Laura in East York

We have a large tree in our backyard that is leaning quite a bit. In the past few months, we'd lost a lot of branches, and were concerned that it was unhealthy and/or dying. We contacted Jose on a recommendation from a neighbour, and within a short time he came to visit our house and inspect the tree. I was very impressed that he didn't just flat out agree with us and recommend an expensive tree removal. Instead he explained that the tree was healthy (although admittedly not very attractive) and that because the species, brittle branches were typical. He said he could write a report to apply for tree removal from the city, but did not think it was necessary. Due to this honesty and quick, professional service, I'd definitely call him again.

Doing a major renovation and hired sustainable.TO to do our architecture drawings. We expected more creative ideas from the architect but we haven't done this before so perhaps that was wishful thinking. Costs were generally in line with the estimate and competitors quotes, although we did have to keep an eye on the invoices to validate them. All in all the people assigned to our project were quite knowledgeable and very well versed with the current and proposed future bylaws. Generally quite satisfied with work, but would need more to rate them as 5 stars.

We engaged Marlin Mirror to manufacture and install a custom shower enclosure for our main bathroom. When the person came out to measure and provide a quote, we felt really optimistic that this guy knew what he was doing. The price was right so we selected this company. At the time of the quote, he told us it would be about 7-10 days before the product was ready for installation. After 2 1/2 weeks and hearing nothing, we called. They told us that the first piece of glass had broken, and they had to reorder supplies to make another. First of all, this wasn't specialty glass, just a specialty size, so that story didn't hold water. Second, other Home Stars reviews said they were also told there were delays for broken glass. If this company is breaking glass so often, they would have a hard time staying in business. It took almost six weeks before they finally came to install the product. The person answering the phone was not polite or apologetic - everyone else in the company seemed ok to deal with apart from the delays. If we had been told six weeks up front, this would not have been such a big deal. But overpromising and underdelivering, with rude people in the middle, that knocked this review down. All that said, the price was good and didn't change, and the end product looked great - our instincts about them knowing what they were doing was correct.