North Metro Glass

I had called them out for an estimate, and they were friendly and fast in giving me the estimate. I didn't approve the estimate right away, because I wanted to discuss it with my wife. I approved the estimate about a month later, and the woman who I talked to on the phone was very polite and courteous. She told me that since I needed to find a person to sit at my house while they worked on the window (no evening appointment times. You must schedule between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM) that I could find someone, and then call back and give them a time. They would be very flexible and work with me as long as I had a 2 hour window to give them. I called back the next business day to schedule, and this time I spoke with a man. He was not a flexible as the woman and seemed annoyed to be talking to me. He would not work with a 2 hour time window, and insisted on 3 hours. We agreed on a time. I came home from work the day that they installed the window, and I looked it over. The window itself looked fine, but there was a bead of caulk around the window that looked like a 5th grader had applied it. It was sloppy and uneven. The caulking was on the inside of the window, meaning I could touch it from inside my kitchen. The other two windows that are original to the house also had caulking, but they were caulked on the outside of the window. The next morning around 8:30 AM I called their shop and left a voicemail to please call me back. I did not get a call back, so around 2:00 PM I called the shop again and spoke with the woman, she told me she would tell the installer to call me. He called me within an hour. I told him nicely that I wasn't satisfied with the caulking on the window, and he immediately turned sour and defensive with me. His reasoning is that the manufacturer did not call for caulking, and that he felt that the window needed and extra protective moisture barrier. Here is a basic rundown of the conversation after that: ME: I appreciate that you did something extra to make the window better, but it looks bad HIM: I didn't know I needed to be a professional caulker to put in a window ME: I'm not trying to be a jerk, I just want the window caulking to look good and even HIM: I didn't even need to do that for you. I did it to be nice. I believe the window needed caulking. If you don't like the way that I caulked it, then I will scrape it off and you can do it yourself ME: I paid $400 to a professional to install my window, and I expected it to look like a professional installed it. I could have done it myself and had it look better. They make a tool that makes it easy to make a clean bead of caulk. You obviously didn't use any tool. HIM: The tube of silicone has bubbles in it. It's impossible to make a perfect bead. I'm not caulking it again. I will scrape it off. I recommend that it has caulk on it. If you want it caulked again, do it yourself. ME: I had a hard enough time finding a person to sit in my house for you to come here the first time. HIM: You live in St Francis, its not like you live just around the corner for me either ME: Aren't you located in Ham Lake? (his shop is a 15-20 minute drive from my house. When I googled glass replacement St Francis, his company listed first, and they advertised servicing Minneapolis and St Paul, which are almost twice as far away from Ham Lake than St Francis. This really irritated me. If he was going to be rude and mad that he came out to my town, then he should have told me from the beginning that he didn't want to go that far) HIM: Yeah ME: Are you a subcontractor of North Metro Glass? HIM: No, I am the working owner of the company ME: Clearly I am not going to get anywhere with you. I am going to talk to my wife and see what she wants to do about this. My wife and I are disgusted that this man will not stand behind his work, and that he so quickly turned hostile. We did not want him to come back inside our house after talking to him the last time. We decided to make a poor review on Angie's List, and file a complaint with the BBB instead.

We were very happy with the service overall. They did need to reschedule the first appointment because the repair/estimate person got tied up at a previous job that afternoon. However, he came first thing the next morning, took measurements and said it would take about 7-10 days to get the glass panels made. He didn't ask for any down payment or even have us sign a contract. Unfortunately when he returned with the finished glass the one for the basement was the wrong size. It turns out the glass vendor (in another state) had not made it to the specs submitted. We had to wait another 7-10 days. But when he returned everything was finished up satisfactorily. In spite of the original reschedule and the wrong size pane from their supplier, I would still highly recommend this company. It was clear they were doing everything they could to make sure that we were a happy customer. And we are happy with the end result.