Complaint Review: The Grout Medic of Central NJ - Keyport nj

Some of the grout on our shower floor was deteriorating and needed repair, so I called Grout Medic, Frank Capaci, franchise owner. Frank seemed great--38 years in the business, family business, etc. I liked him, I trusted him and, when things went south, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I was wrong on all counts. Frank said re-grouting would not solve the problem; instead, he said I needed a new shower floor. He scheduled the work for three days the following week. The tiler, Santiago, removed the old tile and mud on the 1st day; on the 2nd, he created a new mud floor & laid the tile. Imagine my surprise when the new tile floor had peaks and valleys across the surface when it should have been flat and sloped slightly toward the drain. On the 3rd day, Frank showed up with Manny, the grouter. When I pointed out the uneven tile floor, Frank said he'd seen it and had called Santiago, who said he'd laid a level on the floor and that water should all flow into the drain. I said I had a level, and we could put it on the floor right then. "No! Let's grout the floor and then see if there are any problems," said Frank. Big mistake. Manny's grouting job was as bad as Santiago's tiling. Grout is completely missing between most of the tiles. When I asked Manny why he left such a big, fat line of caulk around the shower floor, he said Santigo had left too big a gap between the new floor and the new wall tiles, and he, Manny, had to fill in the gap with caulk. To his credit, Frank told me he'd take care of the problems and had the office set up a date 3 weeks later for a "warranty" call. But it was when I asked Frank to come out to look at the work that the trouble began. He refused, saying he knew what to do. I lost sleep, and a few days later wrote a very respectful text explaining that it wasn't possible to know what the solution should be unless we both agreed on the problems. He roared back in a very aggressive text, refused to look at the work, and said he'd be at my home on May 21 as we agreed and no sooner. So I wrote a memo detailing the four significant problems with the floor--pooling water, gaping wall tiles, missing grout, and extra fat caulk lines. I had to pursue them for four more days before they even read the memo. Finally, they agreed the situation was more complex than they had anticipated and sent an experienced tech to my house the next day, May 21. Chris, the tech, was professional and thorough. He saw the floor & said it was terrible. His inspection showed pooling water. Chris said I was right to be unhappy with the work and needed a new floor. Progress, right? The office called and scheduled the floor replacement work for June 4/5, two weeks later. I thanked the office manager and said I had three requests I'd like to resolve before they sent the repair tech out: 1) let me know who would be doing the work, 2) provide me with a detailed written description of the work to be done, and 3) help me understand how they could replace the floor in only 2 days when the original work took three days? Crickets. Less than 24 hours before the scheduled floor replacement, the office manager called and revealed Frank was sending Santiago to do the floor replacement. What? Is the guy who doesn't know how to lay a tile floor now supposed to be the one to replace it? To this day, I still have no explanation of how they could do the work in only two days, and they have never sent me a written explanation of the work that was to be done. After five weeks of frustration—and sending Santigo was a no-go, and they knew it—I told Frank we needed a negotiated solution. I asked for my money back so I could hire a skilled tiler to replace the floor. Frank refused. Frank charged me $3749 for the work on this shower. (I kept $500 as a placeholder until the floor was installed properly.) PHOTOS: 1.Caulking. 2.Wavy tile. 3.Low or no grout between tiles.