Affordable Granite Concepts Inc

We contracted with Affordable Granite Concepts, Inc. to install a new countertop in our kitchen and bath. We chose the granite and paid the required half. The granite was installed on March 7 and we paid the other half. When my husband came home and inspected, he found 5 places on the edge that appeared to be machine markings. Walter Pianta came back and assured us there was no problem; he would take care of it. He repaired the gouges then put some chemical on the spots that turned these places lime green after a couple of days. I called his company but he was gone for a week. When he returned he again said no problem and promised to take care of it. I then made several phone calls to him and was promised that he was going to come at a certain time-but he didn't-many times not calling to say he wasn't coming. It was very frustrating. He finally brought someone else in that put something on the spots and then they turned bright orange on our black and white counter. Again we were assured he would replace the countertop if he couldn't get this color out. It was now the first of April. Again many phone calls and missed appointments (I lost income as a substitute teacher when he promised to come and didn't). He asked to bring in an "expert", Ed. Ed and Ed's son-in-law came and ground on the worst spot. When it didn't come out Ed told Walter he needed to replace the countertop. Walter came back to me and said his "expert" Ed doesn't know what he is talking about. Walter would not replace and was done. Walter said that I would need to take him to court to get these orange spots out. I continued to complain to Walter for a number of days. He then said to let him try one more thing and that he would replace if he couldn't remove the spots that he made. He came on April 13 and ground the whole edge down. It did help four of the spots but there was still one in front of the sink and the process left a HUGE mess of granite dust throughout the house even though this was the second time that we personally put up barriers to keep the dust from other parts of the house. Walter had said when he asked to do this he would have someone clean. After his workers left Walter was called and he said he would send someone NEXT WEEK. He hadn't even planned for someone to come in and clean right after the workers were finished. We couldn't walk or cook etc. so then he said he would give us $125 for us to find someone to do it (this was on a Saturday afternoon). We complained so he finally sent someone that he paid. This wasn't until the next morning so we spent Friday afternoon through mid-Saturday afternoon without the use of our kitchen. But the dust was still in the air and continued to settle even in our grand piano in a totally different part of the house. We ended up throughly cleaning ourselves. We were still unhappy with the one spot left. Walter again said "Yes I promised I would take care of the spots I caused but I have changed my mind. You will have to take me to court to get a countertop that is white and black with no orange spot". We were concerned about all of the vibrating in grinding the countertop while on the cabinets if it was structurally still sound and whether it could be a problem in resale. We contacted the Better Buisness Bureau who gave us the name of Ed from Planet Granite-we didn't realize this was the same Ed that Walter had originally brought in and then countered his opinion. When Ed came to look he pointed out other flaws in the installation and said we should have sued a long time ago. He gave us a rough estimate. Ed then had a surgery and was out of comission. He returned to work May 15th and we had him come out again to give us a written estimate. Ed measured and told us his opinion of things that were done incorrectly. We didn't hear back from Ed after a while (we assumed his health) so we contacted another grantite company to find out if the job done was structurally sound and if it met industry standar,ds. We were surprised when we received a letter from a lawyer Mark Bakay (very unprofessionally written) stating that Affordable Granite and Walter Pianta wanted to take us to court for slander because we called another company to check his work. This is interesting since Walter told us he was so highly though of in the community and that we were of such little consequence that it didn't matter if we were unhappy with the end result. We hope no one else has to deal with Affordable Granite and Walter Pianta with his unfulfilled promises, lack of concern about keeping many appointments, not returning phone calls, and generally being a frustrating six-week experience.