Blaize Casley's quote to install flooring in most of my house was much, much higher than the other quotes, but I decided to award the contract to Casley due to the fact that the stone supplier had him on their contractor list. I rue the day that I made that decision. Casley was the only contractor who did not include sealing the stone & grout in his contract, stating that he didn't seal but that he would leave the floors "clean and ready to seal". He also stated the "clean and ready to seal" promise several times during the project right up to the day before and the day of grouting, and pronouncing it "clean and ready to seal" on the final walkthrough when I questioned its readiness to seal due to the thick layer of grout covering all of the new flooring in all rooms. Several weeks later the sealing company arrived and stated no way to the idea of sealing over the top of that mess. I had to pay them to remove the grout haze. I requested reimbursement from Casley since it was he who had repeatedly stated that he would leave the floors "clean and ready to seal" and now I was having to pay someone else to complete the work that Casley had promised to do, but failed to complete. Casley refused to pay.
But that's not the worst of it. When the thick grout haze was removed I found a couple areas where the tiles had been ground down across the top resulting in a solid white band contrasting the rest of the stone. The haze removal also revealed tilted tiles here and there that were not obvious while covered with grout.
Blaize had agreed to cover the existing tile floors to protect them and keep them clean during the stone install. Yet this was not done. Within a few days the porcelain floors were covered with grit, dirt, dried globs of mortar, slurry splashes, etc., yet despite visiting the jobsite, Blaize never remedied this. I finally reminded his crew about the agreement to cover the floors. So his crew, without cleaning their mess off the floors, ran a single runner of paper down the center of the hallway (not nearly as wide as the hallway, leaving much porcelain still exposed) rolling it out over the grit, being very thrifty with the tape, leaving paper edges curled up, to allow more grit underneath and serve as a trip hazard. Meanwhile all the uncovered porcelain continued to accumulate gritty messes.
There were globs, smears and splatters of grout and mortar on walls, doors, doorknobs, windowsills, water streaks running down the wall, baseboard damage, etc. Stacks of travertine were leaned up against the walls in every room, dirty handprints on walls, doors, etc.
Casley agreed that protection would be laid down to protect the back side yard, originally to be the only area for sawing. Instead, dried slurry spray was left coating our landscaping rock and A/C units. Several days into the job, Casley asked if they could set up a saw near our back patio - again promising that it would all be protected and nothing would get on our pavers, landscaping, etc. Instead dried slurry spray splattered on our pavers, bushes, fine gravel yard area, landscape rock, landscaping lights, etc. When I brought this to his attention, he stated, "oh the next rain will take care of all that". Of course, rain doesn't remove even one drop of lime slurry. His crew dug two huge landfill holes in the yard, each filled to the brim with who knows what all.
So let's see - the epoxy garage floor was also left coated in grit, house interior a gritty, filthy mess, top ground tiles, thick layer of grout on all tiles, the back and side yards unsightly messes with impossible to remove slurry, and as a bonus, I got the additional task of removing bits of tile, Styrofoam, cup lids, clumps of landscaping rock held together by globs of mortar, etc. while waiting for the great cleansing rain to magically correct the rest of the mess.
Not only did Casley fail to perform as agreed, but he was thousands of dollars higher than the other quotes, made an absolute mess of the yard and house and employed some shoddy practices like top grinding. read more
