The Renovators of Canada

I selected this company because they appeared to have a large staff and promised online updates of the schedule, a budget which would be altered in writing if costs changed and a site supervisor. I thought I would have a consistent staff and the price would be as detailed.

NONE of this was provided and I feel responsible to warn anyone who saw this company's sign on my lawn.

the site supervisor was rarely on site and relied on me to meet with trades that he subcontracted to. The TROC hourly workers took advantage of the lack of supervision and had extended lunches (I witnessed 2 hour lunches, hour long "15 min" breaks, etc). Once I came home to find them asleep on the back porch. It got to the point that the absent site supervisor put a sign in/out sheet in the house to monitor hours. When the carpenters refused to sign in, the site supervisor asked ME to monitor when the workers came via a text to him in the morning at at night. THen, when I was invoiced their hours, we reviewed the texts I had sent to the site supervisor and corrected for the hours that were actually worked.

I had to clean up at the end of the day when the workers left; often finding open cans of paint, huge hills of sawdust, materials scattered on the driveway. When the project was "done" I found drywall sanding sponges shoved down the heating ducts because the workers were too lazy to walk to a garbage can. I provided direction to the carpenters as to what to do because no one else was here to tell them. Some subtrades (eg. the eaves troughs) were found at the last minute on kijiji and selected by the "site supervisor" (who never met them) because they were the cheapest. I take issue with paying TROC 21% (the industry norm is 20%) management fee when I was the one meeting the subtrades and telling them what to do and on site when they were working.

The work itself was subpar, in part because of the turnover and in part because I think their workers knew they were unmonitored and could get away with murder. 4 different carpenters worked on one railing. Almost everything that i was able to see had to be redone which is why my 2 month reno has been ongoing for a year. For example; the stair railing split and was unstable; the door frames were crooked, their subcontractor electrician decided he didnt want to install 4 light fixtures for no particular reason other than that he was paid for the job in full prior to installing them.

The worst part was that the invoices seemed extremely high. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and let it ride for a couple of months. When it continued and I asked for back up invoices and staff changed, I was finally provided (thank god) with the receipts and hours behind the invoices. here is what I found:
- I was often billed for some things twice
- I was billed for items that weren't for my job
- I was repeatedly billed $65 for trades that were negotiated in our contract at lower rates ($45).
- every invoice had errors in the tens of thousands of dollars. TROC would reverse the errors and their accountant departed shortly after this mess, but again I take issue with having to audit every invoice and find the errors on a monthly basis when they KNEW their accountant misbilled repeatedly in the past.

a lot of damage was done to our house/landscaping because of the lack of care by the people working here and lack of supervision. (eg. setting up the carpentry bench on our newly hardwood covered floor, dumping dirt on our lawn and leaving it there for a month, paint dripped everywhere, all our landscaping lights broken by deliveries of wood). I was surprised when a 17 yr old student showed up one day and I was charged $45 an hour for his work.

they had a "free" designer available but she was unable to tell me what her discounts were. TROC reps told me I could probably do better without her and save the troc 21% mark up, which I did.

I will give Perry credit for making some correction to invoicing and changing the accountant, but I have still yet to see any sense of accountability (parden the pun). the reno that was to be 2 months has gone over budget and required my daily supervision and is now on its second year. Every error that I point out to TROC was met with the supervisor's critique that the guy who did it was (cant put the word here, edited by homestars) rather than an apology. In fact, I was asked to thank the accountant for all the time she spent making corrections to my invoice.

I held off on posting a review because I feared the impact such a review would have on my (written) warranty and the fact that I am still fighting with them to finish the items required to satisfy the occupancy sign off by the town.

TROC was good years ago when it was small and had a dedicated staff.

It is not the same company today because of turnover, culture, lack of supervision, and unfortunately Perry is a golfer and doesn't have a master builder on staff to ensure quality.

If you read this and still want to hire this company please consider asking for:
1) Fixed cost; there isn't the attention to detail or costs by troc to anything other than fixed cost
2) a supervisor on site working daily
2) list who will be working on site and that there not be any turnover.
3) reduction in price if they go past their estimated delivery date without written pre-approval

good luck to all.