After nearly 19 weeks, Home Reno Direct completed the renovation of my ONLY bathroom. From September to completion in early January, out of 89 business days Home Reno Direct worked only 18 full days and 15 partial days (usually a half day or less) in this period of time. That means out of 89 days, no work was done on 56 days. Not only did they not show up, they often did not reply to texts, emails and/or phone calls for days at a time leaving me uncertain if/when work would resume. In November, December and January they only showed up 7 times - 6 of which were partial days. I waited 3 1/2 weeks for them to complete the final two hours work.
On August 10 (before construction began) during a showroom visit to address my questions and concerns, I pointed out inaccuracies with the contract, which were acknowledged, but when I asked for the contract to be rewritten to avoid future misunderstanding, I was refused, ultimately resulting in me having to hire a second contractor to address the significant deficiencies in the final reno.
If you live in a condo I do not recommend this company. My building requires that a contractor sign off on building practices and policies for renovation which Home Reno Direct agreed to in writing and then promptly broke almost every rule. (they didn't remove the dumpster, their clearance certificates from WSIB were expired, they sent different tradespeople than those they provided licenses for, and so on). I recognize that it takes more effort to do a condo project, but they did a home visit so it was not a secret and they should have refused the job if it was that much of a hardship.
The contract states I would have a dedicated project manager. The job is complete and I still do not know who that is. The workers would refer me to the office, the office would tell me to ask the workers.
The contract also states "every aspect of your renovation is done the way you agreed upon" but they altered aspects of the project without my consent or even telling me of the change until the work was complete.
So far, I can't fault the quality of the work - the second contractor thought it looked well constructed but this project took so long, was so stressful and so disruptive (remember, it's my ONLY bathroom) that it has diminished my pleasure in the final product.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $400,000.00