Jeff in Victoria Village

Where do I start... Unsafe electrical cords on their tools. Bolt for the floor sander handle (knowingly striped) falling out and having the drum gouge my floor. Trying to rent me a tiller with a gas leak. Finally renting me a tiller that you can't remove the tines from to clean because they are so wrecked they won't come off the shaft. Missing a carriage bolt for the handle hinge on a power rake. (I went and grabbed a suitable replacement from their bolt section, temporarily fixed it myself in front of the guy and rented it anyway. Unfortunately, my fix is still the one in use...) The repair guy said that they can't keep up with it and are not allowed to get the proper parts (bolts!) externally anyway. Everything is fixed with whatever they have in the store. Major components are order-able, but only after the coat hanger repair method fails... I only rent there because they are close, and you practically have to be a repair guy to get some of their stuff working. Oh, this is just 2010 stories. The list goes way back...

We bought slate stone flooring in November. The picker grabbed a couple of boxes that looked like they had been wet at one point. One of the boxes was falling apart, but the tiles looked ok. Because they were natural stone, the water discoloured them. We had bought these tiles then immediately went away for 2 months. When we returned, opened the boxes and saw the extent of the damage I was afraid that they wouldn't exchange them. But, they had no problem getting me boxes that weren't water damaged. The only downside is that I had to drive the tiles back over and wait in their shipping/receiving section again...

I've had Avenue Insulation in for 2 jobs, 2lbs SPF both times. The first we had to have a callback because it didn't meet the depth specs. I would have accepted a discount, but Andy wanted to have the job done right. It was not a problem to schedule but we had to vacate for another 24 hour period. The second recent job used different material, different truck and different guys. Much better job this time with very little mess. The only complaint is that this time they wanted the entire bill paid upon truck arrival, not job completion. Good for them, risky if there are deficiencies. For $900 and a repeat contractor I wasn't too worried, but if it was anyone else I would have told them to shove it.

Very quick quote, good scheduling, great price. I've recommended it to both my neighbours and have already had the pleasure of seeing their truck back to do more work. (too bad we couldn't have bundled the install and maybe got a volume discount!!) Not only were they one of the lower quotes (for the same product installed on a bungalow), they had the best warranty and were easy to deal with. I had to have a callback to fix a minor deficiency, but it was no problem to get them to come back within a good time frame. (I actually had to tell them not to come back so soon because my drive was being re-paved and I had to co-ordinate between these excellent contractors and somewhat shady pavement guys.)

In Fall, 2009, I hired 'Howard' (no last name on the business card) to do my driveway. 6" gravel base written in the quote, compacted, 24 hour notice to be given to homeowner before any work to be done, we own all of our equipment, etc, etc. Notice for the removal was ok, but I had to force them to remove some soil and add gravel to make something like 6". They were sub-contractors too (Sam's Paving). No one measured anything, and the close-to-6" was only near the top where the car would be sitting. The bottom near the curb was much less than 6". Update: I have cracks on the one side of my driveway. I'm not even going to bother calling them. Having them come out in the first place to pave was such a headache, I can only imagine what a 'repair' visit would be like.

My partner's father ordered a door in Guelph 1-2 years ago and recommended them to me. I called the Toronto office (I think they are family operated Guelph vs Toronto) and received a scheduled visit ending with a written quote. Everything went smoothly, the only hiccup was that the door was received EARLY and I was not ready for them. But no problem, we installed shortly afterwards and they even hooked my decrepit opener back up to the new door. *update. The decrepit opener is 20+ years old and has only needed a little solder to make the light bulb work again. They certainly don't build them like they use to!