Penguin Basements

We first heard of Penguin from a open house nearby.
We had several quotes from reputable contractors.
The Sales were high pressure, and the Sales rep wanted us to sign immediately on first visit. We went ahead because we want to get the project moving.
Communication with the project management team was frustrating the entire process.
The build was quick, however after payment in full was received, they showed no desire to complete our project and close the permit with the town.
We now have an open permit on our title and Penguin is not communicating any desire to close off our project 5 months after $90,000 was paid.
We do not recommend Penguin because they do not follow through with their commitments.

I am very impressed with the professional work performed by Penguin Basements. Project Manager was always available to accommodate our last minute requests. Project was finished on time. I would definitely highly recommend Penguin Basements.

We choose this company as we went and saw a show case home. We were in the market to do our basement and when we saw the flyer and the signs for an open house we loved it. This company is so hands on and communication was awesome. The construction supervisors for the construction and finishing phase well words can’t describe these two Tony and Marlon. I highly recommend this company so much that we will offering our house for a showcase in the coming months.

Penguin Basement performed basement finishing in a professional manner and I would like to thank Roberto the project manager for his professional work and great coordination. Wishing Penguin and all the staff best of luck in every project they will have.

After much research we decided to go with Penguin as they included what we wanted and promised no hidden costs. The initial meeting/home consult. was definitely way too long and drawn out! We still hired Penguin because we believed in their work, however, we seriously thought about not signing due to this initial meeting in which the salesperson was quite pushy and wouldn't leave. At the decor center, we were excited to make our choices but quickly became disappointed when something we were promised was suddenly not included. We were upset as Penguin promised 'no hidden costs' and that was why we ultimately hired them. They ended up including what we expected, however, we had to convince the owner and this proved to be quite stressful. Better communication among salespeople and clients is strongly recommended. Amy was very helpful in helping us choose our decor. They sent us a bin early to clear out our basement which we really appreciated and they began the reno soon after. Cardboard was laid down to protect floors on main floor, however, there was still some damage on stairs and walls which was later touched up. The initial Super. who came in seemed good but soon disappeared and was never seen again! We knew the holidays were approaching but we were still in mid December and again there was a lack of communication as we were told
that the job might be completed before the holidays! We were really worried at this point and after speaking with the company many times, and expressing our disappointment because no workers showed up for two to three whole weeks, they sent in a representative named Roberto to take care of the project. He was very skilled and knowledgeable and got the job done and well! Him and his people took care of everything and provided us with great communication, work and dedication. We were very happy with Roberto and his team of people and would not be writing such a great overall review if it was not for him. We are still waiting for our kitchenette to be installed and are disappointed with the wait as it is now February, however, the basement looks fantastic and we are so happy with the finished product! If you ask us, Roberto deserves a raise and should be commended for coming in and helping Penguin's reputation! We are anticipating the installment of our kitchenette!

Professional, detail oriented, polite, and efficient. This sums up my recent experience with Penguin. From the initial consultation to the finishing touches, working with them was more than expected. Highly recommended.

Overall, we were very happy with Penguin and the finished product was of high-quality. Claudio, our finishing supervisor should get an 11/10. He showed incredible professionalism, skill, and commitment to making the customer happy. He ensured all the issues we faced were rectified. He was so personable, responsive to our needs, and genuinely knew his stuff. If Penguin has any concept of what is good for their company, they will make sure he never leaves and promote him right to the top. People who were also particularly helpful and clearly put the customer first include Robert, Joe and Angelo. They all played their part in trying to make the process as smooth as possible.

Along the way, our primary frustrations were of the poor communication. We often had no concept of which trade was coming and trades sometimes did not know how to access the lockbox. The Calendar was not updated beyond the first day. Probably the biggest frustration was the lack of presence or availability of our assigned site super, Walter. Severe floating floor and issues with sanding of the walls could’ve all been detected along the way. Instead, they had to be dealt with at the end of our project and only thanks to Claudio were they addressed in a thorough manner. After these issues, I do think Penguin would benefit from having a customer care service or quality assurance department which the customer could reach out to throughout the duration of the project. In our case, we often did not know who to communicate with for a given issue and ended up calling multiple people at one go. Needless to say, this took time and added stress and for the premium that you are paying, this should not happen.

My advice to any future customers would be to make sure you know exactly what you want done ahead of time and have a very concise plan. Things move very quickly and there is very little margin of error to fix things. As a result, I think it is imperative for homeowners to be involved in every step of the project to make sure any mistakes can be fixed right away.

Despite some of our minor frustrations, clear positives were there adhererence to a promised timeline, the very professional trades, scheduling flexibility with the start date depending on our schedule, the high quality of finishings, and again, the amazing Claudio. His help at the end of the project almost made us forget our frustrations during the project. He truly is a star and his commitment to customer satisfaction went above and beyond what we had expected.

Overall, we are so pleased with our basement and are already thoroughly enjoying it. We would highly recommend Penguin (as long as Claudio’s part of the package), and would not hesitate to use them again.

Our son and daughter-in-law needed a place to live while my son went back to school so we decided we needed to build a two-bedroom basement suite to accommodate their requirements.

Overall- we are happy with the finishes in our basement, and that it is now functional with a full bathroom and laundry area. It was also done relatively in the budget we expected, and in a timeframe that worked for us. That said, the final result differs in some areas from our initial expectations.

There are several things we liked during our experience:
> Penguin is a “1 stop shop”, I didn’t have to do a lot of shopping around for materials etc. They also take care of all the permits. The final result, particularly the flooring and the tile upgrade we did is quite nice.
> I liked using the builder trend system to understand which parts of the process were coming up next. The organizer (Chris), and project managers (Juliano + Josh) were great about letting me know when to expect a lot of dust (important as I was pregnant during the renovation).
> 2 of the project managers we worked with stood out for a number of reasons. Juliano was our first project manager and Josh was our finishing project manager. Both of them were nice to work with, super responsive, respectful of our house (Josh got along great with our dog), very knowledgeable about the ins and outs of construction and tried their best to help us with the issues we came across. Although some of the concerns we had could have been handled differently at the get go, I do think that the responsiveness of Josh, Juliano and Penguin to most of the issues was fair and professional. I think if every PM was like Josh (and Juliano) the construction world would be less stressful.

Areas for improvement:
> Considering the importance of space maximization in a small Toronto basement- we feel the finished product didn’t optimize the space as much as we would have liked due to 2 key things:
1. The design process. The design was aligned to at the sales meeting and reconfirmed before the start of construction. On the first day of construction we were told it wasn’t feasible to have our bathroom and laundry centre in 1 space. Juliano then quickly re-designed for us separating the two. This resulted in sub-optimal use of space and lighting which could have been addressed if we had planned better.
2. The insulation material. The material used & framing resulted in thick walls which seem to have moved in almost a foot vs the original brick/cement. We wish we had a better understanding of how this would end up, and that we could have discussed other insulation options. The basement is now the warmest part of our house so obviously the insulation works, however maximizing space would have been our priority.
> In the framing somehow we all missed the doorframe around our back door- it’s not that big of a deal, however it was a miss that couldn’t be corrected in the end. Recommend anyone with multiple doors in basement consider the door frames when approving framing.
> Working with different PM’s throughout the different stages made communication complicated at times. That said, I’m happy I got to work with both Juliano and Josh (per above comments).

Professional service and excellent work!! The work was done by experienced workers who had knowledge about the job. They took care of cleanliness and dispose garbage properly. The permit was obtained and proper inspection was done after finishing the basement. The only thing that I recommend to improve in future is to finish job in the given time frame.