Eckloff Ceramic Tile Installations

This is a husband and wife team. My experienced was mixed. The initial job was really great. I had ordered the tile, they purchased it on our behalf and extended their contractor's discount. I loved that and was very optimistic. The installation was performed over several days for a kitchen backsplash. It was truly beautiful and I was very pleased. About a year later, I needed to replace the microwave, which left a gap that needed to be repaired. ( I had the material from the original job, so no worries there. I just needed someone to measure and cut tile and install it. I called the Eckloffs back to perform the repair and months went by, lots of emails back and forth that had me requesting a timeline and them making excuses as to why they couldn't get here. The co-owner ( the wife) that was coordinating it, cited health problems. After numerous months had passed without a promise to come back to fix the gap. I finally gave up and hired someone else. Final analysis was that the husband, who performs the work, is very good at what he does, but there is/was something seriously wrong with their organizational part of their business. The wife, who handles that part of it, was very defensive about how badly the relationship ultimately went and initially tried to make the problems look like my fault. We more or less resolved that after I gave them a poor review on another sourcing site. I felt terrible about the health problems and was trying to be very patient about it, but felt that the contractor should have admitted that they were simply unable to come back, especially after so much time had gone by. It's been a little over a year since I had the gap repaired by another contractor, so perhaps in the meantime the Eckloff's have gotten their personal issues resolved, and if that's the case, they might well be worthy of consideration. I do like to see local small businesses get work. However, make sure that you are very flexible and patient with them. There were a series of minor gaffes that I won't go into here, just know they require probably more patience than most people have. I gave them high marks for the quality of work, but low marks for professionalism and communication. A suggestion to them is to hire someone else to manage while his wife regains her abilities, and let Charlie Eckloff work his magic. Two years later, the work is holding up and still looks amazing. There is a slight waviness toward the center of the wall behind the stove, but the tile is quite rustic so it is not obvious. Had we disconnected the gas range, he could have reached that better, so that's on us.

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