Penguin Basements

I was very pleased with the Penguin Basement on site team. They were extremely organized and efficient. Initially, we thought our basement reno would take between 4-6 weeks but start to finish they were in and out in three!

The design centre could have been more organized. The selections for some of the finishes were very limited (carpet choices, tile and stone). We are having to outsource some of the finishes and work on our own.

All of the site managers where amazing and a pleasure to deal with. Claudio was the best! He made sure we were happy with all of our finishes before he left the job site.

I would definitely recommend working with this company for any basement reno.

To Whom It May Concern

I would like commend the work done by the following people:
1. Tony M.
2. Roberto
I found them to be thorough, fast and very pleasant to work with. When they came to ensure that every aspect of the work is done (at the end of the project) they were quick to see what needs to be fixed, and they fixed everything fast to the satisfaction of the owner.

Hassan Marshad

Penguin Basements were recommended to us by our nephew. Our expectation was to have someone finish our basement legally, professionally and expertly and Penguin did not disappoint. Our first interaction was with the design consultant Dave Trumbull. He was friendly, honest and knowledgeable. After years of thought we had a design in mind for finishing our basement and yet after just a few minutes Dave suggested an alternative layout. Both my wife and I looked at each other and laughed because what he proposed was much better. Dave also found some ways to cut corners on the financial aspects of the project without sacrificing quality or appearance. Next we met with Amy Bray the interior decorator. She has a tremendous eye for matching colours and shapes to get the most eye-appealing design. We told her we were trying to keep costs down and like Dave she was determined to ensure we limited our upgrades to those items that would show a return if we ever sell our house. Finally we have Juliano Romagnuolo who was our project/site manager. He is simply outstanding. Personable, professional, responsive and eager to please. Send him a text and he gets back to you quickly with another text or a phone call as appropriate. No renovation is without mistakes. Some are cosmetic and others are more serious. We had a few cosmetic mistakes. Those we did have were identified by Juliano before we noticed them and he assured us they would be repaired. All of them were. One mistake we thought would be an issue was related to getting our floor tiled in the remaining unfinished area of our basement. When we mentioned it to Juliano he immediately contacted Dave Turnbull and asked him if his original design included tiling the unfinished area. Dave couldn’t recall but went to his notebook and found his design. He immediately called Juliano back and confirmed that the tiling should have been done. Thanks to Dave for his honesty and to Juliano who had the work done the next day. One last thing about Juliano, he has high expectations of himself and the people working with him. We never complained about the quality of work or the time being taken. In fact we were amazed by the work product at all times. But Juliano doesn’t wait for you to complain. If he isn’t happy with the workmanship (and he is picky) or the time the work is taking then he personally apologizes and sets out to get things done properly. He will even see if he can get an upgrade thrown in for your inconvenience. He is a true ambassador for Penguin Basements and a 10 out of 10!

First I must say nothing in life is perfect, However I am pleased with my basement, I almost didn't recognised it.
Roberto, the finishing Manager make sure that everything was up to my liking and that I was satisfied
However, I was a bit disappointed about my stone wall being flat as I've wanted it to stick out a little bit as I've shown my designer in a picture that I took at an open house but I don't know what happened, as I first said nothing in life is perfect
Thank you Penguin Basements A Job well done AGAIN

Penguin Basements renovated our basement in Newmarket. We selected them after getting three competing quotes. They were competitively priced and were able to clearly communicate the process their construction project would take. This included being up front about the delay that would occur between signing a contract and getting started, as well as the likely length of the construction period.

Our basement was a relatively straight forward demolition followed by finishing, with the only real addition being a new 3 piece bathroom. Before any work began, it was good to know that we had a written contract outlining with a high degree of specificity the work to be done. Soon after the demolition was complete, Penguin staff worked up plans and secured permits, all of which was shared with us as soon as it was available.

The work occurred as we had expected, at roughly the time of month they'd indicated and it lasted for just over 4 weeks. From contract signature to completion, the project took 4 months.

The Penguin crews were very efficient and, for the most part, the assembly line process that the firm uses works well. The project steps unrolled as you'd expect and there were only one or two times when a person showed up and had to wait for something else to be completed.

The workmanship appeared solid as the walls came up, plumbing and electrical were put in, and the finished basement took shape. We had a great deal of confidence that the basement would look as we expected, at the end. The design selection process went smoothly and we were happy with the designer's assistance as well as the range of selections on offer.

