I wished Yelp's did ratings in 0.5 increments, as I would ultimately give this 2.5stars. It SINCERELY pains me to give this rating, as I fully support small business, and I do understand how Yelp reviews can affect a business, but as a Yelp reviewer, I want to make sure I give my best, accurate, and most honest reviews. From Yelp's perspective, 3-stars is considered "OK", which I would tell people how this went. Not trying to nitpick, but there has to be a distinguishing boundary between a 4 or 5-star review vs a 3-star "OK" review.
TLDR;
A couple of things that warranted not a 4-star or 5-star rating:
1. Didn't wear shoe booties or something to protect the carpet from outside dirt. I've had handy people who did this
2. I had to retest things a couple of times before they got things "right"
3. There is a chip/paint from them removing the old countertop sink. No offer to repaint or fix
4. There's caulk spilt over the end of the counter top
5. They didn't offer to throw away the old countertop, until we asked. Tony mentioned he just had knee surgery, which I do feel bad about.
6. No guarantee on his work
7. His hourly rate was second-to-most high, from the Yelp quotes. My expectation is nothing less than 4 star experience.
8. Tony was late. He did explain later that he had personal things to attend to.
Full story:
I had a cracked undermount bathroom sink, and needed to get it replaced since it was leaking water, every time I used the faucet. At first I was hoping to just replace the sink basin. After several attempts myself and an hour or so, to take out the undermount sink basin, from the countertop, I decided to search Yelp... it just wasn't worth my time, effort and frustration. Yelp has a cool feature where it basically spray-fires Yelp-registered handy people, and asks for quotes. Several handy people responded. Tony was very responsive and super friendly. He wasn't the cheapest, but since he was so responsive and super friendly, I went with him. I know being very responsive and friendly should be "defaults" in a person, but believe me, when finding any type of handyperson, those are two characteristics that, for whatever reason, is hard to find. And considering I was letting some stranger into my home, I rather have someone that was pleasant to correspond with.
Over the phone, Tony was very honest on what could be done and what couldn't. He suggested replacing the entire sink countertop, and thanks to his tip, we were able to find the exact one at Menards. It was a granite countertop that probably weighed at least 60-lbs or so. We also bought the PVC tubing as well. We wanted to reuse the faucet, as there was nothing wrong with it, so we didn't buy a new one.
When Tony came, he was very cordial, friendly, and got to work right away. The job took about ~30-minutes, which was great. We did ask what his warranty was, and he said "none", as he mentioned that the PVC pipe inside the wall was unusual and not conventional. Hmm, OK....
We then asked if we can test things. We ran the water for less than a minute, and noticed that there was a small drip from the pipes. We pointed this out, and he went back to work. ~10-minutes or so later, he said that the leak was coming from the old dry-rotted drain.. where the drain and sink met. He suggested to buy a whole new faucet since it came with a new drain too. Hmm ok, I didn't want to counter-discuss, as I get it, lets just get new parts all around. He and his assistant left to Home Depot, took pictures of faucets, and we agreed to one.
He went ahead and replaced the faucet. It took about another ~10min or so. He was very speedy, which was great. After everything was replaced, we tested again, and noticed a little drip from where the drain pipe connected into the wall pipe. OK, he went ahead and offered to use more plumbers tape.
Finally, we tested everything again, and it was all good. Fast forward to a couple of weeks later, we noticed a very miniscule leak where the top of the drain is. OK... these are new parts. I ended up tightening and testing things, and as of now, I believe it's fixed. But why do I need to do this? I get people aren't perfect, but from us testing the faucet/sink several times, them redoing things, and now this, it doesn't really paint a 5-star rating.
Would I recommend? Probably not. But I sincerely wish the best for the business. read more