It was our understanding that we were hiring Manor to Project Manage our project and that the professional trades for whom we had received and approved quotations would carry out all the work. Unfortunately, the approach applied by Manor for most of the trades (paint, flooring, cabinets in particular) is to let the trade do the initial work but then have Manor employees or the PM himself (Mark) finish the work and/or deal with deficiencies/repairs/touch-ups. Unfortunately, this approach results in a really nice job that is subsequently touched up by guys that really don't understand the proper touch-up/repair/completion process. So in essence, you get very nice work that looks like it is a few years old with many questionable touch ups and repairs. If there was more attention paid by the Manor Project Manager to ensure that finished work is properly protected along the way then most of these touch-ups /repairs would not be required. However, the Manor approach seems to be that anything can be repaired but then the repairs are done very poorly. This is probably our biggest problem with Manor - it is very tough to watch your beautiful new floors, walls, spindles, railings subsequently get damaged by the Renovator themselves and then not allowing the original trades repair their work. Absolutely drives us up the wall! As our first renovation, we thought that we had done a good job of viewing Manor renovations and speaking to past customers. Looking back now, the past work that they showed us were generally not recent jobs. If you are considering Manor, I highly recommend that you ask to see their complete project listing for the last year and speak to these recent customers. The recent departure of many Manor staff also tells me that company health may not be high. We've also heard them talking about a 'new build' project that seems to be their primary focus recently, leaving our job to serve as filler work when they were not busy with the new build. I really wish that I could give Manor a positive review (and if Mark had actually listened to our concerns along the way I'm sure that I could) but unfortunately this has been a long 8 months for our family (estimated by manor to be a 4-5 month project) that has had some high points along the way but the last 3 months have been very frustrating and hard on our family.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $300,000.00
- Company Response
Thank you for your review Derrick. It has always been our approach to do quality control, deficiencies and touch ups "in house" as it is our name - Manor Renovations - that gets scrutinized, not each individual sub trade. We also hire, at our expense, an art restoration company to deal with any issues that were created from the renovation. As far as references for past work - we usually are showing completed jobs within the past 12 - 18 months. As a reminder - we even have shown your renovation to perspective clients - can't get any more recent that that :)...
As a benchmark for the finished product we adhere to the Alberta New Home Warranty specification documents http://www.anhwp.com/wmguide. We hear your frustration and will continue to work with you until your deficiency list is completed and signed off.