Greening Homes Ltd.

Greening Homes renovated our house this year. A full gut job that we started in January 2020, just before the pandemic.

We bought a small house in the Kingsway a few years back; a small 90 year old home with tons of potential. The home had lots of the original features mixed with some dated 80s design. Our goal was to have a home with an efficient, elegant modern design, a small environmental footprint, close to amenities and easy to keep clean and organized.

We met Chris and his team at the home show a year before we started our project and really connected with him and his team at the first instance. Chris is most passionate about building materials and your homes ultimate envelop. While his passion for environmental construction is technocratic he smartly surrounds himself with a great team of professional and amazing designers, project managers and trades to make your dreams come true. With Greening Homes you don’t sacrifice design with an over the top environmental project that will blow your budget. Chris helped us achieve all our goals helping us build our dream home and ensuring that we’ve improved our carbon foot print significantly.

Greening Homes truly took ownership of our project as if they were building their own dream house. Sure there were problems that came up from time-to-time but Greening Homes always took ownership of any issue or unexpected concern we had and worked with us to a resolution that was fair and reasonable. If you think you will hire any builder and there won’t be the occasional issue, you are dreaming. You need to work with a builder that will work with you to the end, admit mistakes and provide solutions. Greening Homes owned this project to the end as they said they would and built our dream home.

But what impressed us the most about Greening Homes is that they ran our project through the start of the pandemic. Their team kept it together when it felt like the world was falling apart. Our renovation happened during an unprecedented time and Chris and his team didn’t miss a beat. They altered the schedule and our plans when we had building material supply issues, and government guidelines that demanded reduced workers on site. They managed the project to the schedule with incredible project management skills and only handed us back our keys one month past the original schedule they gave us. Which is an incredible achievement in a Pandemic when the schedule was planned well before the health crisis started.

And what they gave us was the home of our dreams, for a fair price and a reduced carbon footprint. Our home is beautiful, elegant and everything has a purpose just as we ask. Through the design process they even met with our kids and asked them what they hope for in their future rooms and made sure to consider their hopes in the outcome. We have worked with many builders in the past and Greening Homes is the only one I would ever recommend.

As a side note - pre project - our homes energuide rating was 225 and post project it 105 - improving our carbon emissions from 10.2 tons per year to 4 tons. A huge improvement.

Hire Chris and his team. You will not be disappointed.

Greening Homes completed a renovation in our home late last year - a kitchen, two bathrooms, some structural floor work, and several other odds and ends. We were very pleased with the work, and wrote a review to this effect. And since the review, we continue to be really happy with our new kitchen and bathrooms.

Since the reno, a few minor items have come up, including some cracking paint at a wall seam, a subtle leak in the wax seal of one toilet, and 2 doors rubbing against the door frame. We reached out to Greening, who has fully remedied all of these issues at no charge. It's heartening to know that Greening stands behind the quality of their work.

We had underpinned and added a basement level and completely "re-did" our upstair which includes 3 bedrooms and a full bath room. The work was done well and to schedule and budget. The team was great to deal with and were able to accommodate some late changes. Our project manager Johanna was great and took care of everything while we were out of our home. I recommend them hightly.

I was delighted with the renovation of half my basement done by Greening Homes. Three small unfinished rooms were transformed into an open space with a kitchen against the back wall. The work was gorgeous and the workers - Johanna, Brennan and Tobias were responsible, courteous, had great ideas and incorporated our ideas as well.

We hired Greening Homes for a large project that included digging out our basement and renovating our main floor. We found the company's financial practises very transparent. It was easy to see exactly where our money was going. The staff in terms of project manager, site manager and the rest of the GH team that worked on my house were all above standard in terms of the quality of the work and how courteous they were. While our project did not progress quickly--it was done well. We couldn't be happier with the result. We hired GH based on a great recommendation from a previous client and we were not disappointed. The quality of the work was excellent.

We were looking for a complete ground floor renovation that included removing walls, all floors (hardwood and tile), complete kitchen gut, installing a gas fireplace and new ducting for a powerful range hood.

We had a narrow window before we left for a European Christmas vacation and Greening had a slot for that time. This was a tight time frame and required good project planning and communication for all the materials, appliances, cabinets and sub-trades - not to mention finalizing the plans and design.

The work site was kept clean with passive and active dust control, and we were kept informed on the progress and issues as they surfaced.

The project was completed in time - the appliances arrived only three days before our vacation - and the results were stunning.

The quality of work was excellent - from design to execution - and the people easy to deal with with.

