Ashwood Homes Ltd.

I wish I could give a glowing review like the others here, but I can't.

What was supposed to be a 6-week project took over 11 weeks. Overall communications was poor, and most often had to be initiated by us. We never knew from one day to the next who, if anyone, was going to show up or what work was going to be done. And when work was done, there was usually a problem with it.

In fact, about half of everything had to be done more than once. The plumbers (Black's) left a mess every time they came. They drilled through studs and joists to run lines and just left the shavings, pipe cuttings and debris wherever it fell. Water lines that were moved in the basement ended up leaking and flooded an area of our storage room. Then there was the toilet in the main bath that wasn't bolted down properly until we noticed brown water seeping out from under it a few weeks later. Despite all kinds of assurances, Black's and Robinson Lighting and Bath screwed up the plumbing fixture order and failed to have taps and sinks onsite when the granite installers arrived.

Like the plumbers, the electrician never cleaned up after himself, either. Bits of wire, wood shavings and drywall bits were left everywhere he went. And it took three tries to get the floor heat controller in the right place in the master bath - despite going over this with Rod and marking the walls.

The tile (Contempa Flooring) was a nightmare. After three attempts, the tiles are still not level and there is significant "lipping" of tiles. We decided to just put up with it because we wanted these yahoos out of our house. The installers would show up before 7 am - sometimes on a Saturday - despite being told not to arrive until after 8. And, after hammering out poorly installed tiles into the tub and standing on them, our acrylic soaker tub is deeply pitted and scratched. The acrylic shower base in the master bath is also scratched.

Contempa's handiwork didn't end there. The engineered hardwood installed in our fitness room has dried glue patches in several places. And, even though it was on the work order, they failed to use the proper transition piece where the hardwood meets carpet in the adjoining room. When the carpet installers came (we went with another supplier thank goodness), Contempa had to come back to fix the transition piece before our carpet company could finish the installation.

Attention to detail and quality of finishing was hit-and-miss. Drywall work is not stellar. Finishing carpenters would fail to sink nails and fill holes, then painters would come in and paint over - even if the nails were sticking out a quarter of an inch! It was like no one had any pride in anything they did.

It became a comedy of errors, really (like the dumpster truck driver who dropped a dumpster onto the back of our car parked out front, causing over $3000 damage).

Rod seems like a very nice guy and I feel confident things are done to code, but by now you've likely gathered...we won't have them back.