I deeply regret hiring this man for tiling my main floor. I ended up over paying and having to do so much work myself, something I wouldn't have had to do with a proper licensed and insured company with a team of experienced tilers. He has no proper certification, licensing, insurance, truck, or crew.
1. Over 2 months before the job he tells me his price on the phone (says he doesnt need to see the jobsite) and I agree to it. A month before I send a text confirming the details and price and he agrees to it again.
A day before he changes up the price and says he will not be including materials for the same price and that I need to get my own dump bin. He says he will help me bring the materials from his supplier. Only to say the next day that I owe him $200 for helping me bring the materials the day prior. We foolishly agreed to all his prices, and in the end it ended up costing us so much that for the same price we actually know a legit licensed company that has a professional team who would have done a better job in half the time.
A couple days into the job until the end he keeps saying he is being underpaid and this job should cost more.
2. You cannot expect to tell him anything about how you expect the job to be done. He only does what he wishes, he acts like he knows a lot but it becomes very obvious that he lacks experience and only wants to do what's easier for him. He argued with my wife and myself countless times. Something as simple as do not put identical pattern tiles side by side or "clean the excess mortar" cannot be followed by this man.
If you tell him to clean the mortar he dropped on the hardwood, baseboard and trims, he tells you that you should just replace all with new ones.
He loves to complain and whine about the fact that he cannot complete his job because of so and so reasons. All reasons he knew he would face 5 mins of entering the home on the first day of the job, and before he even starting the job.
3. He damaged 2 water pipes in the washroom causing a big leak (that cost money to get fixed), he left mortor in every air vent to the point a cover cannot go in, left mortor all over the baseboards, trims, hardwood, hand rails and walls, and did not buff the grout haze off the tiles. Instead of making proper cuts to the tiles he broke many unnecessary pieces of baseboard and door casing to make his installation job easier, something that a carpenter will charge us a lot to replace/repair.
4. He leaves huge gaps around trims and hardwood and expects to fill them with grout, doesn't bother to take the time to make the proper cuts instead. Every single vent cutout is so big that a vent cover does not cover the gap. The installed tiles are not perfectly level (there is lippage), the grout lines are also not thin and consistent. He has excess mortar showing through some of the white grout lines.
5. After he completed the job, he called us and asked to be paid in full (without us even seeing the final job), once I got home to see the completed job I was in shock by what he left us as a finished job. I still had to go ahead and buff the grout haze off the floor my self on my hands and knees, chip away chunks of motar around the sides so baseboard/quarter round trim can sit flush with the floor, clean all the motar off the baseboards, trims, hand rails, walls and hardwood, and somehow remove the chunks of mortar from the airvents without damaging the tiles. I also have to cut 7 of installed tile and excess mortar to make room for a transition piece, because he didn't bother to leave enough room during installation. He also covered my tools in mortar.
If this man has even a grain of self respect and pride for his craft, like he says that he does. Then he should refund us our money because we are not at all satisfied with his work. He turned our dream home into a bloody joke. We paid him in full without holding any funds back, even paying the $200 for bring the materials like he asked; if he is as honorable as he claims then he should just return the entire $4,300 amount we paid him.
