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I hired The Sod Boys to remove and replace my front lawn, hoping that would eliminate sedge that had taken over most of the lawn. Their price was 10% lower than the next lowest bid. Various issues arose beyond their control, causing them to delay my job by a day, and perform the work over 2 days instead of 1. They worked 2pm until 8pm the first day (it was dark by 6:30), and 1pm until 10pm the second day, laying sod in the rain to complete everything. In the end, they did a very good job, and honoured the price quoted (I had anticipated paying extra due to issue #2 below). Issue 1: The Sod Boys had mechanical problems with their trailer. They rented another to carry out this job, but this disrupted their original schedule. Issue 2: The lawn was more sedge than grass, which created a thick layer of rhizomes under the grass roots. Sedge cannot be controlled with herbicide anything that kills sedge also kills grass. What they removed was twice as thick, twice as heavy, and twice as tough as a usual removal. Their bobcat and their sod cutter both had trouble ripping through. This likely increased the removal time by 50%, and I suspect required an extra trip to dump. Issue 3: On the second day, the Queensway was closed and traffic was snarled across the city. A trip to empty the trailer took at least triple the usual time. My only reservation with the job is that my goal was to eliminate the sedge, which has gradually been taking over my lawn for several years. To be fair, none of the companies I spoke with had any experience with a job like this, nor could I find useful information online. I wanted to assess with The Sod Boys after the removal had been completed, but before spreading new soil and laying sod, whether anything else should be done to reduce the likelihood or severity of reemergence of the sedge (e.g. remove more dirt or hand-rake the dirt to extract more rhizomes). Unfortunately, the afternoon of the second day was hectic, and I got caught in traffic delays on my own errands, so there was no opportunity for an assessment.

Westboro Flooring may usually be a good choice, but during my small project I suffered from a bad sales experience, excessive repair service intervals, and a lack of expertise with the product supplied and installed by them. BACKGROUND I initially purchased and self-installed 260 sqft of Beaulieu Fresque luxury vinyl tiles in a mud room, several stairs, a small landing, and my kitchen. The tiles are 1 x 2 and are designed to click together, somewhat equivalent to tongue-and-groove flooring. Except for the kitchen, I installed the tiles over flat, existing flooring, and had no issue. In the kitchen, I removed the existing flooring and the 3/8 plywood, screwed the subfloor to the joists with 300 wood screws, then added ½ plywood with 500 flooring nails, and then installed the tiles. Within a few days, two tiles separated beside the stove, I believe due to minor unevenness in some areas of the plywood. Five times I removed tiles, sanded down high spots and filled in low spots on the plywood, swapped out problem tiles, and reinstalled everything. Unfortunately, the tiles continued to separate in the same spot, and also in additional spots the reliability of the connection between tiles seemed to degrade with each attempt. BAD SALES EXPERIENCE I told sales rep Amanda that I would remove the tiles in the kitchen and wanted Westboro Flooring to provide and install new tiles of the same make and style. I made it abundantly clear that I thought the floor needed to be leveled before the tiles were installed. I reiterated the same concern to the foreman Bruno when he came to measure the floor, and I showed him at least 5 or 6 spots where the tiles had separated. The quote from Amanda was competitive on the product, plus an $800 minimum installation fee which included skim coat. At installation I was told floor levelling was not included in my contract, and would be $250 extra. I argued that the unlevel floor was not a surprise - I had been very clear with both Amanda and Bruno about the issue. To their credit, the company agreed to rescind the extra charge. The senior installer Giro spent about 90 minutes applying levelling compound on about 1/3 of the floor. The next day another installer spent about 2 hours installing the tiles (what Westboro Flooring had intended to perform for the $800 installation charge). During the installation two tiles separated beside the stove - the initial problem spot. The installer removed a few tiles, added some filler under the problem area, then reinstalled the tiles. By the next day the tiles beside the stove had separated again, and a couple days later two tiles near the sink had also separated. EXCESSIVE REPAIR SERVICE INTERVALS The first repair was two weeks after the repair request, and took 10 minutes. Giro used a rubber mallet to pound tiles together beside the stove and near the sink. Those repairs failed within a couple hours. The second repair was 11 days after the repair request, and was a 30-minute visit by Bruno and Giro. Giro replaced one tile in front of the sink, applied glue to both spots, and pounded the tiles together. We put 50 lbs of weight on the tiles beside the stove, and left the weight there overnight, hoping that the glue would seal the tiles permanently. The repair beside the stove failed by the time the weight was removed. The third repair was requested on September 4th, and 5 ½ weeks later, a visit date had yet to be offered. During that period, Bruno returned with the Beaulieu rep, who simply denied any fault with the tiles. A box of 10 new tiles was ordered to replace the problem tiles beside the stove, but there was still no recognition from Westboro Flooring that the problem may be due to unevenness under those tiles, and no commitment to investigate or remedy any unevenness. On October 12th, I advised that the continued delays and lack of prioritization was not acceptable. I picked up the box of tiles and will complete any further repairs on my own. LACK OF EXPERTISE Throughout the project, it was clear that Westboro Flooring had very little experience with this specific product. There was no awareness by the sales rep, the foreman, or the installers of the minimal tolerance to minor unevenness in the floor, and the installers had never experienced issues with tiles separating like they did on my floor multiple times and in multiple spots.