I worked during the day so I was unable to supervise what was happening. There were many problems with the quality including cracked tiles installed and shortcuts taken that I suppose he (the owner and the one who does much of the work along with his small team of young men) thought I would not notice. These included gaps where crown molding met the wall, that he tried to cover up with excessive amounts of caulk or some kind of sealant. Also, installation of a toilet without sealing it to the floor so it leaked all over my wood floor ruining it and causing me to replace it. They (his team) also made a MESS and I had to hire a maid to clean several times!!!! But that was nothing compared to the worst....
By far my biggest complaint was my bathroom remodel!!! I purchased a very expensive slipper tub with expensive chrome fixtures. After installation, I noticed the pipe leaking on to the floor with the first use. Upon closer inspection I noticed that much of the chrome pipes had been scarred by what was surely the wrong tools to fit the pipes. These were permanent, visible scars. Also, the cast iron tub had marks in the white finish, where apparently tools or other things had banged into it. But, the worst part was the leak! In fact, the leaking caused my newly installed wood floors to buckle! The contractor returned to and quot;fixand quot; it twice but it continued to leak.
I decided that I should get down on the floor to do a closer inspection. As it turned the only and quot;fixand quot; he did was to seal the decorative plastic cap (made to look like chrome and conceal where the pipe enters the floor) to the wood floor with silicone! What this did was hold the leaking water inside the plastic cap so I didn't see it, but it did nothing for the leak, which continued and was the reason my wood floors were ruined! After several calls to get him to return to fix it, he avoided me. To make a long story short, I figured there must be a bigger problem hiding beneath. Turns out there was a huge problem! A friend who is a master plumber disassembled the plumbing to find out what the contractor installed wasn't any kind of real plumbing but an assembly of scraps including a rubber hose from an HVAC unit. My friend had to jack hammer up the slab to get at what all this contractor had done. First among problems, there was no p-trap installed. Second, because he didn't go down far enough into the slab in the first place, the contractor ran out of room to fit the correct pipe joints, so instead of going further down, which would have take more time and effort, he rigged his own contraption made out of a thin rubber hose from an HVAC unit (I was told)...no pipe at all! Also, the PVC piping was laid directly in the concrete and concreted over...without a sleeve which would, as I was told, degrade the pipe over time. Additionally, the ends of the PVC pipe (where the rubber tube inserted into) were jagged as if he didn't even bother to cut a proper edge.
In all, the repairs to fix his shoddy work cost be about $5,000 and of course that does not include damage to the tub and chrome pipes, which I did not replace, but bother me to this day. I was prepared to take the contractor to small claims court and I had and still have all the evidence documented in photos and emails. Unfortunately I deployed to Afghanistan for a year and the way the court works is that if you do not show up to fight your case you lose! Needless to say, I could not fight it. There you have it...I should have checked Angie's List first!!