My husband and I bought porcelain tile from Emser Tile & Natural Stone for a major remodel of our master bathroom several months ago. We used tile from Emser for the floor, and tile from Travis Tile for the shower -- both rectangular tiles (13 x 20"). (Unfortunately, I couldn't find two different tiles that coordinated at one place.)
We had a pretty severe problem with the tile from Emser, which would ordinarily cause me to give them much less than 5 stars. However, it's how they handled the problem that gets them such a high rating.
Once the floor tile from Emser and the lighting was installed, we noticed that quite a few of the floor tiles had defects in them. This was not apparent when the tile was being installed because there was very little light in the bathroom; just what came in through a large window. The defects were on the surface of about 7 or 8 tiles, with 4 of them being pretty bad. I was totally bummed. We had spent a fortune gutting this 1980s bathroom and making it gorgeous, and now some of the tiles were defective. I figured we were out of luck, because most tile suppliers state that any defects in the tiles must be brought to the attention of the store *before* installation in order for them to be replaced. Our tiles were already installed and grouted. But I figured I'd let Emser know so that they could stop carrying this line of tile, or at least carefully inspect any future orders for the next customer unfortunate enough to choose the tile I chose.
I called and spoke to Jon Chapa, the operations manager, and explained the situation. I said I knew that we were screwed, but I wanted to let them know about the tile so that they could stop carrying it or at least inspect this particular company's tile carefully in the future.
To my complete surprise, Jon said that this was very unusual -- they had carried this line of tile for several years and had never heard of any problems with it -- and that they stand behind their work. He arranged for the store manager, Chris, to come to our house and see the tile. Chris came out and agreed with me that the defects were unacceptable, and he also said that he'd never seen a problem like it. Chris said that he thought their corporate office would approve payment for our tile installer (who is wonderful) to remove the defective tiles, and for Emser to pay for another box of the tiles. And it was approved.
Our tile installer removed the 4 worst tiles yesterday (thankfully, none of the custom-cut tiles surrounding 3 of those tiles broke, something we were all afraid might happen), and he grouted the new tiles today. The other affected tiles have minor defects that I can live with.
It's rare these days that a company will go the extra mile like Emser did, and they are to be commended. I would recommend them to anyone looking for beautiful porcelain or stone tile. They really do have a beautiful showroom, and if what you're looking for is natural looking tile, you should check them out. read more