We signed a contract for a job which was to take 3 weeks to complete. It was to be finished in time for our daughter to have a birthday pool party in June.
Jon's designs were creative, and ultimately that's one reason why we chose to award his company the job. He has very unique ideas, and concepts.
We made no changes of our own, however, Jon chose to use cheaper material in place of agreed upon material, which he said was more readily available. Obviously because it simply increased his profit in the end.
We had people from his crew drifting on and off our property until October (when we closed the pool for the winter). The three weeks quoted was very reasonable considering the work to be done. Unfortunately, Jon rarely showed up on time to the site, if at all, and his crew rarely arrived before 10 AM each day, they consistently took an hour or more for lunch, and always left the job before 4 PM. 90% of the time, while on site, they couldn't move ahead with any work because Jon, who again was rarely there and who had always promised to be on site early in the day, did not supply the necessary materials.
While away for our one week (7 days) of summer vacation, Jon and his crew only showed up for a few hours over two days (we had our neighbor looking after the house).
The pool was put in 1 inch off level, which is easy for anyone to see to this day. He had his crew use car jacks to try and lift it, which did nothing, and only served to create pressure cracks in the fibreglass.
We spent every Saturday and Sunday morning, during the months of June, July, and August, sitting on our front porch because Jon had always promised to be there to get more of the job completed; he NEVER showed up, and ALWAYS had an excuse as to why he had not arrived, and had not responded to our telephone calls and SMS messages: lost cell phone, broken cell phone, was ill, girlfriend trouble, couldn't locate his crew... the list goes on.
To add insult to injury, we were told one of his lead guys would be over one Saturday in July to work on our job. We sat, as usual, on our front porch, made the standard cell phone calls, and sent the SMS messages, only to have that person drive by and wave at us! We were later told by this person from Jon's crew, that he was never told to work on our job that day!?
It got so bad, we had to do some of the labour ourselves, because we wanted the job complete: removing the existing deck and loading the scrap into the bin in our driveway (which sat there for 2 weeks AFTER it was full!), hauling a full ton of crushed stone from our driveway (by shovel/wheelbarrow) to the backyard because it sat for days and we couldn't park in our driveway, feeding the wire for the pool and spa lights because Jon told the electrician that he [Jon] would do it, connecting the spa piping for the air returns because Jon told his crew that he [Jon] would do it and they didn't know how, landscaping because plants were beginning to die after being left out for weeks, caulking stone countertops and the fireplace top because finishing touches were completely neglected, and most recently resetting tiles on the side of the spa because they are now falling off, along with leveling patio stones which have sank or lifted over the past year and sanding the entire patio (which was never done).
This same member of his crew would bad mouth him constantly, complaining Jon had not paid him in weeks. Another person on his crew quit while on our job and walked 30 KMs home, because he had not been paid in weeks and was being evicted for not paying his own rent. His crew even went as far as to carve "Jon is an a**hole" in the concrete pad they poured for our fireplace. We later found out this was the "routine" at two of the other job sites he had on the go; http://homestars.com/companies/2783870-groom-landscaping-land-werx and our friends property (we recommended him within the first 2 weeks of work starting, as his designs were very good - BIG mistake!). We were tempted to pay the crew ourselves, but had the feeling it would be in vain.
In the end, we cancelled our daughters birthday pool party in June, our backyard anniversary party in July, and our end of summer backyard party, ALL because Jon had not completed the job and the backyard was not safe for people to be in.
What was supposed to take 3 weeks, is still not complete per our agreement! It has been over 1 year now, and we're still getting the same excuses, when we actually hear from Jon. Therefore, we have terminated any and all relationship we have with Jon and his company, outside of our warranty; but, considering his history, we don't expect him to honour any of those.
I completely agree with Katherine from Richmond Hill's review. If you're going to use Groom Custom Land Werx (Jon Groom), pay for the design and then pick another contractor to do the work.
