The English Carpenter.Com

General Contractors
Toronto ON M5H 2N2
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98%(86 reviews)
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The English Carpenter.Com
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93%

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Reviews for The English Carpenter.Com

Average customer rating:
9.6 10 (34 reviews)

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Phil in Toronto
Phil in Toronto
2 reviews York, ON
10/10

Levelling Bedroom Floor

Paul and his team did an excellent job with the leveling of the floor of one of our bedrooms. His team completed the job on time and on budget. They were polite, diligent, and handled all challenges and our high expectations very effectively. Paul and his team successfully transformed the floor into a more usable space. We highly recommend their services.

Approximate cost of services:
$7,000.00
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Private User
Private User
Private User reviews Toronto, ON
10/10

Main Floor Renovation (Open Concept)

We have used the English Carpenter before and did not hesitate to contact Paul when deciding to renovate the main floor of our home. It was a complete gut of the main floor turning it into an open plan concept. He was transparent about his expenditures, came in on budget and also on time. His team were friendly and pleasant and they respected our home and belongings. We are very pleased with the finished product, Paul's finishing skills are impeccable. I highly recommend him, and have recommended him to family and friends.

Approximate cost of services:
$53,500.00
What could this company do to improve their services?
Any advice to offer fellow homeowners facing a similar project?
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Thomas in Toronto
Thomas in Toronto
2 reviews Toronto, ON
10/10

Basement steel beam installation

Paul and team replaced a concrete block wall and a wood beam, with two steel beams supported by steel posts, in our basement dig out/floor lowering project.

He was the only contractor that I talked to who could compare and contrast LVL and steel beams (I talked to some masonry companies who do steel, but not LVL). He provided reasonable estimates for several different scenarios, promptly.

Paul and his team are amazing structural carpenters. It was quite a complex job involving many other contractors, and a steel company, and Paul and team were excellent at co-ordinating with the others. They did lots of prep work (temporary walls), then the very precise and difficult beam installation (e.g., one was a 30 foot, 700 pound I-beam, with side-mounted floor joists), without incident.

After the main work was done, Paul and team came back and properly finalized things, e.g., carefully parging the exterior of the concrete pockets where the beam sits. I was impressed with these finishing touches.

Approximate cost of services:
$10,000.00
What could this company do to improve their services?
Any advice to offer fellow homeowners facing a similar project?
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Alissa from Toronto
Alissa from Toronto
1 review Toronto, ON
10/10

Front Porch & Stairs

We recently hired The English Carpenter to replace our front porch and stairs. We were extremely happy with the end result and found the work to be both professional and top notch. We would certainly recommend Paul and his team to anyone.

Approximate cost of services:
$8,500.00
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A Copeland from Toronto
A Copeland from Toronto
2 reviews Toronto, ON
10/10

Kitchen Condo Renovation

After interviewing and establishing quotes with a few companies, I met up with Paul of the English Carpenter. He was thorough in detail when providing the scope of work for my project, gave me a clear understanding of processes and what to expect. I was immediately comforted by his demeanor and professionalism and confident that the project would be completed to my expectations. It was an added bonus that he responded in a timely manner to my inquiry.

Pricing was competitive and fair. Paul provided me a breakdown of costs and allowances for each phase of the project so that there were no surprises. Being in a condo, renovations can be challenged by restricted delivery times, schematics, and coordination with property management. The quote that I received from Paul was based on time and materials applied to the project. Although I had initial concerns that the price of my project would increase as a result, Paul liaised in a professional manner with the management team and completed the project at a price still lower than others.

I am thrilled with the final product and have already recommended Paul and his team to friends going ahead with a ground floor renovation.

Approximate cost of services:
$15,000.00
What could this company do to improve their services?
Any advice to offer fellow homeowners facing a similar project?
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Jack R from Toronto
Jack R from Toronto
5 reviews Toronto, ON
10/10

deck- various

Paul and crew have been to my place a few times since 2012 and I am very glad to have found him. All of our friends compliment us on the work he has done. Once when he was too busy for a project he referred me to someone else that could come sooner and it worked out very well. Great guy-very reliable and great work done.

