We purchased a house this summer, and planned to do a bathroom remodel before moving in. Bathrooms can get pricey so one way we were looking to save some money was by refinishing the existing cast iron tub rather than having to demo and remove it. Unfortunately sometimes you do get what you pay for. The service isn't cheap, $575 + tax, but in comparison to having an old cast iron tub removed it is cheap.
Two of my moms coworkers had used this service and both loved it. One had only had it done for a couple of months, but the other had had it in one home and lived there for 4 or 5 years and said it was still in good condition when they left, so they used the same service when they bought their new home and had been happy with that for about 3 years. Despite the bad reviews I had found, two recommendations from people we know made me decide to check it out for myself.
Overall I had a really hard time deciding how many stars to give Miracle Method. Overall the customer service I received was good. I found all of the workers I spoke to on the phone and at my house nice, friendly, and professional. When my husband or I called to report problems, we were responded to promptly. The problem is we had to deal with so many workers, as it took 3 times to get it right, and it sometimes took a bit to get another look rescheduled.
We got our initial appointment scheduled for mid August. It is a 2 day process, so my husband had to take off 2 days of work to accommodate, not a big deal as we were moving into our home so he was able to plan days off to unpack to coincide with the bathtub refinishing. The first day is the long day, they indicate it could take up to 6 hours for them to strip the tub and then refinish and buff. Our guy was friendly and efficient, it was only maybe 4 hours. Working too quickly? Or do they just tell you longer so you prepare for more time? Not sure. The chemicals stink, but they did leave a high intensity fan and had a hose out the window to try to help with that. The guy came back the next day to buff it, it only took an hour or so, and it still smelled a little but it looked great.
You are supposed to not use the tub for 24-72 hours, and as we still had our apartment at the time we didn't use it for 5 days. It looked great, pure white and perfect. We were very happy with our newly refinished tub. However about 2 weeks later I went to clean the tub for the first time and when I was washing the bottom I noticed this almost texture at the bottom, hard to describe, not deep enough to even really feel with my finger, but as we all know dirt will find the slightest spot. I didn't think too much of it, but each time I cleaned the tub it was getting worse, it seemed like there was more texture, again not super deep but it was almost spreading all over the bottom and dirt kept getting in. I was a bit frustrated as this brand new tub shouldn't already have little spots that were hard to clean.
So my husband called Miracle Method back and they said they would send someone out. Unfortunately they had a date in early November and then canceled it very last minute, in fact like 4 PM the evening before but luckily my husbands job is flexible and we got them rescheduled for the beginning of December. A new guy came and said what we noticed was called pitting and has been found to happen, especially with cast iron tubs like ours, so it took 2 more days but he redid the bottom area only. This was at no charge to us, however my husband again had to use 2 vacation days, now a bit frustrating as he doesn't get much vacation. We also dealt with the stink again, and didn't use our tub for another 4ish days which was harder this time without our apartment, and this time they did not leave us a fan, but we were just happy it was going to get fixed.
Again this time we were initially happy with our tub again, but about 2 weeks after we started using our new tub, we noticed that it was peeling, big pieces of tub almost like skin were coming off. Again we called and someone was able to come out late January and this time they redid the whole thing. So again we dealt with stink, no fan, my husband wasting another 2 days of vacation, but again we didn't have to pay anything other then the vacation, and we were very hopeful at this time that it would be the last.
I am happy to report that it's been like 2 months and it seems like the 3rd time might be the charm. Our tub does look great, and cleaning it is no different than cleaning another tub, haven't noticed any peeling or pitting at this point. Despite being happy that it did work out in the end though, I'd have a hard time really recommending this service. My husband had to take off 4 extra days of work besides the original 2, and there were quiet a few inconveniences with having to keep refinishing our tub. read more