BRAUN HOME IMPROVEMENT CORP

Braun Home Improvement Corp did a very poor job. Which is why I've had to have it reinstalled. They didn't do the caulking or the grouting correctly. It got wet behind the shower board and leaked downstairs which had to be fixed. They gave a 3-year warranty but only now the problems have become obvious. Stay away from them. They didn't ask me what type of flooring I wanted - I'm handicapped and I'm basically bed-bound. I told them I had $10,000 and that was what I wanted to spend on it, and they said "We can give you a great bathroom for that...." They put in a smaller tub, which I didn't realize. The grouting was terrible and had to be redone. He put in a door that fell out three times. He did come back and fix it. The whole ceiling and dry wall downstairs got wet which is when I called him. This was in August and he never got back to me. I feel a bathroom should last more than three or four years.

Robert Braun, the President of this company assured me he was a "perfectionist" and was quite charming at the time I met him for an estimate. He was recommended to me by an online service. A job that he estimated to take approximately a month was dragged out to 2 months. I was unable to live in my apartment because, even though the plumbing and electric were installed in the bathroom, he refused to complete the bathroom until the countertops were fabricated and installed in the kitchen. He totally ignored any requests I made and installed exactly the screen door that I told him I did not want, and claimed that I never told him what I wanted. His subcontractors were arrogant - the plumber installed the shower control so that it worked backwards (cold and hot reversed) but insisted nothing was wrong. The electrician who installed the dishwasher didn't install the wires properly. Unbeknownst to me the wires were rubbing against the frame of the machine which finally cut into the wires and shorted the electricity in my entire apartment. This happened on a Saturday night forcing me to call an electrician to make an emergency housecall on Sunday and costing me over $400 to repair his work. The sub who installed the tile in the shower installed a cracked tile which had to be replaced, the grout in the corners has cracked and is pulling apart, the grout around the shower shelves broke up and was falling out, and the grout in the kitchen backsplash is pulling away from the countertop. His workmen threw away parts of the fixtures they installed - the extra chain from the ceiling fixture in the kitchen (he said they threw it away when I asked him where it was); they installed only 2 of 3 screws in each of the 3 glass shades in the light fixture in the bathroom and seem to have tossed the extra screws. I had given him a key so that I didn't have to be home to let them in every morning, and he announced one day that he must have thrown away my key and that I would have to give him another one. (When he was finished I had all of the locks changed because I no longer trusted him.) I was presented with a final bill, paid it in cash as he demanded, got a receipt reading "Paid in Full," and he then tried to collect several hundred dollars a week or so later, claiming that his electrician and plumber charged him more. I refused to pay him. His attitude was that he could take advantage of me because I was a single woman without a man to oversee his work. All said and done, I will never use this contractor again, will never recommend him to even my worst enemy, and will not allow him or his crew into my home again.