I will not give my recommendation for GMG and in general Afrin, but simply state the facts and you can make your own judgement on where to go with GMG.
We decided to go with GMG in mid-April for the backyard fence in our street in Richmond Hill, at McCleods Landing home development area. We signed them up early so that we could have our fences done and out of the way at the beginning of the summer.
At the time of the signing, Afrin agreed to a start date of the end of May. Come June, when they finally get to start digging for the posts, the city comes by and says that they can't until the markings for underground gas/power/etc are done. This delayed the start until the beginning of July, during the Canada Day weekend. [If you're a reputable fence builder with experience doing fences within Richmond Hill, wouldn't you know of this guideline by the city before hand?!?!] They came in worked for about 8 to 10 days [give or take a day here], got most of the posts in for the entire street, almost completed 3 houses, partially completed 3 more, and didn't touch the other over 14 to 16 houses. That was it for July. In the case of my house, the post for the gate was in the wrong location...off by over 6 ft. and another post wasn't put in because they couldnt dig past a big boulder. Next time they showed up was during the Aug 5th civic holiday where they worked 3 or 4 more days. I was out of town around then, came back to find that my fence was still not completed. It is now mid-August and they still have yet to touched the other 14 to 16 house.
In regards to their workmanship, they are inconsistent, nails are not put in flush, sometimes sticking out significantly. The curved cuts are not always so smooth, but tolerable. For my house, the posts for the gate was put in the wrong location, off by over 6ft. Another post was not put in because there was a large boulder in the way. After talking to us about our options for that post blocked by the boulder: 1) bring it in 6" inside my property line to dig around the boulder or 2) put the post off to one side creating an unsymmetrical post patter, we made it explicitely clear that neither of those options are tolerable and that the right thing to do is to break the boulder down with a jackhammer and put the post in the right location where it belongs. So what does Afrin and GMG do? The do option #2 while we were out of town.
In regards to customer service, Afrin and GMG do not return phone calls. Period, end of story. The minute I noticed my gate post was in the wrong location, which was a Thursday at around 5 PM, I called GMG, got a very nice lady, explained what the issue was and left a message for Afrin. Friday morning, no call back. I called again around 11 AM and the same nice lady told me Afrin got the message and will call me back within the hour. No call back on Friday. I called on Saturday, left voicemail. No call back. Finally, Monday, late afternoon, I called and this time Afrin answered and we discussed the issue. How much effort does it take to return a customers call? It shows that Afrin does not care about his customers. To that same tone, when the post near the boulder was put in an unsymmetrical post pattern, both my neighbor and I repeatedly called Afrin, to which neither one of us got a call back. Do you think thats acceptable? Would you tolerate that?
Are there any positives with GMG? There are a few. They were 25% cheaper than any of their competitors and they didn't take any money upfront. Their fence used 6x6 posts pressure treated wood, the cost included the post caps and scalloped tops for the fences, plus it was 6" high without any lattice tops.
So to summarize and answer the question, should you go with GMG, if you don't have a timeline and don't care when they finish, then perhaps the 25% cheaper is acceptable. However, I find GMG and Afrin frustrating to deal with and had I put money up front, I would have been a lot tougher on them. Since April, they worked a total of 2 1/2 weeks out of a possible 12 weeks. If I had to do over, I would get it written in the contract an end-finish date.
