I did my whole main floor with A1 in June 2023, a 17k+ project. Here are the positives and the negatives from my experience:
Positives:
-Everyone is polite and kind from the in store team to the installers
-Buying process is simple and easy
-Big store with lots of options for flooring
-Commercial team do an in home visit for measuring and hearing your goals with the project
-No surprising add ons to the original costs
-The installers are proactive and committed. As an example they noticed there was more material than needed and a discount was applied to our final price
-installers have ownership and creativity to address unexpected issues, as an example the piece made for the stairs didn't work and they came in a Saturday to explore solutions to not delay the project
-installers are respectful and do their best to keep the areas clean and safe (specially for us with dogs in the house)
-after putting a request, commercial representative came to the house for an inspection on the deficiencies and to hear our concerns after the pause in the project (due to defected tiles)
-once defected tiles were noticed, A1 took care of the process to return and order additional box without additional costs to us
Negatives:
-neither a commercial team or project manager comes on the first day with installers to explain the project, introduce the crew and align needs
-a project manager never comes to supervise the project or continue to align needs with the customer
-you need to be proactive and constant follow up to understand the steps of the project
-if the commercial person who is handling your project goes on vacation during your project, the others in the store ask you to wait and hold whatever you need until the person returns
-you need to constantly supervise the project. A whole box of tiles came defected and couple tiles were installed before my husband interfered. 3 defected tiles are now part of my house flooring
-even after the issue with the stairs or the defected tiles was reported by the installer to the store, neither the project manager or commercial team contacted us proactively, it was always me reaching out and asking for support.
-with the need to order a new box of tiles, the finalization of the project was delayed but I only knew that from the installers
-after 3 weeks on hold the installers came to finalize the project (landing and spare bedroom) but they were not informed on what exactly they had to do which ended up on them having to return on a Sunday (good point that they returned, bad point on lack of alignment between the A1 team)
-the project has deficiencies: defected tiles, stain of caulking on tiles and baseboards with uneven corners.
-my husband ended up assessing deficiencies in the baseboards to expedite completion of the project
Overall:
My expectations were not fully met. We were aware we were paying higher prices with the promise of peace of mind to have a team fully caring for our project and superior quality overall.
I am thankful for the kindness, ownership and honesty of everyone from the company. I am somewhat happy with the final result but disappointed with the effort I needed to put in supervision and follow up which made the project draining, stressful and took away the joy of improving my home. read more