This review includes combined input from my husband and me.
We requested estimates from three companies and ended up hiring D&L Tile, a 3rd generation family business led by Ryan Boucher. They were not the least expensive of the three, but the prices were reasonable, they had excellent online reviews, were personally referred to us by our handyman, and we had good initial rapport with the estimator and designer.
Estimator Zach was knowledgeable, polite, and answered our many questions. Dena, the design consultant, patiently showed us many options for our countertop, tile, and grout and made insightful suggestions without pushing any particular style or brand.
On demolition day, Julio and William arrived within five minutes of the scheduled start time and jumped right into work. They mentioned they don't normally do teardown work but proceeded accordingly. They laid down plenty of floor covering to protect our carpet and tile and also covered our range with thick plastic. Julio and William finished in one day, and did a good job cleaning up after their day's work. Some minor damage was done to our windowsill that we knew would cost outside of the parameters set to complete the project.
At one point, Julio had a concern about a measurement and contacted Ryan, who was scheduled to come out the next day to take measurements. Ryan came to our home that afternoon and did all the measurements and addressed Julio's concern. Ryan patiently explained the process to us.
A week later, Julio and William arrived to install the countertop. Installation went pretty smoothly - they took a lot of time to ensure the countertop was level and they stayed later than their usual quitting time in order to finish the job in one day.
Two days later, Mark called to say our tile had arrived and could be installed the next day. We cancelled other plans we had for that day and made an appointment for tile installer Steve to be at our home at 7 a.m. the next morning. Later that day, Mark called to say he had forgotten about some company training scheduled for the same morning and Steve would come to our home right after training, likely around 10 a.m. The next morning at 10:15 we still had not seen Steve, so we left a message on Mark's voice mail and called the main number; the person who answered said training was running longer than expected but Steve would still be coming. Steve arrived at about 11:30 a.m. and got set up right away and began setting the tile. He communicated well, asking us our preference on several aspects of how the tile would be lined up, edging, etc. He made good progress, but it ended up taking three separate work days spread over six days to finish the job: The first day was a Friday, they do not work weekends (not complaining, just explaining), and we had appointments on Mon, Tues, and Wed that we had to schedule around.
I'd suggest scheduling tile jobs when all parties are available on consecutive days as Steve had to completely assemble and disassemble his tile cutter and bring/remove other equipment and supplies twice rather once (he could have left everything if it had just been overnight, rather than several days between visits).
After the tile work was complete, Steve secured most but not all of the outlets (all of which now required extra-long screws as the tile increased the depth). He called Mark for advice, who came to our house and inspected the outlet, determining that it wasn't up to code and a new box would need to be installed by an electrician. We called our electrician who said this often occurs after tile work; in the end, we paid $80 to have the box secured correctly.
After relating some of the challenges to Ryan and requesting a free cutting board for our inconvenience / additional cost, his response was that things happen during a project such as this and they already given us an unfinished stone remnant for future matching purposes. After two or three responses back and forth via email he agreed to smooth the edges of the remnant so it could be used as a cutting board if we dropped it off at their location.
Overall, we like the work done by D&L Tile. We have no complaints about any of the employees who came to our home to do work, but they did appear to be stretched too thin at times. Some things aren't easy to say, but this could be a great company with a few changes in internal communication, updating scheduling protocols, and addressing client concerns in real time. This company is competing with several other local companies for business and if they made a few changes, they could easily be #1. In the end, we'd recommend that D&L Tile be added to your list of countertop/tile companies when you are getting bids. read more