Jonathan O.
05/01/2021 12:00:00 SA
I waited a year to leave this review. I didn't want to leave an emotional review immediately after they were done.
I hired Caldwell to remodel my bathroom in Tahoe Park. We chose him because they seemed like a small family business from the area.
I won't go into every single detail, but they started the project late. They took longer than planned, to include seven full days of no work being done mid-project. When I called to tell William I wouldn't be paying him a progress payment because he was three weeks behind schedule he became very annoyed and stated, I currently have 12 bathroom remodels in progress, it's busy. Which is a great way of making the customer feel unimportant. He continued, if you don't make a progress payment, I'll have to go into my personal savings to pay my workers which was clearly a move to pressure me into making a payment out of guilt, because if he truly had 12 bathroom remodels ongoing, he had money coming in. In the same conversation he told me he had a multi-hundred-thousand-dollar job at an apartment complex that was taking up a lot of their time. It was the anthesis of professionalism.
After that conversation, I felt like my job was being rushed and the work became even more sloppy. He had a guy, who was very nice, cut and lay my decorative tiles on the floor. The guy admitted to us, I'm not a tile guy and it really showed. He was a very friendly guy, and with help will probably be a great tile guy, but I don't want him practicing on my floor. Every single day I walk into my bathroom, I'm reminded that there are HUGE gaps in my floor, the tile is uneven and Caldwell came over when I complained and said, no, I think he did a great job, the natural characteristics of tile make this really hard to do. He said it with a straight face. I'm not a perfectionist, but this company and their acceptable work is HARDLY better than a DIY job.
He does a final walk thru, once you complain enough, where I point out at least 20 deficiencies, and he makes a list of what he thinks are things worth of repair. He then says, I'll send someone over tomorrow and it'll all be fixed in two hours. They come over, spent about 90 minutes before getting a call from their boss, Caldwell, that it's time to move on to another project. I'm going to be honest, if they had two weeks to fix it, I just don't think it's within their capabilities of making things look nice. I'm not even looking for perfection, I'm looking for nice/acceptable.
I complained again, he sent someone over again. William Caldwell became very frustrated and annoyed every time I asked him to fix glaring issues, like a big sharpie line (from floor to ceiling) left on the wall after they were done, or a huge gap between my wall and sink top where caulking was done poorly, or a poorly painted wall. Mind you, I had given up on my tile or bathroom looking remotely good and just wanted it done. The only reason they continued to answer calls was because I was withholding a final payment of $1500 or thereabouts.
In conclusion, I wouldn't hire this company again or advise anyone to hire this company for interior remodeling. I'm sure they can probably replace a fence or something, but I wouldn't pay them a penny to do a single thing after this experience.
Only positive thing to say was that the individual employees, aside from the owner, were all very very nice and thoughtful. The actual professional tilers they work with (Jeff/Cyle), when they eventually showed up, did a good job.
Honestly, just don't do it. I have no idea how these dudes are so well reviewed on here. In the end I felt like I wasted $17,000 because they never fixed even the minor complaints I had. To finish the job, William sent over an employee to collect the withheld payment because he was too busy for a third final walkthrough of my 30sqft bathroom.
Quick disclaimer, I've owned multiple houses in the Sacramento area and have done several remodels with contractors and myself, I'm a reasonable human looking for nice and professional, not perfect.