Complaint Review: KBR Kitchen and Bath Remodeling

COMMENTARY 

We had a full kitchen remodel (cabinets, flooring, plumbing, ceiling lighting, under-cabinet lighting, etc.) by KBR Kitchen & Bath (www.kbrva.com) in the Fall of 2012.  On the bright side, the electrician did perform good work installing the new kitchen lighting.  Our ceiling lighting and under-cabinet lighting is beautifully installed.  However, we cannot recommend this company for many of the following reasons:

General Issues:

• - Since one of us is home 24/7, we made it clear that the workers would be supervised and that we did not desire to have a lockbox on the front of our home at any time. We were repeatedly approached by the project manager to have a lock-box placed on the front of our home.  Our refusal to grant them “free run of our house” resulted in them becoming very surly and disagreeable from day one. We were approached three times to have a lockbox installed on our front door, and we declined three times.

• - The workers were contracted to start as early as 7:00 a.m. and finish by 4:00 p.m. and not to ever work on weekends. The workers, if they did come at all, arrived late in the morning, afternoon, or whenever they felt like showing up. One night, the workers arrived late in the afternoon and stayed until nearly 9:00 p.m. that night.  The 2 week scheduled contract remodel turned into 4 long weeks.

• - One week, no workers came on Wednesday through Friday and then showed up on Saturday morning to briefly work for about an hour.

• - Another time the workers showed up on a Saturday around 5:30 p.m. and assumed they could work until late into that evening. We re-directed the workers to their contractor Forman to return Monday morning and begin at the contracted time of 7:00 a.m. The workers did not show up until the middle of the following week.

• - Knowing one of us is home 24/7, they were scheduled to work between 7:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. They knew one of us was waiting for the workers to start, but deliberately did not show up to work and made us wait for days at a time; and, did not bother to show up to work for nine days straight.

• - The workers left our house dirty, stole soft drinks, and without asking, used our electricity to run a microwave on our house power for their elaborate and lengthy meals throughout the day.  The workers left lunch trash and wrappers from Boston Market and Starbucks in our house and garage areas that we had to clean up.

• Most of the workers were unhygienic; and, they left urine on the floors and walls of our powder room.

  Building Issues:

• - The flooring tile was, at first, laid incorrectly. The door way threshold tiling was laid off of the center-line to the thresholds of both doors into the kitchen.  The contractors did not realize this until we told them the tiles were being laid off center from the doorway thresholds.  After some arguing, however, the workers reluctantly agreed to pull the laid tiling up to be installed correctly.

• - The screws they used to attach the cabinet doors were not long enough to ensure the doors would remain properly attached.  Needless to say, soon after the remodel, the doors began coming off.  We had to reinstall the cabinet doors ourselves at our own expense and time with the correct hardware.

•  -The workers were caught trying to sneak reinstalling the electric duplex receptacles with sheetrock screws and not use the 6x32x1” sheet metal screws that were originally installed before the kitchen remodel. The workers were advised the sheetrock screws violate the U. S. National Electric Codes (N.E.C.).  The workers reluctantly replaced the sheetrock screws with newly purchased 6x32x1” sheet metal screws; and made it clear they were not happy about having to install the electric duplex receptacles properly in accordance with the U. S. National Electric Codes.

• - The cabinets came with colored pens for touch-up and for covering any current or future scratches.  One worker fought with us, saying the touch-up pens were his property and had already removed the touchup kit from our kitchen.  We finally obtained the cabinet touch-up pens, but only after that worker was directed by another worker to retrieve the touch-up pen set from KBR’s company truck.

• - The garbage disposal was installed incorrectly, leaked, and rotated clockwise and counter clockwise every time the garbage unit was power on for use.  We had to remove it at our own expense, seal the leaking water, and re-install the entire unit to completely eliminate the unit from rotating clockwise and counter clockwise during operation. The garbage unit is now powered on for use without any rotations.

• - The under the counter sink is incorrectly installed.  The under-counter stainless steel sink is only attached on 3 of the 4 corners. We will have to have the installation corrected at our own expense.

  Payment Issues:

•  -We signed what we were told was a fixed price contact.  Before the Project Manager would leave our house on the final day, he insisted we pay an additional $670.00 that he claimed were for “Virginia State taxes.”  The Project Manager had no supporting documentation for this additional charge.  So bogus!

  DrPMSalisbury