Malave Marble & Granite Inc

I went over in detail with Jodie Malave the specifics of the job and the time frame of the job. I made it clear that I had to have the job completed by a certain date which was 3 weeks away or we would have to put off starting for 30 days. She assured me that this was a simple job and would take no more than 2 weeks to complete and that would leave me a week to spare in case anything came up. The job took over 6 weeks. There was a complete lack of communication between Len and Jodi Malave and their employees. I was told by Len Malave that all his employees had been with him for years and he didn't contract out any work at all. However, one by one the various crews that showed up told me they either had never worked for Malave before or my job was only the second or third time they had contracted with him. Not once did any crew show up on time or when they were promised to be at the job. Many days I was told by Len Malave that the crew would be there "first thing" only to have them show up at noon or later. Most of the time they said they were told by Len Malave to go to another job site before coming to mine while I was told they'd be there first thing in the morning. A few days the crew for that day would show up at noon or later and take off for the day before 4pm. The crew that showed up to install the board behind the marble slabs completely ignored me when I told them they had the wrong board and wouldn't even stop to call Malave to verify the specific requirements of my job. They had never been given the specific description of my custom shower. They spent an entire day installing that wrong board then had to come back and rip it out and install the correct board on another day. Malave didn't order enough materials to complete the marble floor and his crew only determined this after half the floor was installed. They had to come back and rip out the marble floor that had been installed the day before and they spent yet another day re doing the floor. The tile man that came to re do the floor was rude and when I asked about an obviously broken tile he had attempted to patch he declared "I don't work for you, I work for Len Malave" and refused to replace the tile. I had to wait for Malave to come out and inspect the broken tile and another employee had to come out the next day and replace the tile the first man broke and lied about. He also had to grind down several marble tiles because the corners of almost every single tile were messed up as if acid of some kind had eaten off all the gloss. One more day wasted "fixing" a screw up. After the plumber installed the shower hardware and the shower drain and left for the day I discovered we no longer had hot water so I called the plumber back. He insisted that the problem had to be with my water heater and not anything that he did. When I told him the water heater was less than 6 months old he reluctantly agreed to come back the next day and "check it out", which he did. As it turned out he had forgotten to do something after he installed the shower hardware that caused the problem. Another day wasted. When it was time to install the sinks and vanity I had to wait several days for the second sink to come in even though weeks earlier Jodie Malave assured me that both sinks were in the warehouse waiting for installation. The vanity was supposed to be delivered and installed "first thing" one morning and after lunch I called to see where the vanity and the crew were. They showed up with the vanity later that afternoon and laughingly told me that they had measured incorrectly and therefore cut the marble for my vanity to the wrong length. They told me they had another job with the exact same marble as mine so they were able to re cut my vanity from someone elses marble. No one thought to call me to let me know of the delay. The plumber returned the next day to install the faucettes on the new vanity and when I returned home I found a puddle of water under in the cabinets under each sink. The faucettes leaked terribly. I had to re call the plumber AGAIN and he returned the next day to fix the leaking faucettes. Another day wasted. Sean Malave was supposed to clean and polish the finished shower slabs in preparation for the shower door to be installed and to this day I don't know what he did but when he left there were huge etch marks in the beautiful marble that no amount of cleaning would remove. I had to insist that someone from Malave come out to inspect this damage and Malave finally sent one of his crew to come out and even they were perplexed at what Sean did that caused this kind of damage but they agreed the etching was permanent unless they could grind it out. It took several hours of grinding the marble down to miminize the damage to the marble. When the painter was painting the wall above and around the shower he found that the area between the marble slabs and the wall and wall board hadn't even been grouted or caulked and this was going to cause serious mold and mildew problems once the shower was used. Malave's solution was to send a secretary out with a tube of caulking and tell me to "have the plumber" do it. Once the shower was ready for the sliding glass door to go up I got a call from Len Malave stating that the estimate on the door was low by over $400.00 and he needed me to pay the difference before the door was ordered. I picked out that exact door and we got an estimate from the supplier while I was sitting in Jodie Malave's office so I refused to pay the $400.00 difference and took over working with the door supplier myself. I had already paid an additional $100.00 over the estimate cost for the fixtures for the shower and sinks although I was in the office when Jodie was on the phone with the supplier when he told her the cost because when I went back 3 days later to sign the paperwork the fixtures were mysteiously $100.00 more. Len also mentioned that he was going to have to charge me additional for the "extra" work the plumber did - which the only extra work was the extra trips back to fix things he didn't fix the first time out - and I did not pay that bogus charge either. The last straw was after we finally had the shower door installed and started to actually use the bathroom for the first time. I discovered that the vanity top was broken, cracked through and through, from the front to the backsplash. This break had to be evident to Malave before the vanity was installed as the break had "filler" installed at each point that it intersected the sink. The faucette for that sink that is less than an inch from the break is loose and wobbly as well. After all the time and headache and expense I now have a broken vanity top. I spoke to Len Malave and asked him to come out and take a look so we could work out a solution, but he never called back. I sent him a certified and restricted letter requesting he call me, come out and look at the damage and take care of it. He received and signed for the letter but he never responded. I filed a complaint with the BBB but he never responded to them or contacted me.

It didn't go well. They took way too long to give us the full details. They absolutely did not perform up to our agreement or up to our expectations. They were non-responsive. We couldn't get a hold of anybody when we had problems, and there were continuous problems. We were promised the job would be done in two weeks, but it was six weeks before the job could be completed. It was just a catastrophe the whole way around. I would not recommend them to anyone. I will also warn anyone against using them. I would absolutely not use them again.

This is a great company. Malves work was perfect. They came in and they put it on top and it fit perfect. This company sent people back to double check on the work. You won't go wrong hiring them.