We have five+ bathrooms in our house. Usher Construction pursued our business for about 1.5 years before we decided to give them a remodel job for two of our bathrooms to test them out prior to potentially engage them for a bigger remodel project for the remaining bathrooms. Usher's rates were significantly higher than the other comps we received, but they sold us on their self-claimed superior quality and project management communications. This project (and the subject of this review) - is for two of our full bathrooms. It started because we had an issue with a leak in our children's bathroom. The water damaged the baseboard near the tub and part of the door frame.
Contract stated the work length would be 4 weeks from start of work; actual project took 3 times longer than contracted - took over 12 weeks from start of work. This was not due to any issues on our side or with our house. While the project had a solid start in terms of prep and tile, we received little to no contact after the cabinets were ordered about two weeks into the project. We had to do repeated follow-up's with both the cabinet maker company and Usher. No communication in spite of repeated outreaches by us via texts and emails.
Multitude of issues throughout and after this project:
- Shower doors' hardware colors didn't match in spite of requesting same color from the color swatches for both bathrooms. One set installed was one color and the other set was installed a different color. Turns out the subcontractor did not have same colored hardware for the two shower door types; they did not tell us about this and we were not informed before the hardware was installed.
- Toilet handles installed backwards for both bathrooms.
- Lighting in one bathroom had to be redone because it wasn't centered.
- Touch up's on damaged walls missed and had to be repaired.
- Baseboard: As we reviewed the work done, we found that the damaged baseboard replacement was not included. We reached out to Usher to see if we can add this work as we already had the new and painted baseboard. All that was required was the actual labor of replacing a single small piece of baseboard and we asked for a quote on the labor. Usher wouldn't give quote at first, saying it was our miss for not including this minor work in scope even though they had inspected the bathroom prior to starting work to draft the contract scope (we told them we had water damage - that's why we were remodeling), we are not home remodeling experts like they are. Later, Usher quoted us more than $3k to do this, citing that they needed to source the material, replace and repaint (even though we previously informed Usher that we already had the brand new, painted baseboard part). Needless to say, we found the $3K quote was just a way of telling us that they didn't want to do this work, so we did not proceed with them on this.
Multitude of issues within 1-2 years after the remodel was completed:
- Usher upsold us on a bathroom fan that was supposed to be quieter and better at clearing humidity in the bathroom. But it did not work as well as the previous fan and the bathroom was constantly musty in spite of attempts to clear the humidity by opening window and door. It took nearly 12 months between 1st contact about bathroom fan not working well and wanting to know if we can make adjustments / repair, to Usher finally completing a setting change.
- Shower drain doesn't drain well in spite of us keeping a regular schedule of cleaning and clearing the drain. This did not happen with our previous drain. The bathroom has now flooded multiple times and the shower floor tile and bedroom carpet now discolored.
- Sliding shower doors never closed properly on both sides, so water consistently splashed out and have warped one of our baseboards. We contacted the shower glass company recently (subcontractors to Usher) and they will come inspect.
- Two years after the remodel: this summer, one of the toilets started leaking from the base. Was informed and shown by professional plumber the reason for leak. Previously when Usher staff had reinstalled the toilet, they did not clean or remove the old o-ring; instead, they just reinstalled the toilet. The deteriorated, dirty o-ring failed to properly seal the toilet to the floor drain, thus causing the leak.
The only positive aspect of the remodel was the tile design work. That was done by a tile specialist designer and the tile installation subcontractor. The cabinet work took more than twice as long as promised, but the finish quality was solid. Hence the two stars.
With the number of available remodeling companies who will compete for business - especially those who now include compensation or financial consequence due to delays in their contracts - we do not recommend using Usher Construction. read more