Penguin Basements

Reading all of these positive reviews, I wish I would I could say that we had a positive experience with Penguin. Our project started on March 22, 2017, today is August 28, 2017.
What we were told would take 3-4 weeks, turned into 5 months and this consisted of workers not showing up when scheduled, no or not enough material, very poor communication and delivery from project management. We had to put more money in than what were quoted, we had to buy a new refrigerator because their electrician fried ours when installing new wires and not to mention the amount of stress that was put on our family during the first 2 months. We had all of our belongings that were in the basement, not to mention the new furniture we ordered sitting in our tiny living room. We were told not to bother getting a storage unit for a month seeing as it would be a quick job. This was not the case at all. Our house is very small, our basement is very small, but we needed that space so that our growing family would have somewhere to hang-out and play. Looking at the basement, you would think it looks nice, but when you walk on the floors, you can feel how uneven they are, and when you look at the paint up close, lines are not straight, and you can see where spots were missed. We had to complain several times to have a massive, noticeable bump that was left in the floor removed. When you would step around it, the floor would literally separate. How were my children supposed to play in that area? We were told by our site manager that ‘’these things happen in basements and there is nothing you can really do about it’’….. nope, sorry that is unacceptable, we were not paying $50K+ to have a bump in the floor that was not there before. It wasn’t until we had someone else from Penguin come in and look at it, in which we were then told it could be fixed. There were A LOT of hiccups along the way, and we get that “things happen” and that they have other jobs to do, but we just found a lot of it unjustifiable considering how basic the design was.
Fast forward to early June, we had a walk through with our project manager to go over what was remaining and how soon it could be done. The remaining items were minor and we were told it could all be done in a day or two. This consisted of installing a shower part that they forgot to put in, paint touch ups, installing a light and painting a block of wood that held up the hand rail at the top of the basement stairs. Eventually and with another hiccup, all was done except for the block of wood at the top of the stairs (it was missed). As annoying as this was, we had to put it all aside as we had major plans coming up and we had to put Penguin on hold (this is after nearly 5 months of dealing with them). Fast forward again a few weeks (this happened last week) I get a call from the construction manager wanting to come and finish up so we arranged for someone to come on the Tuesday. They did not show up. I held my breath thinking ‘’here we go again’’, but they ended up coming the next day. The only thing that needed to be done was to paint this silly little block of wood at the top of the stairs ( I am posting a picture of it below because I cannot believe how ridiculous this is and how one would think this is acceptable). I contacted penguin and they wanted to send someone right away to fix it, but we were done. I had to ask them not to come back. I told them not to bother, our frustration got the best of us and fixed it on our own. You may not think this is such a big deal, and that we should just have them finish since we are paying them, but if you had to deal with this for over 5 months, and go through what has majorly interrupted your personal lives, you would probably throw in the towel as well. We expressed our concern with several people at Penguin and nothing much has come of it. We understand they are growing as a company and are really busy, but at the end of the day, we are paying them a lot of money to do a good job. We can only be so accommodating. It’s really sad when we think about it. We were really looking forward to working with Penguin since things started off really well. Everyone we dealt with were nice and friendly, but sadly, we are very unhappy with how everything was executed and with the end results.

If you do choose penguin, I hope you have a much better experience than we did.

We are happy overall with the turnout of our basement, it looks amazing and is what we wanted. Juliano was the Project Manager we dealt with, he was pleasant and informative, he let us know who was doing what renovations and what day. The only issue we had was that the reno took a little longer than planned; and we have had our basement finished for over 2 months but still didn't have the showing of the basement.

Dec 29 2017 update:
The team wrapped up my project as described below and fixed all issues I managed to find to my satisfaction, after completion I had to call for two additional issues: 1) shower enclosure leaking water due to improper seal, 2) wrong handle design installed in bathroom door not matching rest of the basement.

HOWEVER, two days ago (Dec 27 2017), we arrived back home after a vacation and found that our basement's temperature has dropped to 10°C, the same temperature as our cold room, it turns out one of the main air vents isn't blowing any hot air at all, vent grid was open but seem to be an issue on how the HVAC was connected. I'm trying to contact the company for two days now and no luck as I need this fixed ASAP, irony is that my basement was better heated before they finished it as the builder had installed proper HVAC during construction...

I'm very disappointed with work that keeps turning up surprises of things done poorly (Whether it's a shower leaking, wrong handle, HVAC not properly connected, etc...), I thought that was the whole point of hiring Penguin in the first place!!!

