Case Design/Remodeling Halifax, NS

Entered into a fixed price agreement to replace a number of decks, siding, stone work and painting on a multi-residential building. The job went south right from the beginning, with multiple delays, poor workmanship and fraudulent sub-trades. Then, six weeks into the job, CASE representatives "discovered" rot on decking supports and demanded payment of extras. The decks were always visible to them and they had ample opportunity to "discover" and discuss the extras long before they did. CASE either missed the rot in the initial survey of the site, or they knew about it and waited for the opportunity to charge for the extra work and materials. DON'T DEAL WITH THIS COMPANY!!

We contracted Case Design for a kitchen and basement renovation. We wanted a company who could handle everything and deliver a quality product on schedule. We lived on site during the renovation as the bedrooms, bathrooms and living room were mostly unaffected by the work. It should be noted that we have communicated all items in this review to the owners a couple of months ago and have been told they are making steps to improve based on my feedback (We did notice an improvement in cleanliness during the final stages), which we appreciate, but we still feel like our experience should be brought to light. We are satisfied with the final product but the process and duration was awful. WHAT WE LIKED Provide good designs and renderings so you can visualize the space before work begins. We liked that there were multiple options to choose from. One stop shop for design, planning and construction. You will know the total cost of the job before work begins (besides any extras that come up during construction). Completed the job and fixed any damaged items we requested them to fix and did not charge us for every little thing. Finished product is close to renders and materials used are good quality. Work is backed by 2 year warranty. WHAT WE DIDN’T LIKE Sometimes lacked pride in workmanship and quality control. Several things had to be redone (mostly only at our request) because they were sloppy instead of being done properly the first time. Having to meet several times on site before project began so contractors could estimate, many times only one of the contractors would actually show up. Communication: We had three different project managers, it was a pain having to communicate the same things multiple times. Also communication was sparse on the construction side of things and didn’t really change no matter which project manager we had. Also they will not tell you any pricing and just give overall job cost. The change orders are often combined with other items to make it hard to tell if pricing is fair or what you are actually paying for. More transparency would be nice. Initial estimate at time of first consult was much lower than what the preliminary numbers came in at. By this time you have already paid them $1k-$2k for initial planning which makes it difficult to back out. Timeliness: Over promised and under delivered on almost all construction deadlines. Construction stage took nearly 30 weeks to complete (from beginning of demo to final payment), contract was 10-12 weeks. There were a few minor delays but nothing huge to cause such a delay. We were initially told work would be completed in the fall, then by Christmas and then by the end of March. Overall time from initial consult (July 2017) to completion (August 2018) was over a year. We went away for 2 weeks during the project and were guaranteed by the project managers that pretty much everything would be done except the custom cabinets. Three months later we still had no custom cabinets and there were still other items on the list. We asked for an estimated completion date basically since the start of the project and none was ever provided. Cleanliness: From the start we had asked that the work areas be kept reasonably clean as we have two small children and a dog. Most days there was always a mess to clean up, usually stuff that could have easily been swept/picked up. Our garage was taken over without asking and used it as a garbage dump and place to cut wood etc. This would have been fine, except they didn’t cover the items we were storing in there (this is where we placed furniture etc. while work was being done) and they didn’t clean up when they were done resulting in dust over everything and me having to spend several hours cleaning up. The only time it would get cleaned up is when I requested it to be. Did not cover appliances that were to be reused before starting demolition resulting in them becoming filthy with dust and dirt. They did end up protecting them but did not clean them off before wrapping them.

Awesome people, quality work.