The Home Fixer

We hired Tim of TM Home Renovations to install porcelain tiles in our kitchen floor. Its a fairly small kitchen (approximately 200 sf) and we had purchased the tiles ourselves. When Tim came down to give us a quote, he told us that he would charge us $7/sf to install and approx. $3/sf in materials with a total cost of $2000. He also told us that we would need a new subfloor and that would cost another $1,500 to remove and replace. We told him we would need it done in a couple of weeks and he mentioned that wouldn't be an issue.

The night before he was supposed to come down, he called and told us he needed $1500- $1000 for the subfloor and $500 to start the installation. We promptly gave him a cheque and the subfloor was installed the next day. He sent his son Tyler to install the actual tiles. The issue was that he did not show up everyday or had a consistent time when he would show up during the week so we were left guessing on when he was actually going to come. A job that was supposed to take three days to complete, ended up taking a couple of weeks.

At the end of the job, Tim actually almost doubled the original oral agreement and told us he was going to charge us $10/sf to install and $5/sf in materials. He also told us that the $1500 cheque we had given him was just for the subfloor. He told us that since the floor took longer than expected, he needed to charge more to make any money. We fought him on this but he started getting really aggressive and threatened to put a lien on our house if we didn't give him what he was asking for. He bragged that a school he does work for just accepts whatever is on the invoice and pays it, and therefore should we. We wanted to end all ties with this very dishonest man and ended up giving him another $3000 for a total of $4500 ($3000 for installation and $1500 subfloor). This means we overpaid by $1500 for a job we were originally quoted only $3000 ($2000 for installation and $1000 subfloor). We thought it would make him happy since he ended up making an extra $1500 for nothing but instead we received a call from him the next day saying that he had just looked at his receipts again and we owed him even more money in materials and not the amount he told us just the night before. When asked to substantiate these costs, he got aggressive again and started swearing saying how we lived in Toronto and he had to put gas in his car to drive all the way from Whitby to Toronto. Needless to say, he had no receipts or anything else showing what he actually spent on materials and we did not pay anymore money.

Icing on the cake is that despite paying this ridiculous fee and the ordeal we went through with this dishonest man, the grout around the tiles is actually chipping after a couple of weeks! We had another company come in to have a look and they told us that some of the tiles are hollow underneath and moving, therefore the grout will always crack.

All in all, this has been the worst hiring decision we have ever made. I am surprised to see that no one else has had any other negative reviews on this man since his son told us that his dad "does this all the time" when referring to the fact that he increases the price at the end of the job instead of sticking to his original quote.

My advice to anyone considering hiring Tim (or TM Home Renovations) is to save your money and go with someone honest who will actually stick to his quote and do a proper and professional job.