We had selected Markham Tile as they had come highly recommended by a neighbour. They had remarked on their attention to detail and professionalism. Plus they were local, what did we have to lose?
This is a long read. I apologize, but you need to live with your kitchen/tile/sink a lot longer than it'll take to read this.
We had a few quotes from suppliers to install a quartz countertop in our new kitchen. John said they'd match the quote and get it done fast.
The install went quickly, as scheduled, but only after the glue had dried did we notice that there were MANY problems.
The 'waterfall' was cut on site and was cut extremely poorly. The bottom edge was jagged and rough. The opposite corner was chipped and the caulking underneath to seal it was sloppy. The seal between the two pieces was tight and smooth BUT the two pieces did NOT line up perfectly so there was a gap beside the wall, not something that could be easily covered with a line of caulking.
This was all discovered AFTER the epoxy had dried (it's hard to see these things during the install)
Eventually, the edges were covered with glue and epoxy enough that we could live with the quartz counter as is, and we adjusted our kitchen design to cover the gap by the wall, but this was a poor job from start to finish.
Only once did the installer apologize for the poor job, say it wasn't done well and they'd used too small a saw to cut the quartz. He assured me they wouldn't use that saw again. Gee, thanks...
But wait - we haven't even got to the sink yet! The sink was installed with chunks of rough wood slapped together with epoxy and immediately started sagging. The hole cut for sink did not match the shape of the sink edge perfectly. Again, things you don't notice in the midst of installation, but become very clear once the glue has dried...
To his credit, John was responsive, but all he did was send a crew (who didn't speak English so it was difficult to communicate the issues) who would use caulking and other glues to cover up the glaring errors. They wanted to leave as quickly as possible. He never once personally visited.
The ugly sink install is something we were blamed for. It was an IKEA dual mount sink. Their installer said it MIGHT sag after 10-20 years because the lip was not as big as regular undermount sinks, but he never flagged it as an issue. He assured us it would be fine.
Nope.
We had to call them back twice in a few weeks to apply more silicon. We were blamed for this choice, that Ikea's sink was a poor choice and the wood and epoxy mess was necessary. It was our fault and the ugly chunks of rough wood were necessary.
I love getting blamed for choices I made.
We called in IKEA who inspected and said it was poorly installed and they were never certify a product that was not suitable for undermount use.
The IKEA inspector told me off the record that this was a 'sh*t job.'
Eventually had the sink replaced and the quartz counter recut to match a different, slightly larger sink. We thought removing the existing sink would be a big deal, full of razors and saws but the new installer literally pushed the sink out of the counter top. It was going to fall out any minute. The new sink was installed without chunks of wood and I haven't once thought about getting splinters or seeing gaps in drooping silicon.
The kicker? My neighbour, who had recommended them, was having a terrible experience with her second renovation job with them! Said they were sloppy and slapping silicon all over the place to fix their mistakes. Sounds familiar.
So what happened? Why all these great reviews and we had such a poor experience?
Simple. They're outsourcing their work, to a company we had rejected. We were not made aware of this 'collaboration' between these companies until after the fact.
On their last visit to repair the caulking he identified himself from "Imperial Granite", not Markham Tile, and only then did we find out the whole thing had been outsourced to save them some money.
I actually called him on it, told him I was expecting "Markham Tile" and he said "Yes" and wouldn't repeat the company he was actually from (too bad for him it was written on their truck outside).
Avoid them. We went with Aras Marble (who saved our kitchen) but there are lots of reputable companies that will not outsource their work to save a few bucks. We COULD have got it done for the same price with the company who SAVED our kitchen. Lesson learned.
