Greg

I hired Mapleleaf to perform knob and tube removal and was very satisfied with the work and overall experience. Alex (the owner) conducts his business with integrity, and the Mapleleaf team (which varied from two to five people, depending on the task at hand) was hardworking, demonstrated good judgement, and was very respectful of my living space during the 5-day job. I was working long, erratic hours during the week of the job, and although there is probably a lot of potential for this kind of work to intrude on (much needed) down time for the person(s) living in the job site, I came home every day to find an extension cord powering up my internet (from another room where power was still operational). The little things matter... it was noticed. More broadly, the team swept their workspaces every day, taped down paper to protect pine flooring, moved (and/or put plastic sheets over) furniture as their work required, and kept their tools, ladders, and materials neatly arranged in a back room. Not only was the team tidy about their daily cleanup, they made relatively few, very neat holes in the walls and covered all holes with masking tape. My impression was that they do a lot of this type of work and kept damage to a minimum. While performing the work, the team ran into a lot of very shoddy work done by a previous contractor/owner who had spliced new wire to the knob and tube *outside of boxes* in the walls. Alex showed me pictures of a particularly egregious example feeding some pot lights in my kitchen. As much as this job was not cheap, I'm confident that my house is now equipped with safe, quality wiring. I got a few really shady quotes before I connected with Alex which, I have a suspicion, might have resulted in more of the same. At the beginning of the job, I told Alex I didn't have a problem with covering any "surprises" they might find once they got into the walls - when he originally stopped by to give the quote, I was in a hurry to get to work and I didn't want to penalize him later for accommodating my schedule. Although the team was happy to explain what they were seeing in the walls while I gulped back my morning coffee, I (happily) have no idea if any of the issues that they encountered along the way affected the scope of their work. Point being, it didn't matter (at least, from my perspective) because Alex stuck to the original quoted price without hesitation. I'd say that's a pretty good sign of integrity. Finally, the team attended to all of the details I had hoped they would. Early in the job, I left the team with instructions to use the most logical (rather than original) locations when pulling wire for switches, lights, etc. Some of the existing switches were in awkward places in my house, and Mapleleaf's judgement worked out well in all cases. Any situations where "logical" wasn't sufficient to make the call, I was usually consulted before I left for work. At one point they suggested that we skip pulling wire to one (unnecessary) plug and instead, install wiring for a ceiling light fixture in another room, a trade that I was happy to make. So... the bottom line is that Mapleleaf's team was honest and hardworking, exercised good judgement, made sure that I was happy/informed about decisions, and made my life as comfortable as possible while we were "sharing" the house for five days. Many thanks to Alex and everyone who spent time on this job!