Approximate cost of services:
$3,500.00
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Adam
Adam
6 reviews Toronto, ON
10/10

main floor gut and refinish

Paul and his team did an excellent job of completely gutting and refinishing our main floor. They were easy to work with in adjusting to changes in the plan, offered constructive and practical suggestions in order to keep costs down, and were in general a delight to work with. Throughout our project Paul did an excellent job of maintaining his budget and keeping us updated on how the job was tracking against the plan - in the end we ended up being right on the money!
I would definitely recommend Paul and his team for any job - big or small - with full confidence that they will deliver a high quality job in a timely and efficient manner.

Approximate cost of services:
$95,000.00
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Sue from Etobicoke
Sue from Etobicoke
2 reviews Toronto, ON
10/10

Kitchen reno & finishing work

Paul was a real pleasure to work with. In my renovations, he installed a kitchen and did finishing work in another apartment. In both instances, the results were lovely.
Paul was always on time, communicated clearly on the plan, stuck to his reasonable budget, and even played the diplomat when we (the clients) disagreed among ourselves on how to proceed.
By far the best tradesman I worked with in both of my renovations. Strongly recommend.

Approximate cost of services:
$5,000.00
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Shortys Contracting
Shortys Contracting
1 review Toronto, ON
0/10

siding

Disappointing. Paul was very nice and had done work for me in the past. However, in the middle of this job he got a bigger job and told me he would not be completing my job. He insisted he be paid for the work he had done based on a per hour basis even though his quote was not based on this. Long story short it cost me hundreds more to get someone else to finish his job than what Paul quoted. I felt like a chump. His British accent gives you a false sense of politeness.

UPDATE: Paul has since responded to my review, sending me a long winded explanation, and then complained that my review dropped his rating. I STAND BY MY REVIEW EVEN MORE STRONGLY NOW. STAY AWAY.

Approximate cost of services:
$1,000.00
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.
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Company Response

Firstly, let me state that we have never worked for a company named Shorty’s Jackhammering, The English Carpenter works solely for home owners rather than businesses. By claiming that you are a business that I worked for you are clearly making a false statement from the start, so anything that follows should be taken with a pinch of salt as you have already tried to deceive future readers of this post – not the best start really is it?.

Secondly, I have only ever been in this situation once which makes it easy to figure out who is hiding behind a false alias.

Thirdly, you state that I did not complete your project as I had another larger project, contractors always have a few projects running at one time in order to stay busy.
The real reason as stated in previous emails (that I have kept) dating back to 2010 when the project was running that there were areas outside of my scope of work that needed to be dealt with before I could continue.

You did not resolve these.

Fourth, I had offered to complete the items without charge for additional work if you held up your end with the issues I raised in my third point – you never did and instead found someone else as you knew that you were clearly in the wrong.

Fifth, as with any contstruction job when you peel a layer back, sometimes underlying issues arise and need to be addressed. Your cough* “jackhammering” business would obviously make aware of this solid fact.

Sixth, you raised many red flags whilst I was trying to work for you:
• by not paying for the original items on time,
• by trying to find ways to reduce my bills by offering second hand materials such as rusty nails or old taping compound that you had found on other building sites,
• you also told me that you were trying to reduce the electricians bill to save money – despite the fact that you stated he was an old family friend – I hope that he reads this and can see what type of friend you are, my guess is he probably already knows this.

This list can continue with numbered points but instead I will go into some detail so that new customers can get a real idea of what you are talking about, and see why I made the decision that I did. No doubt most will see that it was a sensible decision.

We pride ourselves on our quality of work and compliance with the building code, but when a situation arises such as this where the customer is not willing to comply then we have no choice but to reassess the situation.

