Keep Lysol on hand, just in case
We read all reviews that go up and sometimes we pause and reflect on whether things should be posted or not. Our
guidelines are to accept relevant information about the work done, service or product purchased. Hearsay is rejected. It's not fair to a business that Sally your best friend had the same problem - let Sally write her own review.
We had a couple this week that were debated before they were approved. One was a Duct Cleaning company. The homeowner wrote:
"Two guys came to my house, one fellow smelled like he had not showered in 3 days."
Initially we hesitated about whether this was relevant. Then the reviewer went on...
"They took apart my furnace cover and one guy stuck his fingers inside and tried to convince me that I needed the furnace cleaned too. His fingers were clean and he said ' look carbon '. I refused, if there was carbon it would have been sooty black. They pulled off the plugs that were left on my duct pipes from a prior cleaning by a different company and when they left they did not replace them. When they left they did not turn my furnace/air conditioning switch back on. In the end I had to tape up the holes left behind because they stole my plugs, I had to spray lysol air freshener all over the house to get rid of the body odour, and I had to pinpoint why my furnace/air conditioning system was not working."
All in all the personal hygiene of this repairman was relevant to their professionalism. So the review was published.
And then another review we debated that was worse than body odor...
"I noticed a worker urinating on the tire or their truck that was parked in my driveway. I noticed another urinating on my garage. When I mentioned this to the supervisor, he seemed to care less... The work was average, but this action by the workers and the reaction by the owners mad me so mad I tell my story to everyone interested in roofing work.
Again it was relevant to the care and service taken by this company when they entered this person's property.
There are two sides to every story, so here's the opportunity for these companies to respond or take action.
Labels: guidelines, hearsay, hygiene, service
Posted by Nancy Peterson
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Renovation Meta-Planning - An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
The whole purpose of HomeStars, of course, is to help homeowners make planning decisions about home improvement.
So what do we think of companies whose job it is to help with those planning decisions? Hey, that's not for us to say - yes, we can certainly opine, but... - ultimately it's the community who will rate the planner companies just as they will rate specific contractors.
Let me explain where I'm going here. I ran across a small print ad about a site called WendysRenoStory.com. Because there wasn't much disclosure in the ad, except for the positive words from the smiling Wendy, I wasn't expecting much. In fact, I half-expected it to be some kind of scam.
I read the promotional-looking material on "Wendy's" landing page, and was eventually directed to the "real" site for a company called PlanSmart. I have to say I was impressed as I read on. Although many architectural firms and general contractors are out there helping you to plan your overall direction, the pitch from PlanSmart made intuitive sense to me, and seemed a bit different. If you have an older home (built prior to 1970, they say), any significant remodeling is going to require hundreds of small decisions. My home was built in 1896, so it's all about variables. :)
And if you're like me, you only have a loose sense of the technical elements of a complex reno. It's not only about who you can trust, but what direction you actually want to take with your reno. You're left sifting through bids to a few firms, and fortunately now that HomeStars is here, looking at reviews of their work.
On the surface, PlanSmart seemed to offer a helpful "pre-planning" service to help put you on the right path towards a successful renovation. It's not dissimilar to what we hope to accomplish with this website.
So I looked for reviews of or mentions of PlanSmart. Unfortunately I didn't find any.
So I checked the domain records for WendysRenoStory. Seems that it's owned by a Walden Design Build listing an Eglinton Ave. address in Toronto. Bingo! HomeStars has one highly positive review for
Walden Design Build. At least we're getting somewhere.
Looking a bit more closely, Bruce Borden of Walden Design Build is prominent on the PlanSmart bio page. Seems like a very solid track record.
Anyone have any experience with PlanSmart? We'd love to hear about it, if so.
Posted by Andrew Goodman
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