Tony William Roofing & Exteriors

We hired Tony William to do a complete exterior renovation on our house in 2013 costing just shy of $40,000 and they wrecked our house, resulting in a 6-year legal case, dragged on and on by Tony William. Even after our court case wrapped up and we were awarded a judgement, they continued to play games, trying to pay us $1000 a month for several years, and then forcing my husband to sign a gag order not to publish any reviews about them before they would finally pay us the full amount - 10 months after the judgement. They had no legal right to force my husband to sign a gag order, but if my husband didn’t, we would have exerted more legal fees just chasing them, as Tony William was not complying with the court order. In fact, it even cost us several thousands in legal fees, filing a writ against them and all, after the judgement. They just wouldn’t comply to the court order.

During the owner’s court testimony, he did not tell the truth [the word I would use here is banned on this website for leaving reviews] under oath about what they did and how they did things on our house. Perjury is a 14-year prison sentence and he should be in jail for his crime. Just one of many untruths is the owner telling the judge that he never took the casings off our original windows to take measurement of the window sizes to order the new windows, which is the explanation of why our new windows are too small and had to be built up using a 2x4s and plywood added to the sides to build the rough opening smaller. The first time my husband met the owner was when he came to our house to take measurements of the original windows, and he removed all the casings. We even have an e-mail from the sales manager telling my husband “When you sign contract we come in and take casing of and get exact measurements.” And we had no casings on our windows for 2 months because that was the length of time between signing the contract and the time the renovation started. In any case, ordering the correct window size was their responsibility.

Something that came out of the owner’s testimony was that no one in their company is a trade professional/journeyman carpenter or have had any training in carpentry/renovation, including the owner himself. They have been doing things wrong and only learning from their mistakes, such as the hard lessons all of us learned during our renovation. They had no idea drip edge flashing was required by Alberta Building Code. My husband had to tell them that it was required, then they fabricated to my husband 2 times during the renovation, first telling my husband it just wasn’t required and then tried to mislead my husband by telling him that building code doesn’t apply because the siding was above a certain height to try and get off on having to install it. It wasn’t until we told them we were withholding the final payment that Tony William installed the flashing, retrofitted after the siding was complete, by bending the flashing and making holes in the EnerFoil rigid foam insulation they installed on our house in order to fasten the flashing to the house. Most of the flashing doesn’t even fasten into anything solid, and they never flashed the corners correctly. And, what was the owner’s answer to this during his testimony? He makes the decision on behalf of all their customers, because he knows customers do not like the “aesthetics” of the flashing. Looks is more important that complying with building codes. Well, that was not the answer he gave my husband the 3 times my husband and the owner had a back and forth, for us asking to have the flashing installed. If they knew it was required by Alberta Building Code, and we, the home owner requested that drip edge flashing be installed, they should have installed it when we asked them the first time.