Back in the day I sought advice from other contractors (many of whom are on this site), the police & a lawyer in regard to this, all of whom agreed that the stance I took was the professional approach when dealing with the situation that you created.

The reason that I sought the advice of a lawyer and a police officer was down to your harassment after I had clearly stated my terms for finishing the work.
Both have been made aware of this recent situation and if you continue to pursue this petty item then I will get in contact with them once again.

Business is business but you crossed the line by stating in emails that you would be approaching personal members in my life as well as making a threatening scene at the home depot. Rather than keeping it as a business dispute you threatened to get in contact with friends of mine – hence why I sought legal advice.

Going from this most recent resurrection of your complaint and the creepy way that I have seen you riding around my job site, I am serious about moving forward and getting in contact with the police to gain a restraining order on you.

There are of course bad contractors out there – I do not consider myself as one of these based on the jobs that I do and the happy customers that we provide our services too, but as well as them there are bad clients which is the category that I would certainly place you in.

Every now and again a customer like you will emerge not only this industry but across the consumer world, then a business owner needs to make a decision on whether or not to continue with the business.

When you put a worker in a position where their source of income is jeopardised or ability to complete the job properly comes around, then decisions need to be taken in order to protect ones self.

I can confidently say that it was the correct decision to walk away from you and your project both in a professional and sensible situation as you posed nothing more than a risk which became evident quite early into small job that I did for yourself.

As a business owner I do keep records of these items and emails, therefore I and my lawyer have all of the previous correspondences logged.

It is sad that I am not able to warn others about your behaviour apart from this reply here.

Trying to cheap out and not doing things correctly is not the way that contractors are able to complete a project.

I will take what ever efforts I deem necessary to protect myself and my business if you continue your harassment campaign

Thankfully in all of my time working in Canada there has been very few customers which I have not seen eye to eye with, 9 out of 10 are a joy to work for and I would go back to work for them again and again.
Many of my customers have been repeat customers and also recommended us to their friends and family which I am thankful for and take it as a sign of confidence in my work.

To this day I am still satisfied with the decision that I made and would certainly have no choice but to take the same stance again if a similar position arose.

If this situation has taught me anything about business then it is to go with my initial gut reaction to how a customer acts: when a customer harasses me, doesn’t care about quality work and only cares about the bottom line ($), or when they is willing to go to the lengths that you went to try to defame my character and attack my professional integrity, it’s best to walk away.

You claim in your review that it cost you hundreds in order to complete the job – this is exactly what it would have cost you had I done it… further, it would have cost us both the headache that you imposed upon the two of us. In my email, I had offered to do it for free – you chose to go with another contractor… not sure how this becomes my problem.

You are the only one on this website to give me a 0/10 rating. As everyone can clearly see, my average rating at the time I am writing this, is 9.5/10. This was dropped from 9.8 because of your pettiness. The customers will see that I am worth every penny of high quality work. At the end of the day everyone needs to be properly compensated for the job that we do. Like my customers, I have bills to pay, I have a family to support and as a business owner, a boss, and a responsible citizen I have to make these difficult decisions. I stand by my word as I stand by my work.

Hannah Fisher from WALLENSTEIN
Hannah Fisher from WALLENSTEIN
1 review Toronto, ON
10/10

Renovation of basement due to flood damage

I was very pleased with the work that was done to my basement. Paul listened to my request and the trades were very good, on time and reliable.
I would most certainly use him again in the future.

Approximate cost of services:
$9,000.00
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The reviews on this page are the subjective opinion of the Author and not of HomeStars Inc.

More about The English Carpenter.Com

A licensed, qualified & insured Carpentry and Home Renovation company based in Toronto. CURRENTLY BOOKING WINTER & SPRING 2014 Summer time work includes construction of Additions, Decks and Porches. Fall, Winter & Spring projects such as Basement renovations, Structural adjustments, Remodelling of homes, Framing and Finish Carpentry.
Company profile information is not moderated by HomeStars. Ask the contractor to verify before hiring.
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