TILES OF AMERICA, INC.

The project ended up taking four months. He said he would be the general contractor for the remodel. I will state that he is an ok tile person. His skills as a general contractor are not so good. Examples of problems are: *In our initial discussions, my memory of the process is that I would give him my specifications for materials and he would order in order to get the contractors discount. It immediately became clear he was only ordering the tile. I ended up ordering all of the other materials. I gave him the specifications for the vanity and shower stall. Weeks later he comes to me asking where they were and my response was I gave you the specifications and you were to order them. If he had ordered them when I gave them to him it would have saved a month in the project. I needed to replace a bath fan. I had no idea of what to order. I asked for advise and the response was get anything. Well it would have helped if the had taken down the existing fan and told me if it were a 4 or 6 inch duct. I ordered a 6 inch fan and it turned out that the ducting was 4 inch. That made it a problem in installing it in the existing space. I gave him the specs on the type of toilet I desired. He was unable to secure it. I had my normal plumber order one and deliver it to my place. In regard to his plumbing and electrical skills, it was like a deer in the headlights. In regard to the electrical issues, he delayed and delayed doing anything with the electrical issues. I finally had an electrician come in and put in the lighting and to install the fan. The fan was a difficult installation due to the duct size. It would have been much easier if I had a fan the same size as the orginal duct work. As for the plumbing, again a lot of delay in installing the shower fixtures. When he finally got around to working on it he broke off both of the shutoff valves that connect to the rough in. Given that I live in a condo and had to turn off the whole building to install the rough in it was a major issue. We went ahead and installed the rough in without the shut off valves. He then didn't connect the valve to the rough in. He then disappeared for approximately two weeks. The problem was I had no hot water in my unit during that time period even though I said I had issues. He said it couldn't have been anything he did. When he did show up he tiled over the rough not leaving enough room to fix the shut off issue. In the end I had my normal plumber come in and install the shower valve properly. My plumber also recommended that I have him come back and take out his tile around the shower valve and give someone the room to correctly install the shower valve. Regarding his project management skills, he only works in the afternoons and evenings. This was a minor issue but he would also not show up for extended periods of time and/or he would say he would be coming the next day and not show up and not telephone to say he wouldn't be here. This kind of chained my to my house while I was waiting for him. I had given him a key to my unit at one point so he could come in work but eventually asked for it back because I felt he would cut corners and or not obey condo rules if I wasn't here. We have rules that state we have to give other units 24 hours notice if we were going to cut off the water to do plumbing and he seemed to want to disregard that issue. He also left the tiles for my shower floor sitting laid out on my dining room floor for almost a month. I thought he was only doing it until the next day but it went on forever. I feel it goes back to the issue of not showing up to complete tasks for lengthy amounts of time. He needs to have sub contractors for work he is unfamiliar with or doesn't have the skills for as in plumbing and electrical. Given this I might use him for tile work but I would want to review his proposed costs much closer. I feel he is overpriced in regard to his labor costs. I feel he over charged me for his work but I just wanted this project over. I would not recommend him as a general contractor.

unknown