Fieldgate Remodeling

This is one of the worst contractors I have ever hired and the worst experience I have ever had! After paying them the initial deposit, I should have anticipated there were going to be problems when they did not show up to work on shower 3 of the first 6 work days. It would be a constant battle to get them to show up or even to call. They then began to ask for their second payment even though they had not even started to tile yet. This job started on November 17th; on December 12th, they demanded final payment saying they were "done". I had no glass; no fixtures, and a mess of a grout job on the floor of the shower. We had a heated argument about what the definition of "done" was? They said they would NOT DISCUSS the glass which was not installed because it was "cosmetic" and MY RESPONSIBILITY. Who hires a contractor to just do a partial job? Below is the bottom line on this contractor. You decide ... Professionalism: (this is all you need to know about this contractor!) . . Neither of the workers I had to deal with had working mobile phones. Often, when they did not show up to work, I had not way of getting hold of them when they didn't show up for work. . On December 12th, Fieldgate was demanding final payment even though we did not have a complete or working shower. I refused to pay. Chris then proceeded to ... . Accused me, in front of his workers, of forcing his workers to wait for their money because I wanted the job completely finished before I made the last payment. (It?s not my job to pay his workers. It?s his job to pay his workers.) . Told my wife he would put a lien against our home if we didn?t pay, which sent my wife crying from our house. . But the absolute worst thing was he accused me of treating him and his workers as though they were ?mojados? (?wetbacks?) because I didn?t want to make the final payment until the shower was 100% complete. . Kept insisting they were "done". See attached photos and tell my if you would consider this a complete shower?? Quality: . Said they would have the glass company come out and measure for the glass after they framed the shower. This would ensure the glass was ready by the time they finished the shower. I learned later that glass cannot be measured and ordered until ?after? the tile is complete. (How can they not have known that?) . Plumbing was designed to have a hot/cold valve feeding a second diverter valve to switch between the shower-can and the handheld sprayer. They incorrectly plumbed it so that the hot/cold valve controlled the handheld, and the diverter valve controlled the rain-can. (They had to re-plumb both valves.) . Plumbing leaked overnight. They arrived the next morning to re-soldered some joints but it still leaked. (Had to call them at home that night to come back and repair it again before the drip ruined the plywood subfloor. Lucky, the walls were still open at the time.) . Design called for a shower bench. Instead of a standard 18? high bench, they built a bench that was only about 9? high. (Had to insist they demo the bench and rebuild it.) . After pouring the cement base, they realized they installed the new drain too ?high?. Even with thinset and tile, the drain would have still been about an inch too high. (They had to pour thick layer of thinset over the cement to raise the level of the shower floor. Then thinset again so that when they tiled, it would be level with the drain.) . After the floor was grouted and dried, the grout that was supposed to be a light grey color was ?black? in a number of areas. They thought the grout got dirty possibly from using a dirty bucket or dirty sponge. (They had to come back out and re-grout the shower floor.) . When they came back to re-grout the floor, but this time used a bucket that previously had white paint in it. (They had to spend extra time picking white paint flecks of paint out of the grout lines.) . When installing the valve trim, they realized they had installed the hot/cold valve too close to the wall. When they screwed the handle on, there was a about a half inch gap between the handle and the trim plate. (Their first attempted was to try to install some cheap homemade metal shims to close the gap which would have just moved the gap to a different place. Then they tried to find a thicker trim plate from the manufacturer in order to avoid the inevitable conclusion that the valve was going to have to be repositioned.) . They cut into a bedroom wall behind the shower to adjust the valve and floated the wall patch but never returned to paint or clean their mess. (Finally, had to hire another contractor to repair the wall and clean up their mess.) . In addition to never returning to paint the wall, they also never cleaned the tile after re-grouting the shower floor. (In cleaning the tile on the shower floor, we spent a considerable amount of time scraping white grout off the white wainscot tile as well. Finished by having to scrub the wood floors from the dirty grout water they dripped on the floor and never cleaned up. . Glass installer was upset because they said they told Fieldgate NOT to install certain tile where the glass was going to be installed. They chose to install the tile anyway saying they would come back when the glass arrived and ?notch? the tile with a grinder. Because they refused to coordinate with the glass company, I could not get them here at the same time. (Luckily I had an oscillating tool with a fine-toothed metal cutting blade the glass company was able to use to notch the tile.) Promptness: . Almost immediately, I had to have a conversation with Chris about how inconsiderate his worker were with regards to their promptness. Explained to him that all I expected was a little courtesy and wanted his people to call if they were going to be late. This issue was never addressed. . At one point when they failed to be here at an agreed upon time to meet with the glass company, I called Chris very upset. Chris said I should not get upset ?until they are at least 30 minutes late.? . Their normal response was always ?we?ll be there between 8:30 and 9:00 in the morning.? With the exception of once or twice, they NEVER showed up on time. Usually arrived about 10:30 and never called to indicate they were going to be late. . Or, would say they were going to be here by 9:00; then call about 11:00 to say they would be here at 2:00; then call about 4:00 and ask if they could come work after 6:30. . On several occasions (3 or 4 times), they would simply not show up at all, then finally call about 6:00pm and say they were tied up on another job but couldn?t call me because they ?didn?t have a phone?. . Also, on several occasions they would show up without the right tools, or to my dismay, without any tools at all! They would look at the job and say they would need to come back tomorrow when they had the right tools. . The last straw was being told they would be here the morning of Wednesday January 11th to finish repairing the wall they had to cut into in order to reposition the shower valve they installed incorrectly. By Friday evening, I had yet to hear from Fieldgate and was forced to hire another contractor to complete the repair. To this date (Jan 29), I have never heard from Fieldgate Remodeling regarding the wall repair. If you wish to hire this contractor, it's your choice. I would never recommend them.