Here are just some of the other examples of other shady & sloppy work and building code violations:
- They didn’t install building paper the whole height of the siding. They stopped 3 ft short of the soffit and then started installing the EnerFoil insulation overtop of the building paper. There would have been no way for them to have gone back and slipped building paper in under the EnerFoil. This is a code violation. As that building paper is supposed to be installed to weep water that gets behind the siding away from the building envelope, and the top layer is the most important layer, as it should lap over the layer below it. Without the top layer starting at the top of the soffit, any water that gets behind the siding now runs down against the sheathing of my house.
- They did not install the EnerFoil insulation & siding starting at the same level that the original siding was installed at. From the bottom, they started 1 inch above where the original siding was and at the top, they stopped 4 inches shy of the top of the soffits. As a result, I can see the wood frame of my exterior walls from the outside. This allows for cold and drafts to get into my house. This defeats the whole purpose of installing EnerFoil insulation to increase the thermal insulation. It’s like wearing a wool tank top as a sweater. Also, now that the wood frame of our house is exposed to the elements and not even protected by building paper, it’s just going to degrade, and soon we will have to repair/rebuild the exterior walls. Also, insects now are infesting our house because they now have an easy entrance. In the wintertime, condensation builds at the top of the siding and when there’s a chinook, the condensation melts and runs down the face of the siding, and no doubt behind the siding as well.
- Not even a year after the renovation completed, water leaked through the windows. Tony William denied it was a result of their installation and Ply Gen, the window brand, which Tony William recommended to us, denied it was a product defect. I am worst off with these brand new high efficiency windows than my original windows.
- In addition to the other catastrophes with the window, being supplied too small, water leaking, removed/re-installed 3 times because they kept installing them wrong, they didn’t bother to clean the original caulking, and just put a larger bead of caulk on, so the caulking looks like one giant glob of goop. Any caulking manufacturer would require old caulking to be scrapped and cleaned up before applying new caulking, but Tony William didn’t bother.
- When the original siding was removed from our house, their crews made huge punctures and cracks all over the original sheathing. We thought that they had compromised the structure of our house and just continued on with the renovation, installing the building paper and EnerFoil. When my husband brought this to the sales manager’s attention, they took the opportunity to force us to sign a change order to “re-sheath” our entire house, which is what we discussed and is the word used in the change order – remove the original sheathing and install new sheathing. What they ended up doing was just installing new sheathing on top of the original sheathing. The re-sheathing took 6 hours, whereas the change order was 40 hours, and then they refunded us only 4 hours. The shady part of this change order wasn’t that they were supposed to refund us more as we agreed to, but that later we discovered after speaking a City of Calgary’s building inspector that rigid foam insulation is allowed to be used in lieu for plywood sheathing by the Alberta Building Code, which was also reiterated by their expert that they hired for the litigation, so this change order was never necessary. Either Tony William was aware of this, and took advantage of us in a vulnerable position, as the renovation occurred in the middle of the winter, and a blizzard was blowing in the same evening and the state of our house at the time was punctures and cracks all over our original sheathing, or they just didn’t know because they are not trade professionals.
- Also during the quotation process, they originally included the battens/smart board trims around all the windows as part of the window cost, then somewhere along revising the quote a few times, that item was dropped and they added a new line and tacked an extra $175 for it. Then they told me that it was only meant for the public facing side of my house, and if I wanted battens on the back and sides of the house, that was what the cost was for, or else the sidings would butt right up against the window. Very shady as I’ve never seen a house without any battens before.
- When they installed the EnerFoil rigid foam insulation, they didn’t use the correct nail or washers and they overdrove every single nail, breaking the foil face of the insulation that is meant to protect the foam insulation.
- The specifications and requirements by James Hardie for the fibre cement siding that we choose to install on our house wasn’t followed. James Hardie’s documentations requires strapping to have been installed and fastened to the studs of the house and then the siding fastened to the strapping, but Tony William didn’t do that. And James Hardie specifically do not allow their fibre cement siding to be installed over 2 inches of EnerFoil without strapping. Also, Tony William overdrove the nails when fastening the siding, so when we look down the side of the house, the siding has a wavy form.
- The gutters do not grade at all towards the downspout. Part of the front side of our house steps out, right at the front door, so there’s 2 corners at the front door, similar to a Z Tetris piece. Precipitation just pools and overflows right at the front door, rather than running off towards the downspouts at the corners of the house.
- They also violated electrical and plumbing codes. The outdoor electrical receptacle does not sit in an electrical box, which is a safety hazard and could have burned our house down. And the terminations of the air intake vent hood doesn’t even attach to the duct that takes brings fresh air into our house.
- There trades workers are not all inhouse employees as they advertise and had marketed to me when they did their sales presentation. The documents they disclosed during the litigation showed the roof & eavestroughs were subcontracted out.

I can go on and on, but just take my advice and do not hire Tony William. If Tony William had any of the qualities they advertised, we wouldn’t have been put through 6 years of court litigation, stress and heartaches and forced to live in a incomplete renovated house this whole time. They should have owned up right from the start when things went South on our renovation.

The photos below show the following:
- Building paper wasn't installed to the soffit, then they started installing the EnerFoil rigid foam insulation and the EnerFoil wasn't even installed to the top of the soffit. Condensation builds here in the winter time.
- No drip edge flashing was installed and they started installing the siding 1 inch above where the old stucco was. Also, the the wood framing of my wall is now exposed.
- 2x4 added to build the window rough opening in because they ordered the windows too small. The Blue Skin flashing doesn't even wrap the whole rough opening as its supposed to.
- Gutters do not slop towards the downspout and water sits in the gutters above the front door. Also, a shingle wasn't attached properly and blew out of place.
- The final state of the window when they finished with my house. There is 3/8" of an inch gap at the top and the bottom is flush against the wall.
- No butt joint flashing installed behind the siding. This is a James Hardie requirement that they didn't do.
- Nails were overdriven and there are tears in the foil when they installed the EnerFoil insulation. Also, EnerFoil insulation doesn't go to top of the the soffit.