DURASTONE CORPORATION

I was happy with the work they completed. After I went in a paid my 50% down payment, I waited a little over a week and called to see when they would be bringing the countertops. I expected someone would let me know several days in advance and they advertise 5-7 days from the day you placed the order. I called on day 6, and they were installed 5 days later. The workers who installed the countertops were efficient and courteous. The cost included new sinks in the kitchen and bathroom installed as well as removal and disposal of the old countertops and sinks.

Overall, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. On my first visit to the showroom, I dealt with Robin, who was helpful and gave me some different pricing options. As we continued to weigh our options, we made a few more visits to their showroom just to look around and really make sure that we liked their slabs, etc. However, on my final visit I encountered Chris, who is the store manager, and he was less than polite. As both he and Robin answered some additional questions we had about different granite colors, he made comments under his breath to other employees about how we had been there several times and that he didn't see why we had to ask so many questions. In my opinion, if I'm spending ten grand, you can answer a few questions for me. At that time, we also met Ronnie Zhu, the owner, and he was very polite and assured us that he would oversee the project personally and seemed to have good knowledge of the fabrication and installation process, which in the end persuaded us to go ahead and use them. Once the project started, there were several miscommunications about scheduling. For example, they called and said they were coming out, and no one showed up. When I called in to see where they were, they acted like they had no idea they were supposed to be coming, and told me that no one had called and told me that they were coming. So I guess I made it up? Then they would reschedule for a week later, which delayed other work being done in the house. When they finally did come out, they didn't complete the whole job, and didn't communicate with us as to why until after we called them to find out why it wasn't done. While the overall quality of the fabrication and installation was decent, they really lost points on the caulking of the granite. All over the house, the caulk was different colors without a really consistent pattern or reasoning. In the kitchen, we had an issue around the apron sink that had to do with both caulking and the granite edge being cut short on one side. When I called in to discuss this with Chris he was very rude and unprofessional. He basically accused me of lying, saying that his installers were not responsible for caulking the sink, and that our plumbers must have done it (not true). He then went on to talk down to me saying that he certainly was not responsible for caulking performed by other tradesmen, and that he wasn't going to come over and re-caulk all of my crown moulding. It was completely ridiculous. After this conversation, I hung up and called back, asking for the owner directly. I told the owner that Chris was extremely rude and that he had honestly cost him any future business from me or anyone that I know. He apologized, came out to the house and walked through the job, and sent out a final crew to fix all of the mistakes we'd been going back and forth on forever. In the end, it did all end up complete, but it was a very frustrating experience. I will never use DuraStone again.

This summer we moved into a town home that was about 10 years old. We wanted to add a counter in a corner of the kitchen. The rest of the countertops were granite. We went to probably a dozen different places trying to find something that would come close to the same granite and someone who was willing to do such a small project. Durastone let us look through their samples, and when we found a partial slab that we liked, they even reduced their original bid. They arrived on time for the measurement of the cabinet and the installation. It was all accomplished in 2 weeks time.