Unlike one of the contractors we'd initially spoken to and received a quotation from, this was an appealing aspect of working with Penguin. The upside of having a constrained set of flooring and amenity options is that we didn't need to attempt to source these things ourselves, in the right quantities, and manage their arrival for the project.

This is our second basement renovation. They can be complex, even relatively straightforward ones like ours. In light of that, the experience was very positive. I used their online tool (Buildertrend) heavily to communicate with staff, to ask questions, and to keep my own punch list of items. We were able to review selections we'd made, and documents created for the project, including architectural plans.

As others have commented, communication could have been smoother. I don't believe it was significantly different from other complicated projects. I found having multiple project managers across the project made it more difficult to know who was able to answer the question of the moment. The initial work schedule never updated to reflect what was happening on a day-to-day basis. To their credit, Penguin's employees hit their days with such regularity that the early part of the project didn't need alteration. However, at the end, it would have been nice to see what items remained to be completed and when that would happen.

All in all, the basement looks excellent and has expanded the usable space in our house. The Penguin process worked well for us and the people who worked on our basement were professional, appear very skilled, and were aware and courteous of the intrusion their work had on our family's life. Penguin Basements more than met our expectations.

We were very pleased with the workmanship and the finishing details. The workmen were timely and there was little disruption to the rest of the house. We were pleased with how quickly things were completed. We had a bit of a rough start as far as communication but it was resolved once we got in touch with the right people and made sure that all the details were being dealt with.

Excellent work by all trades - framers, boarders, HVAC, electrical, plumbing and flooring. Very courteous, friendly and respectful. Well supported by knowledgable finishing supervisor (Roberto) who responded to all our questions and concerns with a real customer-centred approach. Areas for improvement would include regularity of follow-ups on permit applications with local municipalities, responsiveness to inquiries on design options (very slow response), hand-offs to different managers\supers at different stages of construction and overwhelming need for single over-arching PM to coordinate\liaise with customer from beginning to end of process. Additionally, buildertrend needs to be much more user friendly. I would definitely recommend Penguin to my friends and family with the areas for improvement described.

Penguin Basement is MUST use. I worked with JON and he is very helpful and knows his stuff. Very responsive and helped me out so much when I was in bind with the City for permits

I will use them for my and hopefully your next project

UPDATE: NOVEMBER 6

Since my original review, I have had two issues come up.

The first was an electrical issue. I plugged my cable box into one of my outlets for the first time and within minutes began to smell burning plastic. I unplugged the box and shut the power off. After pulling the outlet our of the wall, I noticed one of the black wires had arced and started to burn, leaving the copper wire exposed. I reported this issue on Monday October 30th and am still waited for it to be resolved. Their in house electrician was supposed tot come last Friday, but he called and asked to switch it to today (Monday November 6) as he would be free most of the day and could spend more time. As of 1pm he still hadn't shown up because he was at another job site and he wouldn't be able to have someone else come for another hour and a half to two hours. I had already take some time off work to be at home and couldn't take the rest of the afternoon, so we rescheduled for Wednesday November 8th.

The second issue has to do with my shut off valve for my outside water supply. A few days ago I went to shut the valve off for the winter and realized their HVAC contractor ran a duct line right beside my valve and as a result I cannot fully shut the water off. As of now, I am waiting on a response from Penguin.

I shouldn't be surprised given how poorly the execution of the original build went. I will provide another update when these issues are resolved.

ORIGINAL POST

I have given a lot of thought with this review. While we are generally happy with the result, we were not at all happy with the process. Dealing with this company was an incredibly painful experience. Their attention to detail on our basement reno was very poor. For the amount of money I spent, I expected so much more. It's really disappointing when I read so many great reviews before deciding to sign the contract. I truly thought we were going to be in good hands.

While this is just my experience, I simply cannot recommend this company. From the poor customer service, the lack of attention and communication from my site manager to the poor attention to detail, this company completely dropped the ball on my project. I have wasted far too much time getting them to correct their mistakes and listening to excuses and explanations as to why certain things happened. I have been offered apologies from several people, but not once have they admitted any responsibility for the length of time this simple project has taken.

This is by no means an exhaustive synopsis of what happened. You get to a certain level of frustration and begin to scrutinize everything, and that has happened with me. I am kind of at a loss for words to convey my disappointment with this company.

