Bob in Sarnia

Acme Slate was an absolute nightmare to work with. I went to Acme Slate after seeing it used on TV. I ordered standard 12x24 tiles for the floor and shower walls. The tiles were good quality. The problem came with the rest of the order. I had Acme Slate cut the 4x4 tiles for the floor of the shower. They were unable to cut squares and I ended up getting mostly rectangles. The tiles were 1/8" to 1/4" difference in length to width. This difference caused the design to change from a straight laid pattern to having to stagger them to try to hide the differences in size. I also had them cut slabs for the back wall cap, shower threshold, shower niche shelves and vanity top. I called and talked to the owner to ask if they would be able to cut curved pieces for the slab if I provided exact templates. He assured me that he could cut anything I could make. So I made MDF templates of all the curved pieces that I wanted in slab and shipped the templates to Acme Slate. I called a few days later to assure that the templates made it there intact- they did. After 3 weeks Acme Slate called me and told me that they couldn't cut slab to match the templates I provided. I told them that I had called and talked to the owner before making the templates and was assured that they could make them- they then told me that since I talked to the owner that they could do them then. I asked if they would be able to do a quality job if they were too difficult and was again assured that they could handle it. I even asked if they could send them out to be water jetted and they told me they could do it in house. Another couple of weeks went by and Acme Slate called again and said that they could not find any 3/4" slab and that they would have to cut it from 1 1/4" slab. I had to go check to make sure it would work and called them back and told them to go ahead and I would change what I needed to make the thicker material work. Couple weeks later they called and told me that the order was ready for pick up. I am located in Sarnia- 3 hours away, so I drove up and picked the order up and when I got there the slab pieces were 3/4"! I asked what happened and they said "Oh yeah we found some 3/4!" then they told me that they couldn't cut it out of the thicker 1 1/4" as their machines couldn't cut that thick. At that point I just said well a phone call would have been nice. I guess I will have to change what I can- back to fit the thinner material. I drove around back to load the order and the tiles were loaded first then we loaded the slab pieces that were very dirty and hard to see what they looked like, figured I would have some cleaning to do once I got home. Cleaned the slab pieces first and found that they had broken one of the slabs when they tried to drill it and epoxied it back together. There was still a bunch of epoxy on the edge that had been sanded some and the crack on the top of the piece was very visible. The finish on the edges of the slabs was poor as you could see that they had went from course grit right to fine grit and the course grit sanding marks showed through on every piece. Also there were undulations along the edges. I called Acme Slate and told them about the broken piece and the owner told me that no it would not have been broken and re-glued- I told him that I would send him pictures! So I sent the pics and didn't hear back from them so after a week and a half went by I called and they told me they would call me back, I ended up having to call them back a week later and they told me they would replace the slab to just drop the template off and they would remake the piece. They know that I am 3 hours away and I told them that it was not possible. I told them that the bathroom needed to get finished and I couldn't wait any longer and that they needed to refund my money for the slab/ labour for work on it and refund for the shower floor tiles that were rectangles. They said fine that they would need to look at the paper work to figure out how much of a refund to give and that they would call me back. That was months ago! I have called Acme Slate and left multiple messages with people there and on their voice mail as I seem not to be able to get an answer there any more! I also asked what grit of sand paper to use to sand the epoxy off and they told me 400 wet is what they use. I sanded it and then put it up to the other half and it was clear that they only sanded to maybe 320! So now I have to sand all the edges of the slabs so that they will match. I ended up sanding every inch of all the slab edges. I used an auto body sander with 220 grit, 320 grit, 400 grit and then 400 grit wet by hand. Had to start with 220 to try to straighten out the curves as best I could. Tiles were good- but I would not suggest for anyone to get any fabrication work done by Acme Slate as it is amateur at best. They don't touch the standard size tiles so they are good. I thought this could be handled between honest business men- but Acme Slate has turned out to be one of those dishonest suppliers.