Arco-Iris Granite

Terrible workmanship. Uneven seams, did not caulk, sold defective granite and would not replace. Charlie Schneider is horrible to do business with. If you look him up it is all over the internet and Facebook what a terrible business he has. He lies and does not finish the work or return calls. After he takes your money you better read the very fine print in his contract. Never again!

Our experience with owner Charles Schneider and his company Arco-Iris Granite, LLC has absolutely been the WORST experience of our lives. We have hired many companies to do various jobs around our home from roofing and siding, to plumbing, and even an electrician - and never had any problems. In 2012 we hired Arco Iris to install granite in our kitchen. When Mr. Schneider was seeking to earn our business, he was polite, answered all of our questions and said "yes" to all of our requests, so we hired him. It was only after the installation began that we realized his politeness was really just the carefully practiced disguise of a snake oil salesman - and that him saying "yes" to our requests did not actually mean he intended to meet our requests. For example, he promised to properly support our under-mounted sink with brackets, sand smooth the underside of the granite on our kitchen bar and that the seams in our granite would be "invisible" - none of this turned out to be true. What was worse, there were glaring defects in workmanship such as the countertops not fully covering our cabinets and the granite backsplashes not fully covering the new countertops. During the installation, we immediately called Mr. Schneider as we saw these problems arising - but he refused to return our calls. Then, when his workers reported they were "finished" and we said we were not happy with the work, they told us there was nothing they could do - that we would have to "talk to Charles". At that point, we informed them we would not be paying them the other half of the contract amount until the work was completed as promised and to our satisfaction - so they left. This prompted a surprise visit to our home by Mr. Schneider at 9pm that same night. He stormed into our house, agitated from the moment we opened the door to him, took one look at the work his men had done in our kitchen, and then proceed to yell and scream at us and demand we pay him for his "perfect job" or else he would file a lien against our home. It was completely appalling how unprofessional this Jekyll and Hyde became when there was a problem with his company's work. To make a long story short, he did file a lien against our home, we filed a lawsuit against him (learned then that he has been involved in MANY lawsuits against him and his company) and after three years this past July, 2015 we finally got all of his crappy work replaced in our kitchen at the expense of Arco-Iris Granite. Take our advice, save yourself the years of frustration and attorney's fees - do not hire Arco-Iris to install granite for you, and do not hire its owner, Mr. Charles Schneider, for ANY reason!

unknown

Actually the price, they were a lot and cheaper than anybody else that quoted my countertops. It was very large countertop. That is why I went with them. They did exactly what I wanted. There was no issue with the quotes and nothing change. They did whatever they said they were going to do.

Horrible, the craft and knowledge of the provider is terrible. Their customer service is beyond reproach. We have had to sue the company in small claims court. It has now been about 4 months and we are still without a countertop and therefore without a finished kitchen remodel.

I obtained many estimates for granite countertops. The one from Arco-Iris was very favorable. The company had a good BBB rating, and their website was entertaining and educational. They won the bid for the job sooner rather than later because the owner Charlie Schneider was persistent on following up with me. It seemed like he wanted the business. He came over to measure the templates personally and made some good observations on choices I needed to make re placements, edging, etc. He did seem very knowledgeable about it all. On the positive side he included a couple extra splashes for free and gave me a deal on ogee edging had I made that choice. (I didn't). He also had a person who did the reconnection plumbing work at an exceptionally low price compared to usual plumbing companies. I did specify that I was going to keep my orginal faucet instead of one of the faucets he offered. We finally had a date set for the installation after a couple setbacks. We agreed no one would be home at the time and he would let himself in. The night before I tried to turn off the water line to the water filter system at the sink. The shut off was located in the basement. But the valve was broken. The next morning I informed Charlie about this and said I was scrambling to find a plumber to fix it. Mr. Schneider say he would kill time to allow the valve repair to be made before he and his crew came over. A plumber was found and got the job done around noon or before. Then it turned out Charlie sent his crew over to do the job without him while he went to Lexington KY. When I came home that evening I saw the kitchen in a mess. No holes were cut for the water filter spout or soap dispenser. The sink with my faucet, filter spout and soap dispenser were left in the garage. A new faucet was left in box on the counter top. There were shims left under the top in some places, a couple drawers were rubbing the counter and not closing well ,the diswasher would not close properly and a splash was missing. The countertops were dirty with glue.There were no notes left of any kind. I called Charlie to describe the scene. He became angry at me for being "melodramatic" and that everything would be fixed; and that he was out of town and could not do anything right now--as if I were the one responsible for the situation. The next day he sent one of his young crew members to drill holes for the filter and soap dispenser and attach the missing splash. He also siliconed the tabs for the dishwasher to the bottom of the countertop. I pointed out that the seam they left did not look good. Especially with under-cabinet lights shining right on it. The seam was not clean and was rough. He tried to fix it and said it was as good as he could make it. Later the dishwasher detached and again could not be closed properly. I called Charlie about this and I believe two more attempts were made to fix the seam and the dishwasher. The seam now had a copperish-purple color. My wife and I found the appearance of the seam unacceptable. Charlie became angry again and said the seam was okay ,and they were not able to resolve the dishwasher problem. By email he said if I would live with the seam as is he would look around in his scap yard for other granite and put in a vanity somewhere else for free. But because this was black granite with lighting above it to highlight any defects we simply could not accept this. Besides I could not take any more chances with him. So I found out about another granite company (Take It for Granite)with the help of Tarvin Plumbing. This company does insurance repairs also. I hired the new company at a cost of $750 to correct Arco-Iris" mistakes. They noted that a granite seam should never rest over a dishwasher, because it's prone to break. They moved the slab off the dishwasher , cleaned up the seam edges and placed it to half it's orginal width. It now looks very, very much better; and is thin. They also said a sink bowl needs more adhesive than just silicone and were going to adjust that also. This was done with added epoxy. The dishwasher was mounted correctly with side blocks and now works correctly. When I mentioned all this to Charlie he became huffy again in his email and said nothing at all was wrong with our seam (!), and that he had done hundreds of jobs without any problems. [If nothing was wrong with the seam, why did he agree to do a free vanity?] He said he offered me an option, but instead I took my own path. Yes, I did.