Unreliable. Unprofessional. Incompetent. Dismissive. Unreasonable.
Not qualities anyone is looking for when hiring a renovation company. Do not sign yourself up to work with Drytech, Flexstone, or any other name this company may be conducting business under, despite how good the product may seem. If you like the product-find another contractor to do the installation work!
In May 2016, I hired this company to complete a rental building balcony resurfacing job. I was told that they had completed other jobs of the same nature and this would not be their first multi-unit project. *In hindsight I should have spoken to the owners of their previous projects!
When I asked about project timeline I was told 3-5 decks could be completed per day with the base coat membrane--so simple math would lead you to believe that 20 decks would be completed with base coating in 4- 7 days. The secondary step was the "fast top coating," which I was told would take even “less time” than the base application. When asked directly how long the project would take they elusively avoid providing a committed date of completion (THIS should have been my first red flag!). Ok, so if my math is correct based on their explained delivery time this project should have taken 10-12 days total, right? WRONG! Not only did the application take well over this time, the follow up for deficiencies took us all the way until September 30!!! Yes, that is 4 and a half months from start to finish.
Their unreasonable and inexcusable disregard for this job resulted in not only countless hours of wasted time on my part waiting for their "crew" of one guy to even show up,but more importantly their behavior caused an unreasonable inconvenience to the 20 individual sets of tenants, who were required to grant permission for each time we requested access in and out of their suites—which by my count we entered each unit no less than 12 from begin to end!
I expressed my concern about this before we selected this company and was assured (and reassured) several times that this need not be a concern due to the fact they were in the business for 20 years (I’ve learned since that number of years in business does not mean anything!).
In the end we have simply accepted that the work is what it is, flaws and all. While I walked around the site and from deck to deck pointing out deficiencies it was clear that they are not capable of completing the types of repairs or remediation that would truly correct some of the issues they created. For example, on the contact that I signed it clearly stated that the coating work can be completed with either railings on or off - "that's the beauty of this product" company owner told me. This was simply not true. I learned the hard way that they seem to have no consistent reliable mode of application that could possibly result in success with railings on! Instead, I now have caked on chips at the base of each railing leg, which they remedied by spraying over my newly powder-coated railing legs with black liquid spray paint!
If I wanted a completely perfect job, free of deficiencies, as one might expect when paying for a NEW deck, then I would probably never reach a point of conclusion with this company. However, I decided that at some point your sanity is worth more than fighting with a company like this that does not value their customers and expects the customer to make concessions for the organization's poor business practices.
Even upon full and final payment they elected to withhold sending me the warranty information (the same warranty information which they hide behind when you mention any deficiencies)! After two weeks of waiting for the email to come my way I made a trip to their office, where they again insisted they would send it to me via email as I sat in their office!!
Finally, they will assure you that "they're not going anywhere," when you question them about being accountable for their product or their services. This statement is only true because more unsuspecting customers continue to be taken for fools by this company.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $16,000.00
- Company Response
We never saw this review until several months after the job was completed and were shocked at the harsh negative comments made. At the end of this job a complete inspection was done with the Strata members to ensure everyone was satisfied and then payment in full was finally made. Drytech was not even aware that there were any issues however, considering the main individual we had to deal with, it does not surprise us too much. This was a multi unit Strata complex with many decks and many different owners at multiple levels. It was nearly impossible to keep everyone happy and access to all the levels was also a challenge which delayed progress on the job. There was also a problem getting paid and for this reason we could not contiune working causing further delays. Eveyone knows working for a Strata is complex and full of challenges to put it mildly. All it takes is for one person to get their nose out of joint and the result is a review like this which is inacurate and inflated way out of proportion. This job was a referral from a happy Drytech customer and we did a good job and also gave them a discounted rate because of the referral. When you look at some of the words used in this review it is not hard to realize that it was written by someone who is being very unreasonable. We feel bad that this person has written such negative comments because we did a beautiful job and most of the owners were very polite to our workers and happy to receive a luxurious lifetime deck membrane. We know exactly who wrote this review and we knew there was no way we could satisfy her right from the beginning of the project. Thus the saying "You can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time". This certainly is the case when working with most of the multi unit Strata councils !