We hired Greening Homes to renovate our kitchen and 2 bathrooms. We have an older home so it was important to us to hire a company who could deal with the problems that often arise when renovating an older home. After meeting with Chris and Bryan I felt comfortable that they were the right people for the job. They were sincere and knowledgeable and listened carefully to our concerns and ideas.

The project was meticulously planned and managed, affording us cost certainty. Our project came in on time and on budget. Sean, our project manager was responsive to our requests and considerate of our budget. Greening was very careful to protect our home, controlling the spread of dust, and covering all floors, hallways and stairways, etc. The products and supplies are high quality and environmentally friendly. The workmanship was excellent. This company really does stand behind their work. Their motto is accurate..."renovations done responsibly". And I might also add "with integrity". Two rare commodities! I wouldn't hesitate to hire this company again or to recommend them to a friend.

Hired this company for renovation. After many problems with project manager and sub-trades, did more research. The company misrepresented the trades they used (called an interior designer an architect and charged for architectural services). HVAC design was outright wrong resulting in a design that was 4 x what we needed. Charged hourly for issues that were clearly under warranty (charging to correct HVAC design, charging twice for architect tasks). Project missed deadline after deadline due to these issues. No commitment to new deadlines ever communicated. Eventually cancelled contract.

When discussed with owners, company took an aggressive stance stating they where experienced in court and would sue. I have no doubt they are experienced in court. It shows.

I engaged Greening based on the quality work they performed for my neighbour. She was very happy with the results and also - maybe more importantly - with the high level of transparency and communication throughout her project.
My own experience supports this view. We traveled extensively during the renovation and were always able to work with Greening on rolling decisions. Upon our return I spent more time on site and had absolutely no concerns with any members of the Greening team. Like all projects, issues arose with sub contractors that caused dissatisfaction, but they were swiftly and effectively managed by the Greening team members.

A colleague with backgrounds in Architecture and Civil Engineering recommended Greening Homes to us, and with that endorsement we decided to explore the company to help us with underpinning and finishing our basement. We decided to go with GH for 2 reasons. First, Connor Malloy was so incredibly kind and patient with us in explaining how working with GH would unfold. I have overseen/paid for several large renovations in the past few years, and as a female, I have dealt with an unfortunate amount of patronization and sexism. This wasn’t the case with Connor at all. He was so respectful and friendly. When he saw that the price tag of the renovation was beyond what we had first expected, he did not pressure us to proceed and even encouraged us to consider the benefits of waiting to do the renovation. This really impressed me. The 2nd reason we decided to proceed with GH was their billing process. They invoice weekly based on the work that was done the week prior. We are both engineers (and therefore very detail oriented people), and we definitely appreciated (and were wowed) that they would demonstrate this level of detail with such transparency. The project management behind their process really impressed us. The GH process revolves around an environmental approach, and since my husband and I are both environmentalists that definitely struck a chord with us too.

Regarding the actual work: GH was on site every business day to work from 8-5. There may have been a handful of days that someone was not working, but this was rare. Let me be clear – this is totally unusual in my past experience! Rogelio was our site supervisor and lead carpenter, and Peter was also a carpenter for our project, and they were on site throughout the project. They were always so considerate of our family living through the construction, especially the little kids. They did beautiful work with such care and professionalism. I always got the impression that they weren’t here just to clock in their hours or get their work over with, but rather they were here to create something beautiful and of the highest quality. And, they really did do just that. Our finished basement is beautiful and we look at it and feel so good about the quality.

The other amazing thing about our experience was working with Johanna Grönberg, who was our project manager. She met with us every week, often accompanied by Mike Franciosa (Operations Manager) to discuss the decisions that had to be made every step of the way. Both Johanna and Mike were fantastic! Mike always offered sincere and practical advice throughout. Johanna was incredibly patient with us every step of the way, from discussing where the sump pump should go to which door knob to install. She even took us shopping to help us select our tiles, sink, fixtures etc. On top of that, she would randomly bring us pastries and pizza. Looking back, I think the most valuable thing Johanna did for me was to advocate for me. She always made sure I had a voice and pushed to make sure the renovation details were what we wanted. Simply put, Johanna is gold. She is highly knowledgeable, creative, friendly, and patient. We will always be thankful for her outstanding work.

The total cost of our renovation was significantly more than we had initially hoped. However, Johanna was always keeping us informed of the costs involved and any changes along the way. We saw the value in the renovation and the level of project management that came along with it – which ultimately ensured that we had a highly professional team doing high quality work with high quality materials. In the past and in projects in our neighbourhood, we have seen people cut corners and work unsafely. This was never the case with GH. Our renovation was worth every penny, and we are delighted with our new basement.