Here is our experience:

TIMELINE
We were told by Bruce who came in to do the sales pitch, that our project would take 3-4 weeks. What he failed to mention was, that was the timeline to get to substantial completion – the point in the project where THEY deem the basement to be move in ready, minus any final repairs, paint touch ups etc. that need to be completed. Your site manager will do a “Substantial Completion” list of everything that is left to be done. This list could take several more weeks to complete – in our case it was three. So, when I mentioned that they took 8 weeks to complete my basement, they came back at me with, “we did what we said we would do and substantially completed your basement in 4 weeks.” Which in fact was 6 weeks.

I find this to be completely misleading. We were very upfront and clear that this project needed to be competed by the first week of September. Instead, it was completed at the end of the first week of October.

So be warned. Manage your own expectations and double whatever timeline they give you.

INITIAL IN-HOUSE CONSULTATION
First, they will tell you that both people need to be present during this meeting (assuming a husband and wife). Bruce was very adamant and somewhat rude about this. He was very demanding and pushy throughout this THREE hour meeting. In the end, he wouldn’t leave us with a written quote. We were allowed to view it on his laptop, but he would not leave a copy.

During this meeting, Bruce told us why they were great and why their materials were great. He even told us at one point that they do things a certain way and if you don’t like it, then find someone else! To be honest, I should have told him to leave at that point. His sales tactics are aggressive and pushy. The struggle I had was that I read so many great reviews and was impressed with the gallery of jobs on their website. But I should have used better judgement and gone with my gut.

Bruce went on a diatribe about mold and how they us magnesium board instead of drywall. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want mold in my basement, but this was a hard sell. He made my wife and I feel like terrible people if we chose a contractor that used drywall. It was very condescending. Turns out, they still use drywall on the inner walls and only use the magnesium board along the exterior walls.

Bruce completely over sold what they were going to do at the price we were quoted. For example, I asked if the stairs would match the floor colour. He said “absolutely.” He just neglected to tell us it would cost an extra $120 per stair to do so – we found this out after we signed the contract and went for our décor consultation. We opted to go for the standard stair wrap and it turned out okay.

DÉCOR CONSULTATION
This is much like buying a new house, except you are only picking out items for your basement – doors, door handles, paint colours, vanity and toilet, moulding, floors etc. We met with a girl named Gem who was very sweet but very new. To be honest, she wasn’t ready to be client facing when we met her in July. She admitted to us that we were one of her first clients. It was clear she hadn’t been trained well. I certainly don’t fault her, but there were just too many questions to which she didn’t have the answer. This process also took much longer than what it needed to. Plan to spend 3-4 hours at their office, if not longer.

BUILDERTREND APP
Oh, the Buildertrend App. This is where you can track the progress of your project; complete with scheduling and photos as progress is made. First, a photo was never taken and uploaded (I didn’t really care as I saw the progress every day when I got home). Second, the app wasn’t updated until sometime in week 4. By that point, they were almost two weeks behind schedule so it didn’t really matter what the schedule said.

What the app IS useful for, is being able to send messages to just about anybody in the company, including the GM, and the ability to view your contract should you misplace it and sign off on change orders.

COMMUNICATION
Zero communication. This seems to be common when you read through a lot of the reviews - even the positive ones. Penguin’s response to that will be that they are growing and are trying to keep up with all of the work and that they are working on improving lines of communication. Growth is great, but it should NEVER come at the expense of customer service and communication.

Walter was our site manager. He is a terrific guy and I truly like him. However, he doesn’t communicate very well, sometimes not at all. At two different points during the build, I waited 4 days for a response to an email or text message. A lot of the time I only got partial answers and nothing was ever concrete. I repeatedly asked when my mirror and cabinets (more on this later) would be delivered without reply. Other reviews seem to give glowing remarks for their site manager. Unfortunately, I cannot in my case. In any event, stay on your site manager and be relentless in your pursuit for answers.

Here are two examples of the poor communication with Penguin Basements:

Site handoff meeting – this is where the project manager and site manager show up prior to the build and go through everything so the site manager is aware of what is being done. I was told over the phone, on the Buildertrend App and via email that this appointment was for 12:30. Both guys showed up at 1:00. Not a good start. Their excuse was that they were told 1:00 by whoever does the scheduling.

