Renovate For Good

Hello,

First, we appreciate the opportunity to respond to this review. It is very shocking to us, as feedback of this nature is very rare for us. We are quite taken aback.

We are obviously disappointed and discouraged that you feel this way. During the course of construction, our trades, who are reputable, honest, and fair, worked very hard to keep the project moving forward, even given several challenges that presented themselves after it began. But, given the fact that this online format is the first time we've heard about your dissatisfaction, it is even more troublesome. Along the way, we made every effort to communicate with you on a daily basis. We would certainly have loved to know if you were unhappy at any point during the project. That said, we hope you will consider the following response to several of the statements you have made in your review.

When we began our quoting process, you indicated that "budget" was of very high importance to you. Further, the bathroom in question was poorly constructed when it was originally built. We discussed it at length during our first visit. The walls were not plumb, or square, and there was significant mold that had permeated the bathroom, and an attached bedroom, likely from a poor earlier renovation. We discussed the difficulty in constructing a brand new bathroom around such a structure, without the expense of gutting the room, or at least rebuilding the walls. The 14k budget you had for the work we did was a substantial reduction of our true cost in doing the work, including mold remediation - work that required us to keep the existing walls, and several features that did not meet common building practices. It was hard work to make many parts of the project work, but we were happy to work with you on it.

It's hard to imagine that there were any "unfinished pieces", or that the area wasn't cleaned at the end of the project, given our owner attended the site himself and spent 4 hours cleaning, under a high-lumen spotlight, to ensure it was done to your satisfaction. But, if something was missed in that process, we would be happy to make it right.

Admittedly, we are very frustrated by your statement that it took 5 months to complete this job. This is a completely false statement. It's misleading to include the agreement signoff date in the project timeline, when construction didn't begin until we were able to schedule a reliable start date with you, months after sign off. Even though it did take a little longer than we had originally planned, the death of the mother of one of our staff was a difficult blow to him, and the process. We did have to redeploy other crew members to offset this challenge, but frankly, we feel we did the right thing by everyone involved. Still, we apologize for the modest delay in completing the work.

There were many things you left out of your review. The scope of your vision changed many times; at least 5 different items after sign off, a complication that makes it very difficult for a contractor to complete a job. It's expensive for either the homeowner (if the contractor charges for changes after the agreement is signed), or the contractor. In this case, we didn't charge you for making those changes; we absorbed those costs in an attempt to ensure you were happy with the end result.

The Midnight Blue paint you chose for the room, for example, was a choice you made near the end of the project. You purchased your own paint for the first gallon, asking us to apply that to the existing walls - including the wall where your old light fixture existed, a fixture you had been considering keeping (until you changed your mind later in the process). That paint was glossy, and very dark, and needed to be painted over a very light original wall colour - a process that any pro painter will tell you takes many many coats. We spent far more than $450 on 2 extra gallons of paint, and the labour to apply 8 coats. Yet, when you complained about that, we provided you with another credit on your bill. To be honest, that wasn't fair to us, but we felt it was important to continue trying to ensure your happiness.

A similar issue occurred with your toilet. We admit to accidentally cracking your toilet. But to be fair, you had recognized that your toilet was quite old, and you agreed to having us install a modern low-flo toilet, provided to you (through us) by a high end, reputable well known plumbing outfit in Calgary. It is certainly NOT low quality, is new, carries a warranty, and was professionally installed. The hard part for us to hear, is that despite all this, you asked us to credit you for that new toilet (that you originally asked for), after you saw that we cracked the old toilet just prior to throwing it into the refuse truck.

With regard to the tiles, we are very frustrated with your description of the tile work. From the beginning, we did provide our professional opinion on the tiles we recommended using, and even arranged a long, detailed showroom appointment for you with a tile design expert, to select the most suitable tiles for your project. However, you chose to buy your own on-sale tiles at a big box store instead. We discussed that the tiles you chose were wavy, and not all the same thickness, and that applying them to your wall (in the unusual angled pattern you chose at the last minute), would amplify those deficiencies. You informed us that you were fine with that, apologized for selecting them, and stated that you were happy with the careful work we did do with the materials you provided. The difference in labour for the unusual artistic pattern, and the challenging tiles, was NOT charged to you.

We are disappointed we could not provide you with the service you expected. But, we take our work very seriously, and its our mission to help our customers, and countless other Calgarians. We are human beings, we can certainly make mistakes, and when we do, we appreciate the opportunity to correct them. We would have preferred the facts be presented fairly, honestly, and accurately. Still we are saddened that your vision was not delivered in the way you had expected. Going forward, we will continue to maintain our positive attitude, our happy disposition, and our willingness to please our customers. We will also continue to take care of one another, and to help many many people in Calgary through our giving programs, and our insistence on being kind to one another. Also, in hearing your concerns, we will actively search for ways to improve our process and communication in an effort to improve the experience our customers have with us. We thank you for pointing out your concerns, and our assessment of them will certainly improve us as a company.

We wish you well, and are certain that your new shower is waterproof, mold free, functioning perfectly, and very well built.

Renovate For Good Ltd.