I hired Yancey in March, 2016 to do a remodel of my guest and master bathrooms. It was done in August. I wanted to update both bathrooms. Yancey sent a designer to my home to do a design and a bid. Yancey's website touted 77 years of experience. I wanted a "one-stop shopping" contractor, one who had licenses for all of the trades instead of subbing them out. I thought having 1 contractor would streamline things and offer more accountability and a better warranty. When I got the bid, I found it high. I did some research on my own regarding frameless shower doors because these were not included in the price for my master bathroom. The glass vendor quoted me a lower price than Yancey, which made me think they were substantially marking things up. When I told Yancey, they sent Jeremiah Rose, a salesperson/licensee of the Contractor's Board, to my residence to salvage an agreement.
When he came, we tweaked the scope of work to fall within my financial parameters, including a frameless shower door. We also changed the hall bath to a tub shower. Mr. Rose visited my master and viewed the existing one piece shower and tub structure. He said we could reuse the "existing tub deck" to save money. I found this questionable since it was a prefab structure, but believed him. Here is a list of all of the many complications that happened during the project:
1. Yancey drafted an agreement that didn't require progress payments from me. Then demanded $15,000 a few weeks in. Insisted I was wrong about the law.. Only when I threatened to report them to the Board did they back off of demanding more payments. This was a violation of the California Business and Professions Code. Do not pay them any money unless your contract says you are required to.
2. Worker Fred stacked my demo'ed towel bars on a painted cabinet, scratching it. Had to repaint it. No apology from Fred.
3. Used a different width of a grout joint on the tile floors in both bathrooms.
4. Didn't follow my instructions on shower mosaic band width, and had to tear down and re-do.
5. Used wrong grout color in Master floor. Had to scrape and re-apply.
6. Didn't build the shower to height in the contract in master. When I told Fred to re-do it, he said no, and argued with me. I had to ask Yancey to get him to do what I asked.
7. Installed the sinks in the guest bathroom with a different width of counter overhang than in the master. No attention to consistency.
8. Ordered the wrong tub faucet for the master.
9. Initially installed the tub faucet crookedly in the guest bath.
10. Broke my hose nozzle in my front yard. Didn't tell me until I asked.
11. Left equipment in the path of my car in the garage. Ran over it.
12. Hung multiple broken tiles on my marble vanity wall I had to ask to be redone.
13. Cut tile in my landscaping areas. When asked them not to, Fred argued with me.
14. Installed countertop in master bathroom with one side shorter than the other from sink edge to wall.
15. Cut the cabinet holes for my plumbing in a jagged crooked manner. See photo.
16. Used my kitchen broom to clean messes.
17. Didn't figure out that he could install tub faucet in the side of my tub. Sent me on a wild goose chase ordering a new one I didn't need.
18. Led me to believe he couldn't put niches in master shower wall where I wanted initially, even though later did it successfully.
19. Never had a tub deck in master. Had to be constructed. Resulted in having to jackhammer the floor and re-center the drain in shower and making the shower smaller.
20. Led me to believe I could fit a counter cabinet, that they never had room for. Didn't figure it out until they ordered it.
21. Driveway damaged by allowing City to place bin on my driveway. Removed bin early so my garage was used for trash instead of bin that should have remained until the job was over.
22. Hung my cabinet hardware crooked.
23. Repeatedly failed to hang my towel bars right.
24. Initially installed toilet that would run out of water even after they tried to fix it. Had to call manufacturer.
25. As I discovered this weekend, instead of re-cutting granite borders, installed one with more grout to cover the fact that they weren't even. Looks sloppy and awful.
During the project, I often felt like Fred was not receiving proper supervision. I hired Yancey because I wanted oversight. I felt like I only got some modicum of oversight when I was complaining about the multitude of problems. I did not feel like there was sufficient attention paid to making sure we were all on the same design page at the beginning, and that decisions were being made drips and drabs over text messaging. Fred was often unprofessional and just downright argumentative and disrespectful. The project played like it was the first remodel they had ever organized. Clunky, amateur, and very stressful. Nearly every couple of days, a new issue popped up that Yancey mishandled. I would never hire Yancey again.