I initially tried to write a concise bullet point list of everything that went wrong on my quoted 1 month turned 4 month project but there's simply too much to list.
The owner of River City Kitchen and Bath is deceitful and fails to take responsibility for the people he brings on to the job site. He has an excuse for everything but at some point he needs to stop pointing the finger at his subcontractors and take responsibility for the job he's supposed to be managing. He mentioned several times it was his policy to check in on jobs only after each stage of the project is completed. He stated several times the quality of work and service happening on this job were not typical for his business. I would have expected his presence more frequently as the project was constantly being delayed and mistakes were being made left and right due to his lack of project management.
In the end I had to accept a lipstick on a pig job because I was exhausted and worn down living in a construction zone and babysitting the work myself. There were things like incorrect materials being used that stuck out to me, without me having any experience in the field. The brand new shower pan that was constructed didn't drain in 3 places. The solution was to install tile over tile to fix it. Cracked, chipped and unmatched tiles from different tile lots were installed throughout the shower. The wrong trim was installed and tiles had to be removed to fix this. Removing installed tile from the Schulter waterproofing system after it has been installed and dried makes the waterproofing more susceptible to failure. Tile cuts around fixtures are visible around almost every fixture. Plumbers were sloppy, improperly installing crooked (and leaky) fixtures and slathering silicone caulk over thousands of dollars of new hardware. In the last week of the project, I discovered they had installed a shower faucet with no hardware and simply caulked the entire thing in place.
Zero house protection was used except a couple of his subs put paper down in traffic areas. We came home after Christmas to our entire living room, dining room, and kitchen covered in tile dust because they had been cutting tile on our balcony with the door open. There are times the owner tried to fix things/make things right but his actions were always reactionary, and the fixes often caused other problems.
The overall layout for the shower is bad, I brought up several concerns during the design consultation but he told us my concerns were not issues, and I trusted his "expertise" at the time. Now that the shower has been installed, I can see the concerns we brought up were completely legitimate.
At the "end" of the project there were still several things I was unhappy with but felt I had already given more than enough chances over the course of the last 4 months. I was not confident they could be remedied in any sort of timely fashion. Every time I had given them a chance to fix something, they messed something else up and I was done watching the subcontractors stumble over themselves.
After a couple of days, I had to reach out to him to notify him his subcontractors "completed" the project. I was stunned when I was offered a less than 2% discount at the end of the job. When I said I disagreed with the discount, I was immediately threatened with a lien on my property. A week later I was offered an additional discount (still under 2%) which I declined as I'd prefer to warn others about the experience I had then accept an unacceptable discount.
I would caution anyone considering River City Kitchen and Bath to note the reviews on his page are divisive, either 1 or 5 stars. If you do your research you will discover he is suing clients and see his bitter responses to negative reviews that I now share a similar experience with. read more