Penguin Basements

We are finishing our basement (~1500 sf per floor plan) as we speak, in only about 2.5 weeks, impressive!

At the beginning we hesitated to pick Penguin as we had many referrals from our friends and relatives, and Penguin's quotation was the highest. What made us sign the contract was the knowledgeable staff from Joe at the Green Living Show, to Eric at the show case houses in our area, to Dan who came to our house and gave an informative session of the company, the materials they use and a quotation, we believed the surperb materials and the work of their team would justify the price. And now looking back we knew we made the right choice.

Knowledgeble Staff
- All staff and trade we come across are very skillful and knowledgeable. When other competitors said they could do this and that, Penguin's might said no because they knew the building code. E.g. a contractor said he could change my staircase to another angle which we would like, but Penguin pointed out that the landing and clearance wouldn't make it ok; when another contractor said he would help me minimize the wall thickness i.e. maximize the usable footage, Penguin pointed out that if one presses the insulation to paper-thin to maximize the finished area, it defeats the purpose of insulation; when one suggested to enclose the furnace area to have the wall/door right next to the furnace, again to increase finished area, Penguin told us by building code it needs a few feet for clearance; competitors will say no need for a building permit but as we read the bylaw it clealy says so, etc. just to name a few.

- It's always a pleasure to talk to Chris who helped set up appointments for the project

- The design session with Amy was enjoyable with her best effort to help us visualize the color coordinations between walls, cabinetry, shower, flooring, etc.

Professional and Well Organized Site Managers
- We have Juliano at the start, who gave great advice when we went through the layout design before the actual work began. He was right, often the designer's suggestion might not be practical/workable as she doesn't see the bulk head, ceiling, etc, and we appreciated that he honestly helped us save a few hundred dollars from making a look-out from the stairs, as he thought paying that for only a small triangular look-out was not worth it. The 2-day wall and bulkhead framing was super efficiently done. Angelo was very responsive as well in terms of coordination at the start of the project.

- Seth is the other site manager arranging materials and delivery. He is such a nice and polite guy, he's like always ready to respond and answer your request. All the deliveries were well arranged and even there were times that the delivery guys just left the tiles at our back door, and another guy just left all the vanity and shower doors packages at our front porch and left, he personally brought all things inside the house.

- Roberto is the 3rd site manager come into play to keep the momentum and to finish up the work. He is super! He's a handy man himself, and not only he coordinates all trades and work well, he himself does a lot of things - whatever concerns we might have, once we told him, he addressed them right away and eased away our worries. He sent us short texts about the work schedule and told us we could text him 24/7 if there's any issue. He is so committed to good work and because of him the basement is finishing way faster than we expected.

Skilled and Friendly Trades
We are thankful for all the good trades: Fabio & Renato (framers), Andrill (painter), Hugo & Manuel (Carpentry), Victor (electrician), and the 2 guys that came to cover the floor leading to the basement and also came a couple of times to remove garbage. Excellent job. They work fast but good craftmanship. When the ESA inspector came the end of 2nd week, the first thing he said was "These guys are amazing, aren't they!" Good work ethic and spirit all the time. During the hottest days in September while we still haven't got our a/c, with sweat all over their foreheads, they still smiled all the time. And all of them worked fast so one job after the next very smoothly.

We just had Soraia and Bibiana cleaned up the whole basement this evening. They were so detailed and they cleaned up the inside of cabinets, window screens and even the unfinished area. To our delight they cleaned the furnace surface as well, and most importantly, the washroom we let the workers use over the past 2.5 weeks. After they were done, Roberto came and did a final inspection, and asked them to clean up some white dust on the stairs, that we even didn't notice. Very impressive!

One more thing, we both work full time from home but amazingly none of the work has disturbed us. Workers' in and out have been quiet. We can also tell there's good relationship among different trades which is a good thing to see.

We believe basement finishing is not a glamorous business; in fact, one of the biggest challenges to face is the industry's degraded image incurred by some bad contractors. It takes hard work, dedication, and commitment and extra steps to polish the image of the industry, and yes, we agree and think one should get a building permit to begin a basement project so there'll be no short cut or illegal/substandard building, which eventually will harm the house owner.

Last but not least, we had the pleasure to meet with Guy at the beginning as we had concerns about the cost of the project. Guy took time to listen and helped work out a good solution so we could proceed. A good boss with good crew, we could see how much effort they have put into the business, and that's why we would give a 10/10, even honestly we can't say everything is perfect, but just to show our appreciation to all their hard work and dedication to raise the bar of the industry and their best attempt to satisfy the customers. Way to go Guy and the crew, wish you all the best! With a beautiful basement and peace of mind from the quality work, we look forward to showing off our basement and recommending to our neighbors (and we hope the post-project/warranty support is as good)!

~ Howard & Jen
PS. We don't have communication problems like other reviewers did, but agree that with the useful Buildertrend app, it'll be nice to have updated work schedule/calendar reflected there.