COX KITCHENS AND BATHS

It was an incredibly frustrating experience from start (October 2012) to finish (May 2013). When we first met with them, we were told we couldn't use the elongated toilets we wanted. We agreed on round front ones, only to discover halfway through that in fact elongated ones with a smaller footprint existed. They quoted us a figure 30% higher than we found at Amazon and then charged us a 25% restocking fee for the round front one, despite the fact that we notified them over a month before it was to be installed. The first tile guy they supplied chose to not show up at half of the appointed times. They hired someone else who turned out to be very good, but also overbooked, leading to more delays. There were mis measurements of counter height so a couple of outlets had to be moved (at our expense). Beadboard was to be installed in both bathrooms, but in the first one, they didn't supply water resistant board, so we ended up having to paint it. These examples just give the flavor of what went on for months; a thoroughly annoying period of time. We had used Cox for a kitchen redo 15 or so years earlier and had been very pleased with the outcome. The firm is still the same family, but the results were 180 degrees off from our earlier experience.

I am having the first meeting tomorrow and will let you know how it goes.

I selected this company over another company. The work was paid for by a trust fund from my family. The project lasted well over a year. The bank wanted it to last shorter than that. The value of the houses in the area dropped because of the economy in 2008. We have still not put our house on the market because of losing money. Here it is 2012 and this has been going on since 2007. I gave the kitchen designer the exact refrigerator I wanted to use in the kitchen. So she should have known the specs, however by the time the kitchen was finished; the fridge required the door to open more than 90 degrees. So I had to give up cabinet to be able to use the fridge. But I did pay for the cabinet even though I didn’t use them. The third floor bathroom, I showed the man where to put one grab bar; however he did not mark the top and bottom properly and put it up too high and went the wrong direction. It was put into tile which is harder to replace. On the master bathroom, when they were putting down the tile, they didn’t clean the grout out and left bits on top of the marble. I had someone inspect this and found out that the grout was etched into the marble. It was also on the walls with marble as well. It would have to be grinded down and re-polished. I had the owner come out and see the poor workmanship. He had a new contractor come out to address the issue and confirm that it was faulty workmanship and Cox had agreed to pay to fix the floor, but not the wall. Cox paid to have the floor fixed, but refused to pay for the walls. The kitchen floor’s underlayment (wood) had eroded. It was not addressed before installation of a new floor, so the new floor was put down and started sinking. I had the new floor removed to find out that they did not address the poor floor. The sleepers had been severed by a trench; they were cut and not rejoined. Basically we had to pay additionally to fix this issue as well. I wanted to have a second floor bathroom made into a laundry room and half bath. I asked if I needed to get smaller sized washer and dryer. They said no, so I bought regular sized machines. They closed off access to the bathroom so that the inspector could not get back to the bathroom during inspection; because they knew it would not pass inspection. Once everything was in the room it was obvious that it wouldn’t pass inspection, because one could not sit down on the toilet with much room left because of the washer and dryer being too big. I was willing to get smaller appliances, but they said it wasn’t going to be an issue.

Cox now uses subcontractors for all of their work. Our previous experience many years ago was that they had their own crews. Demolition was completed satisfactorily. Thereafter it became a complete disaster. The tile man caused a flood which went down our 2nd floor steps to the living room floor causing damage and also to the basement where we had ceiling damage. The LR floor was not satisfactorily restored. The electrician failed to arrive on the scheduled day. He brought some incorrect material and tried to leave the job without testing. My wife asked him to do so at which time they found installation to be faulty and she had to insist that they correct it the same day. In January, 2009 we noted several areas of missing grout in the shower. We contacted Mr. Bob Gibbs who visited and said that should not be happening and that they would correct the problem. After many weeks and phone calls Martin Gibbs called us on March 6 to tell us that he could do the repair himself as he had not been able to make contact with the tile man (who was in Florida). We told him on the 7th that we wanted a tile man to do the job. Martin told us that he would fix the grout one time as a courtesy and that we could expect the grout to have to be replaced every few years. We stopped at the store where we purchased the tile and were assured that the grout should last for many, many years (as had the original 70 year old grout). We found Marin?s solution unacceptable and insulting. In April, 2009 we used another contractor referred by the tile company to complete the correction of the problem at our expense.

Very poor.

The project started well, with initial phone calls being returned promptly. We were delighted with the overall design, and decided to go with Cox despite the fact that they were over our budget by 50%. Once our order was in, communication ceased. We were completely out of the loop for what was going on in our house. The subcontractors hired did not coordinate with Cox, with us or with each other. Some were very good, but others were a nightmare. They left holes in our walls, did not finish their jobs, and did not communicate with us when there were problems with our plumbing (causing us to flood our own kitchen). We informed Cox that our home is old and the kitchen required special planning, but this was not communicated to the subcontractors. We had to finish off several aspects of the job ourselves. We are satisfied with the look of the kitchen, but not the treatment we received. Cox provides a nice design, but for quality work go elsewhere!