Short Response:
Great contractors - everyone who came to our house was respectful, polite and professional. The basement looks wonderful!
Lack of communication with office/supervisors. Buildertrend app was not updated after first 2 weeks. Job ended up taking 8 weeks when scheduled for 4 weeks.
Long Response (if you care to read it):
Like I said above, every contractor who came to our house was wonderful! I can't say enough about them. They were polite, professional, and the basement looks incredible! The quality of workmanship is the biggest selling point for this job.
The rest was what I would call "annoyances" - nothing which impacted the quality of the work, but which made the entire process frustrating.
The first is the Buildertrend app. This app really helped to sell us on Penguin as we were told we could stay on top of the project, the schedule and who would be in our house each day. Unfortunately, right from day 1 (literally), there were problems. The first scheduled contractor was a no-show and then after the first 2 weeks the app was never being updated. When we tried to contact the supervisor we were met with a "its dynamic" response and no attempt to actually update the app. Over the next 6 weeks we never knew who was coming (if anybody) and the final 3 weeks of the job saw almost nobody show up.
Another big annoyance (and something to be ready for) is that you have to be your own foreman - if my wife didn't work from home, many things in our contract would have been missed. The electrician wasn't going to put in additional pot lights which we ordered (until we had to be the ones to show him all the work orders) and our basement was going to be finished without insulation (which we paid for), even though we contacted the supervisor about it 2 days ahead of schedule and told him it wasn't on site - he never got back to us. If my wife hadn't been home to say something, and send the guys out to the store, then we wouldn't have found out until it was too late.
There are a few more instances I can go into, but I won't bore you with every detail.
All in all, great contractors, lousy communication. You'll get a beautiful basement, but be ready for some headaches along the way.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $60,000.00
- Company Response
Hi Mark! Thank you for the feedback, both positive and with areas to improve. There are a lot of elements when coordinating an entire basement renovation and with so many moving parts, it is often difficult to communicate changes/delays in time for scheduled activities. Nonetheless, we will continue to strive for improvement here as you made a very valid point. We will do better and appreciate the time you took to leave your review. Ultimately, we are happy you are enjoying your basement and hope you'll consider us for your future projects!