Original review:
I have these guys finishing up my basement as we speak, we are now entering the 7th week of a project initially planned for 4-5 weeks, without any clear communication on delays or the reason behind pushing out dates...beyond my own frustrations with their lack of communication here are a few facts about some of the things I had to experience through my project (still unfinished):

-Signed my contract back in April 12 with a start date of early June, they called me mid-June to ask for a early July, I had to call the day before planned start to realize they had forgotten my start date and scrambled through making last minute shifts to start me on July 4th
-Material Delivery went well
-Framing went well (I thought), they were asking questions along the way which was good
-When the boarding started, the drywall guys couldn't install their boards as the framing was off and unfinished...work had to stop
-Electrician came for his part, did his job and followed my instructions for pot lights positioning, framing guys came back and misaligned everything (pot lights were 3-4 inches off and not forming one line)
- HVAC guy connected the return to the air supply, and still not fixed, funny thing is that HVAC guy is actually arguing someone changed his install
- I noticed trades were coming in and off without any quality control, I emailed them asking who does QC they replied stating that my site manager was on vacay...through the period though no one controlled boarding, mudding/taping, first paint or flooring, etc...
- There were also a number of imperfections, all called out during the substantial visit, I'm not mentioning any of them here as I consider all to be "normal" and they were good saying they'll be fixing all

We did the substantial visit on Aug 3rd, and I had left town for business for one week, came back on Aug 12 and found that no work was done for a whole week, no heads-up of delays or issues communicated to me...

I understand projects have challenges, but I need a better communication and transparency to the timelines along with a better follow up on the issues I keep calling out, I plan to post another review once the project is complete and will share how things ended up being closed.

September 7th update:

After posting this review, the Penguin team reached out another supervisor (Eric) followed up to review and fix all raised issues highlighted above and beyond. The team also started being more diligence on sharing ETA's and giving the heads-up should anything be delayed. It did take the team another 2 weeks to wrap everything up which took my total project time to two months but ultimately wrapped everything up to my full satisfaction.

Thanks

This company dedicated hours on the phone and hours on site to completely understand our wants and needs.
After all was assessed with great advice on materials and methods and permitting and timing...they actually suggested we not go ahead..passing up a 6 figure job because they knew we would not be happy by the end based on the challenges of our space and hvac layout walkout challenges etc.
The level of concern, knowledge and effort..and insights... before..and then the honesty and integrity shown after analyzing our situation makes us want to recommend them. VERY professional and caring. Thanks Refa, Dave and Dan.

Overall we are happy with the new basement space by Penguin. From design to build, the quality and speed of the work is top notch. We much prefer the specialized teams approach they offer, rather the jack of all trades other companies uses. Lastly, we are glad to have Juliano as our PM, he's always on top of each step of the build and follows up on all of our questions promptly.

Finally we decided to completely renew our basement and decided to hire Penguin Basements for it, today we are completely satisfied with our decision. Good work from the whole team. Our Project Manager Juliano was always aware of our comments and requirements.
I would definitely recommend this company

We chose Penguin Basement after seeing their work from a showcase near our home. We were impressed with the quality of work and material used to construct the basement. David the sales manager was pleasant to speak to and gave us many ideas how to utilize our space. We had an idea of how to design and decorate our basement, but Amy, the designer, brought it to life. We were most thankful for our project manager, Juliano. He always kept us up to date on the process of the construction and ensured all his crews show up on time and did the job well. Juliano even communicated with us through text messages while he was ill in the hospital! Now that's dedication! Although there were a few hiccups along the way, overall, we had a great experience with Penguin. Now we have a new usable space to entertain and for our girls to play.

Pros: Multiple tradesmen doing the job with specific expertise from electrical, plumbing, wall, floor & painting etc. So you are sure everything is within specification.
Cons: so far we are running more than a couple of weeks behind schedule which maybe out of their control (i.e. Workers' availability, permits etc.)

We were very impressed- from the sales pitch to the very end of the reno. David, the Sales Representative was direct, informative and knowledgeable re: products to be used. He was also great at providing creative ideas re: layout and gave us the answers we needed. Robert, the Project Manager was also very nice and accommodating, and responded to our questions and calls promptly. Amy-Interior Designer, was an absolute sweetheart! She was very easy to talk to and helped us through the process-from our selections of tile, paint colours to the microwave we would need for our wet bar. Juliano, our site foreman was by far exceptional. We felt secure and confident in the project as he was diligent in calling us weekly if not every other day to report on the progress, upcoming plans for installations and deliveries as well as ensuring that our input in the whole process was always taken into consideration. Juliano was very attentive in answering all our questions and if he didn't know the answer, he was very prompt at finding the answers we needed. The entire crew and tradesmen were for the most part respectful and worked promptly, yet with good results. The basement came out better than we had planned! We have already recommended Penguin to our colleagues and friends! Thank you Penguin for an amazing experience and for giving us an awesome living space that our family will be sure to enjoy for years to come!