First Day of the Build – I called Penguin’s office on Tuesday the 15th and spoke with Maria. I asked her to tell me specifically what is being done that week. She told me the build was starting on Thursday the 17th. Which is what the Buildertrend App said. Great. So I take Thursday morning off work to meet the site manager and framers to sign off on where all of the walls and doors are going to be. Nobody showed up. I ended up being off work the entire day. No phone call. No text or email. So, the next day comes and Walter and the framers show up. I questioned him about where he was the previous day, he had no idea what I was talking about. HIS schedule had the build starting on the Friday. The explanation I eventually got was there was a mix-up on their Excel spreadsheet. It said Thursday August 18th. Maria assumed Thursday, and Walter assumed Friday the 18th. Unacceptable for a company that has completed hundreds of basement renos and a typo in Microsoft Excel tripped them up on the start date.

TRADES
This is by far the best part. Most trades that came through our house were great. Very polite and asked if it was okay if they stayed late or if they could come back on Saturday to finish.

However, on 3 separate occasions, my basement windows were left wide open and the screen taken off. Even after I brought this to the attention of my site manager each time it happened. They also treated our bathroom like it was a playground and left a mess each day.

ATTENTION TO DETAIL
- Near the end of the project, they have a cleaning crew come in. Three people spent a total of 45 minutes cleaning my basement which was a construction site. They didn’t vacuum. They didn’t’ clean my bathroom vanity or the toilet. They didn’t wipe the baseboards or the outlet covers where there was visible drywall dust. They didn’t clean the paint off my windows and there was still paint clearly visible on my floors. After I emailed to complain, they sent the crew back in. Unbelievably, they did just as poor a job the second time. The areas that I specifically called out – the bathroom, windows, floors and door handles, still weren’t done. There is still paint on my windows, floors and door handles. And my bathroom wasn’t even touched. There was dust on my counter top, toilet and ledge that runs along the bottom of the mirror. See pictures attached to this review. In the end, they did offer to reimburse the cost to have my own cleaning company come in and do a proper job, however I turned it down and cleaned it myself.

- During my substantial completion list walk through with Walter, I noted specifically that one of my doors didn’t catch properly when closed. I was home the day the handyman came back in to fix it and I made sure to show him which door he needed to fix. When he left, I went to check the door and it STILL wasn’t fixed. I ended up fixing it myself.

- Penguin Basements will only level your floors if you request and pay for it. Something else that wasn’t mentioned during the initial consultation. As a result, I have a few soft spots in my floor.

- Even after the painter came back in to do touch ups, there were several areas I had marked with tape that he missed. Not to mention more paint on the floor and ceiling.

- Make sure they use dust curtains to seal in as much dust as possible. They mention this on their website. But it was never done during our project. In fact, I came home one day to the plumber breaking up concrete to run the plumbing for my bathroom – and my basement door was in my garage. Leaving the doorway wide open for dust to migrate upstairs. When I brought this up with Walter, his response was, “oh, I forgot to put the door back on.”

CABINETS
On July 11th, we attended our décor consultation. During that meeting we selected floating cabinets that would be installed underneath the TV. There were a lot of materials and colours to choose from. We were told that we needed to decide what we wanted before we left because the cabinets sometimes take 8-10 weeks for delivery.

Around the middle of September, I began to ask about the cabinets and when they would be delivered. After several attempts to get an answer from Walter, I emailed Jon, my project manager. He eventually turned me on to Joe who looks after all cabinet orders. On September 22nd, Joe emailed me saying the high gloss finish we chose is on back order and delivery wouldn’t take place until October 6th. On October 3rd, I sent a follow up email to make sure we were still on track for the 6th. Joe called me on the 4th and informed me that the high gloss finish was no longer available as it had been discontinued by the manufacturer. Joe did offer me alternatives, but they weren’t to our liking. At the end of the day, it isn’t our fault or our problem that the high gloss was discontinued. Especially after we placed our order almost three months prior.

At the beginning, I was certain Penguin would be better than everyone else we had quote on our project. I will say that it is entirely possible that they do good work. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the best of them. I truly feel like we were squeezed into their schedule and our project was never a priority for them. I certainly feel like at a certain point throughout the project, Walter stopped coming around to check on things. Whether he didn't care or had too many other projects to manage, is irrelevant to me. The fact is, my wife and I felt like the forgotten client for the last half of the project.

