I've put off this review for a long time, mainly to calm down and provide a reasonable look at our experience.
Shortly after we moved into our home, our bathroom leaked. We called our insurance company and they sent us to Austin Hi-Tech Restoration.
The process started out okay. The project manager or whatever you might call him came by our home, assessed the damage and drew up an estimate for the insurance company.
Things went downhill quickly after that. I think the most important thing to note here is: Our bathroom broke in August. Austin Hi-Tech Renovations didn't finish the repairs until December.
That was over four months of workers coming in and out of our home, without much notice. Four months of plastic on our carpets stretching from the front door, up the steps and to our bathroom. Four months of locking our cats away every day in case someone did show up. Four months of using the guest bathroom, even when we had guests. Four months of construction dust and debris. Four months of a bathtub and other pieces of drywall, tile, etc taking up half our garage.
Our contractor was a nightmare. He was difficult to communicate with. He didn't really answer our questions. He would vaguely tell us he was coming by or some other worker was coming, then nobody would show up. For some reason, the first thing he had done was painting our walls - before removing the tile or retiling or anything. Odd.
And maybe most importantly, the businesses he worked with were not reputable.
Take the tile, for example: First, he was going to work with this company he knew. So I went and picked tile for that. Then that guy just never showed. We switched to another tile company, this time with a showroom. So I went and picked tile a second time. Then... The contractor ripped up our floor. Without being asked to. Just poof, no floor. And when I called in a panic, due to lack of floor, he told us a lie that "the floor was always supposed to be ripped up." And off I went to pick tile for the third time.
The tiling company he chose, which I should do a second review for, was also terrible at installing wall tile. They weren't able to do the design we asked for (a simple stripe) and they didn't put any sealant in our shower (we've paid out-of-pocket to have that redone since this incident.) The tiles looked uneven. And some spaces were missing grout altogether.
The contractor never helped us pick tile or pick a design either. I felt lost during almost the entire process. And even more lost when, all of a sudden, I was notified that we had a new contractor, that our old one had left (been fired.)
The second contractor was definitely better. Pretty much all the work (except the ripping out, demo part) got done in the time he was there. But he didn't seem to oversee the tile placement, missing grout, etc. either. He didn't notice the sealant issue. We also had to go through the whole process of telling him the design we wanted done and all that again because apparently there was no transition or files left behind. (The design, as noted above, still didn't get done right.) Had he been our contractor the whole time, maybe things would have been different. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt. But by the time he came in, it had been months and the damage was done.
The only advantage to the crappy first contractor was the ability to save up money along this huge timeframe so I could get more done. Like we got a tub installed and a toilet. Of course, we paid for those things to be installed and I did most of the research on my own for what types to get.
We also got our floor done for free, which seemed fair since we never asked for it to be ripped up. We were asked to pick budget tile (under the presumption that "we were always going to do the floor") but it turned out okay. Plus, when they ripped up the floor, they ended up having to replace the subfloor too.
The last part of this job that I remember was the cleaning up after it was done, which they half did. But they left a giant blue paint smear on our new master closet carpet. So they had to come back and remove that. And finally, it was over.
(Except they tell you to go to a shower glass company directly for the shower walls and doors to "save money" - weird, being that this whole process could be done like that... retrospect, man. Retrospect)
With Yelp and Angie's List available, I'm not sure why companies like this one exist. They only made the process harder for me and I didn't feel like I had a competent resource to turn to or to walk me through the process. I would not recommend Austin Hi-Tech Restoration and will not be using their services in the future. read more