Penguin Basements, ltd.

Overall my wife and I are really satisfied with the work Penguin Basements has done. With all of the horror stories you hear about renovations, it turned out to be a mostly smooth and rewarding process. We started out with Rick giving us some amazing designs to choose from. It was a detailed and informative meeting that gave us peace of mind knowing that everything would be done correctly, with permits and necessary inspections. One of our biggest concerns was the schedule and timing, with a newborn at home and Christmas around the corner. We were concerned with sticking to the agreed to timeline. Permits caused an initial delay but Josh (our Project Manager) and his team were great at accommodating our project and minimizing the lost time. Using the buildertrend app and having access to Josh and the schedule was very helpful. It made it much easier to plan with our dog and newborn at home. Our basement has gone from an original 1960’s basement to a modern day masterpiece. While we knew issues came with an old basement, they did a great job of overcoming and maximizing those challenges through design and construction. It is a much more efficient use of the space and in a cost effective way when it came to where to place bedrooms and having egress windows, etc. We now have two bedrooms, a large open common area, a bathroom, a laundry room, and a functional storage room. Josh, Kyle and supporting crew were friendly and accommodating to work with. We had a side entrance to our basement so at times we hardly noticed they were working; At other times they made sure to update and coordinate with us while they were there. They turned something I particularly thought would be stressful and painful experience into a process I could handle. Now we have a basement we’ll love for a long time and that is ready for our growing family! The kids will have the best parts of the house!

Overall, we were very happy with Penguin and the finished product was of high-quality. Claudio, our finishing supervisor should get an 11/10. He showed incredible professionalism, skill, and commitment to making the customer happy. He ensured all the issues we faced were rectified. He was so personable, responsive to our needs, and genuinely knew his stuff. If Penguin has any concept of what is good for their company, they will make sure he never leaves and promote him right to the top. People who were also particularly helpful and clearly put the customer first include Robert, Joe and Angelo. They all played their part in trying to make the process as smooth as possible. Along the way, our primary frustrations were of the poor communication. We often had no concept of which trade was coming and trades sometimes did not know how to access the lockbox. The Calendar was not updated beyond the first day. Probably the biggest frustration was the lack of presence or availability of our assigned site super, Walter. Severe floating floor and issues with sanding of the walls could’ve all been detected along the way. Instead, they had to be dealt with at the end of our project and only thanks to Claudio were they addressed in a thorough manner. After these issues, I do think Penguin would benefit from having a customer care service or quality assurance department which the customer could reach out to throughout the duration of the project. In our case, we often did not know who to communicate with for a given issue and ended up calling multiple people at one go. Needless to say, this took time and added stress and for the premium that you are paying, this should not happen. My advice to any future customers would be to make sure you know exactly what you want done ahead of time and have a very concise plan. Things move very quickly and there is very little margin of error to fix things. As a result, I think it is imperative for homeowners to be involved in every step of the project to make sure any mistakes can be fixed right away. Despite some of our minor frustrations, clear positives were there adhererence to a promised timeline, the very professional trades, scheduling flexibility with the start date depending on our schedule, the high quality of finishings, and again, the amazing Claudio. His help at the end of the project almost made us forget our frustrations during the project. He truly is a star and his commitment to customer satisfaction went above and beyond what we had expected. Overall, we are so pleased with our basement and are already thoroughly enjoying it. We would highly recommend Penguin (as long as Claudio’s part of the package), and would not hesitate to use them again.

I wish I could give this company a ZERO because they went AWOL on me. Guess they wanted me to keep my money... On Monday July 3, 2017, the regional manager (RM), whom I won’t name (unless Penguin wants to know whom I'm referring to), came to my house for a consult and to begin drawing up the floor plans. We were nearly done with the appt, maybe we had another 20 mins left, when a relative, whom I hadn't told about the reno yet (but I didn't have to run it by this person), came home. For that reason, the RM volunteered and insisted on coming back the following Monday to finish up, which I thought was nice of him but I never asked him to do that, nor would I ever ask anyone to do that. Monday comes -- and the appt time came and went-- so I had to call him. He replied, "I was GOING to call you to say I couldn't make it." Things happen, and I believe he had a personal emergency, so it was no big deal for me. We were both going to be busy those next few days so he said he'd call me to reschedule. More than a week went by and I hadn’t heard from him, so I called him on his cell phone: The phone got picked up; I heard noises in the background and I said 'hello, hello'; and no one spoke so I hung up...it was like a pocket dial in reverse. I immediately called the head office and diplomatically said to the person on the phone that the RM must have forgotten about rescheduling our appt and asked her for help with that...she said she would pass along my message. About 15 minutes later, the RM called me and we made another appt for two/three days later which was the following Sunday. Sunday comes -- and goes -- and he didn’t show up or call. And that was when I decided to go with another company. Then either one or two days after the second non-appt, he called my cell phone, but I was busy and couldn't pick up...and he never left a voice message. Later when I got home, I saw that he called my landline, but when I checked those messages I discovered he didn't bother to leave a voice message there either... Oh, and I haven't heard from Penguin Basements since. Today is Saturday, September 9, 2017 It's too bad because, based on their reputation and seeing their workmanship at one of their open houses, I was going to hire them. SIDE NOTE: For anyone wondering, I'm not naming the RM because, although his customer service was absolutely horrible and perplexing, he was a nice person, so I don't want to personally put him on blast. Calling out the company -- that he represents -- is good enough.