This company will expect about 90% of the payment by the end of week 3 but will take far longer than 3 additional weeks to complete the job. Do not, under any circumstance adhere to their payment schedule. If they don’t deviate from their payment terms, find someone else.

I would like to call out Jon Reece, one of their Project Managers. He is the one person that I trusted and anytime I had issues with Walter, I went straight to Jon to get answers. He’s a professional and very personable. I want to thank Jon for all of his work.

Whoever monitors and responds to these reviews, please stop apologizing for the communication issues. Just fix them. At some point, you have to stop the excuses and just fix the issues.

We initially stumbled across Penguin basements through an open house that they were doing in our area. We went to see the work and the quality looked great.

The initial consultation was really long (3 hours). A lot of education on the right way to build basements and why Penguins materials are superior. I can totally see how it’s important for the company to highlight this but maybe it can be done in 20 minutes. It was meant to impress us but the consultation almost lost our business for Penguin. There is also an opportunity here to bring sample of materials such as baseboards to this meeting. Not having seen what a “standard selection” was prior to signing up….I was disappointed during the selection process at what the “standard” turned out to be. With 2+ hours of superior materials being thrown at me I assumed that it also applied to the finishings.

Amy in the design studio was great to work with. We aren’t the easiest customers (due to the standard selections) to work with but she was a trooper and put on a smile throughout some of our issues. Guy was also very accommodating here and we appreciated it.

The construction started very shortly after and the first step was floor and wall protection. I was impressed with the care they took and the materials used to protect my house. Well done here.

The phrase “too many cooks in the kitchen” is appropriate for the next couple of weeks. Robert the design guy, Eric the construction manager, Juliano the project manager, Seth the electrical guy and then Roberto the Finishing manager (Roberto is amazing and more on him later). I found it difficult to know who I should speak to when an issue came up. Communication between everyone was very poor. I often had to direct the “managers” to the buildertrend app to clarify what I paid for and was supposed to receive.

The buildertrend app is also either not being used properly by Penguin or not very useful overall. It was pitched during the initial consultation as a great way for me to communicate and know what is going on in my house at all times. A schedule was loaded when we started but is was static and never changed. Over half of the time the schedule was wrong and when there were days off scheduled trades still showed up to work. This proved to be a problem as I specifically asked to be notified of when the floor was going to be laid so I could ensure it was cleaned prior.

The trades treat your house like you would expect at a mass production home builder. Some showed your house respect and others not so much. Painters and framers were awesome. The drywallers and carpenters were not.

The construction process itself went fairly smooth.

However, there were many little things that happened during construction that in isolation aren’t big issues but combined they were significant. My internet was unplugged on two separate occasions, the furnace was turned off, the hot water tank unplugged, my central vacuum not installed correctly, heaters left on all night, disgusting food scraps left everywhere that I had to clean, cans of paint delivered and left on my driveway for 3 days until I decided to move them into the garage, wall stone not delivered.

It should be simple --- if you need to unplug something, plug it back in before you leave so I’m not calling Seth at 7:00 wondering why I have no hot water or my furnace isn’t working..…It became comical where every night I was wondering what I’d have to call Juliano or Seth about.

There were two larger issues that we encountered:
1. At least a dozen of my husband’s beer were drank from our fridge and the empties left for me. It didn’t bother us, it was hot and I’m glad they enjoyed them. Some people may have issues with someone going into your fridge and taking your beer without your consent.
2. I paid for upgraded tiles however the tiles used were the wrong ones and and they were also laid in the wrong pattern I selected.

The finishing manager Roberto was amazing. Penguin needs to clone him. He was always available for questions, took accountability for everything and in general just knew how to get stuff done. He wasn’t all talk. When I called him about the wrong tiles he even offered to come to our house at 9:00 in the evening to tear up the tiles before they set. We can’t thank him enough. Penguin is truly lucky they have someone like Roberto!

Overall, now that the basement is 99% completed we are very happy with the finished basement. Penguin has nailed the finished product. Throughout the process I was always confident that Penguin would resolve anything that went wrong.

Would I recommend Penguin basements? They are definitely more expensive than other contractors and aren’t afraid to tell you what makes them so good. Because of this, my expectations were high and until the finishing stage I would have said No, I wouldn’t recommend them. The value isn’t there. You can’t have so many mix-ups and at the same time charge a premium price. Roberto restored my faith and we’ve ended the project on a very positive note.