We had a leak from a residential sprinkler system which ended up damaging a wall in our bathroom and about 75 sq ft. of our kitchen ceiling. The bathroom turned out fine, but the kitchen - not so much.
Although Marcello and Joe from RestorePro were personable and reasonably responsive, their estimates were misleading and deceptive, and the way they computed prices differed between their estimates and the final invoice.
The kitchen ceiling presented a challenge since our textured, unpainted plaster ceiling was continuous throughout most of the rooms on that floor. Depending on how well the newly-textured plaster matched, this big continuous ceiling would almost certainly need re-plastering, repainting, or both.
Their original estimate of $5,500 appeared to include the cost of fixing the bathroom, putting up wallboard and plastering the damaged area of the kitchen ceiling, and re-texturing and painting the continuous ceiling in the rooms adjoining the kitchen.
As we were hoping that painting might not be necessary, we asked for a quote that retained the texturing but excluded the painting. This dropped the estimate to about $3,800, still apparently including the re-texturing of all these rooms. It also specified 70 sq ft as the area that needed new drywall in the kitchen. We signed off on this proposal and scheduled the work.
When the workers arrived, we learned that they were going to plaster only the area of affected ceiling. They weren't going to do the work shown in the estimate that seemed to include re-texturing the continuous ceilings in neighboring rooms. The workers explained that to properly re-plaster the neighboring rooms would cost "ten times as much."
Marcello and Joe from RestorePro attempted various verbal acrobatics to explain that the estimate didn't include any plastering beyond the affected area in the kitchen. But they were unable to explain why the estimate included charges for skim coating and texturing plaster in 3 of our other rooms if they weren't committing to actually do that work for that price.
To this day I have never received a coherent explanation what went on with this estimate. Marcello often fell back on the explanation that it was "just an estimate" that would go up or down depending on the work that they actually did, which is normally fair enough, but that excuse doesn't explain line items for plastering that they apparently had no intention of doing for the price they quoted.
I decided not to pursue the matter, giving them the benefit of the doubt that it was just some sort of bad mistake on their part when creating the original estimate.
RestorePro sent us an invoice for the work that they ostensibly completed. Among other problems, whereas their original estimate specified drywall and plastering for 70 sq ft of our kitchen ceiling, this new invoice said they did 160 sq ft., claiming that 5 sheets of drywall were used. Drywall sheets are 32 sq ft each, so a maximum of 3 sheets should have been needed.
RestorePro made multiple claims along the way, including:
* They always charge for full sheets of drywall, since after you cut one you cannot re-use the rest.
* They always charge for plastering a full sheet of drywall even if only a partial sheet is used, because plaster costs money and goes by the bag, and "it adds up."
In the end they agreed to reduce the number of sheets down from 5 to 4 (128 sq ft) to patch what turned out to be 75 sq ft. Although I still found this problematic, we were anxious to get conclude business with RestorePro so we agreed.
The problems with their rationale are:
* If they only charge for a full sheet of drywall at a time, their estimates should reflect that from Day One. As Marcello measured 70 sq ft. originally, his estimate should have shown 3 sheets of drywall, or 96 sq ft.
* The material cost of a sheet of drywall and a whole bag of plaster is about $25, yet they charged about $300 per sheet all told. I might accept that rate for drywall and plaster that's actually used for the job, but not for the unused and unneeded material that ends up in the dumpster (though could easily have been used on another job).
The work they actually did perform was a mixed bag. The bathroom came out fine. The plasterer said that the newly plastered area of our kitchen ceiling would come out bright white, but it has resolved to a mottled color that's gray in big areas, and its texture doesn't appear to match the surrounding ceiling particularly well.
In summary, we completely lost confidence that RestorePro would fulfill any contract for the price they committed to, or that they would deal honestly (or at least in a manner that didn't totally confuse us). They were nice enough people in person, but we feel baffled, misled, and cheated.
I invited RestorePro to provide feedback to me prior to my posting of reviews on social media, but did not hear back from them. read more
