the boxes to make sure it was all there before they brought the installers in, she took a week to show up. We are 2 blocks from the Lowe?s store. I walk up to Lowe?s all the time. Of course, some of the stuff wasn?t there. 

I dislike having to write a bad business review, but I am writing this one in hopes of saving other people from the horrible experiences and tremendous burdens that were placed on our family for the past two years as a result of choosing LOWE'S in WAXHAW to remodel two bathrooms. We thought Lowe's was a reputable company that would perform excellent work AND stand behind their work, as well as that of their subcontractors. Boy, were we wrong! Lowe's made NUMEROUS construction errors while remodeling these two bathrooms. What a nightmare! Not only was much of the work done improperly, but the subcontractors were often extremely UNPROFESSIONAL: 1. They were often late or did not show up at all. 2. They had to re-do NUMEROUS items, including the beaded board, shower tiles, shower niche, shower doors, paint, light switches, flooring, lights, etc. Almost everything they did had to be done two or three times before it was completed properly. 3. One worker STOLE beer from our garage refrigerator while working. 4. They left messes, cigarette butts, and trash outside and inside every day. 5. The workers did not protect our wood floors when demolishing the bathrooms, so they had to refinish our foyer floors. 6. One worker stood outside and took pictures of our home for an unknown reason, which I consider to be an invasion of privacy. 7. Several of the subcontractors working on our project were FIRED during the job, which suggests what a bad job they were doing. Lowe's took almost a YEAR to finish the two bathrooms! During this time, we experienced a complete invasion of privacy, had to hang all of our clothes on hangers in the middle of the bedroom while they worked on the closets (for months), had everything torn up, and were unable to use our restrooms. Construction inconveniences are to be expected for a couple of months, but when it took almost a YEAR, we were beyond frustrated. Since the completion of the project, BOTH bathrooms have LEAKED. The master vanity had to be replaced (which Lowe's paid for). Currently, we are trying to get reimbursed for a second leak that POURED through the kitchen ceiling. I have contacted their claims department numerous times, and they will not call me back at all. We had Fatman Plumbing of Waxhaw out here to fix the problems created by Lowe's. (Fatman Plumbing is awesome, by the way!) The leaking faucet in the upstairs tub was not sealed closed and was the source of the leak. A seal around the edge of the tub also was not sealed properly to make it water tight. Thank you, Fatman, for finding the source of the problems and fixing them correctly. There are also gaps in the laminate flooring where water can seep through. The laminate was not installed tightly or with a moisture barrier underneath or on top as recommended by the manufacturer (Pergo). Extra precautions (vapor barrier underneath and a sealant on top) are required when laminate is installed in a bathroom. This was not done. We recently had wood laminate floors installed throughout our entire upstairs by a professional flooring company. They told us that the floors in the two bathrooms remodeled by Lowe's were not installed properly. There are gaps and warps, as well as a lack of sealant underneath and on top. We have been told that the floors already need to be replaced before more water damage and buckling occur. Laminate can only be installed in bathrooms when the proper precautions are taken for them to be installed properly. We were told by Lowe's that these laminate Pergo floors were perfectly safe in the bathrooms and that they would install them properly. However, this does not seem to be the case at all. We hired Lowe's because of their reputation, warranty, and assurance that all of the subcontractors would be of the highest standards and screening. We have been sorely disappointed. PLEASE DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE WE DID. WE SPENT THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS ON SHODDY WORKMANSHIP, POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE, CRAPPY LABOR, AND TWO YEARS WORTH OF HEADACHES THAT STILL CONTINUE. (Note: I apologize the wonderful people who work at the Waxhaw Lowe's store who were very helpful during this process. However, the subcontractors and corporate employees really need to get their act together.)

Though they were expensive they did a good job. They had to vent lead a stand from the range top out to the garage. By the time they finished the kitchen it was too cold. They didn't actually finish the job until a few weeks ago. They started the work on the 9th of September and it 2 weeks before we could use the kitchen. I may not use them in the future because of the delay. They striped the kitchen out for may be two days and we did not see them for weeks.

The contractor (William from Reliable Remodeling) was excellent.  Sales person at Lowe's was Lin Mitchell was extremely helpful and designer Ashley Symonds at Lowe's works magic with her computer designs.

It went well. The installer was very knowledgeable and was good at what he did. The whole process of picking up the door, getting the installers for scheduling and getting them to come went very smooth.

Extremely satisfied with all aspects of the experience. Tom, from Lowe's was quite knowledgeable, as was the person who came out to do the measuring. The people who installed the flooring were top notch. They were on time, polite, worked quickly, efficiently. They cleaned up before leaving and asked that we check that everything was performed to our satisfaction. We purchased the flooring while it was on sale at 20% off. Representatives from Lowe's called us at each step of the way to inform us of the order progress and to make sure we were happy. This is quite the opposite experience we had when we used Home Depot for flooring and we were quite reluctant to try another "big box store", but I would use Tom's team from Lowe's on Ballantyne Commons Parkway again!