The Home Depot/Breakwater & Design Fiasco

Where do I begin?

First I think I should say all the employees of the Waterville Home Depot are awesome. The manager and assistant manager? No. The regional manager? No. They seemed nice but in the end, they just blew us off. 

 

Breakwater & Design workers are all amazing and so nice! The owners? No. Rude and overcharge and don't give a crap about their customers.

 

It was a horrid ordeal we went through with these two.

When you are new to the whole remodeling side of things, it really does pay to talk to your local tradesmen. They can give you more honest pricing and steer you in the direction of local supplies.

 

Home Depot's materials, we did not feel were overly priced on the whole. Our biggest issue however was with the labor charges and that when contracting out the work, which all companies like this will do, Home Depot in Waterville only goes to one contractor who can then charge whatever they wish to and that is what you are stuck with unless you are able to do the job yourself or know local people to do so for cheaper.

 

Thus began the whole money pit freefall trip we began.

 

Perhaps this is partly a case of buyer regret, or simply naivete or just plain stupid and not knowing what the real pricing should be and also realizing we had a lot of other options in front of us. But after Breakwater & Design had begun, the workers they sent up were great. Very personable and nice, quick to show you things they may encounter etc. They were the ones who were hired to redo my bathroom on the 2nd floor. I'll include some before and after pics later on. It wasn't a hard build, no mosaics, no special patterning nor gold fixtures or anything. Pretty straight forward. No walls rebuilt, only one new one, a half kneewall put in. I was to pick out everything through Home Depot. The problem is that I was designing the bathroom in a nautical theme and they did not have a mirror that reflected that nor light fixtures so off I went to the internet and had to find them and pay for them on my own.

Now the glass doors and half wall were suppose to be on the design and project for this bathroom but it was left off without telling us that. So when the time came for that, I was informed it was 'extra' and I would have to pay more for it as well as taking even longer. I wasn't happy.

This is just one issue amongst 9 pages worth of crap we had to deal with. I'll spare you all of those sordid details.

 

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I want to say that if you ever make the mistake of doing anything like this, you make sure you go over that project paperwork with a fine tooth comb and make sure every little nit noid thing is detailed out, explained what the scope of work and materials were to be and the costs. All in writing, not verbal. Don't let them generalize squat.

 

What I didn't know was that I would have to pay for my own plumber and electrician.

This company was then rude to both of them over the phone and I was very angry over this as they were not their employees. But yet they were trying to demand for my tradesman to be on site when they wanted them, at their beck and call, and when they could not understand what my seasoned and vastly experienced men were doing or how things work with the plumbing for example, they were rude and cut them off. I was not pleased.

 

Another note was that this company not only ordered some materials in bulk large quantities instead of smaller ones, they instructed their workers to pick up the leftover unused portions and wanted them to bring it back to their garage for their own use!! Instead of that material and product, over $1600 worth, to be returned to Home Depot so my account could be credited. This was not cool and I felt was theft and fraud and all sorts of illegal maneuvering. Thankfully my Mr Fix-it had overheard this and warned me so I went out and inventoried the whole thing on an excel spreadsheet and called Home Depot, had them come up and get it and sign for it to be sure that it would be taken off my account.

 

As the glass portions of my bathroom were kept off the scope of their work they were going to do, I had to call the local glass company, American Glass in Skowhegan, and get them to come over and install a glass door and half wall for me. Which they did in less than a week in comparison to Breakwater and Design saying it would take a month or more and cost a lot more on top of that.

 

Plus, this company kept changing my design without my consent. It was a complete nightmare.

 

Now the workers, as much as I enjoyed talking with them, were not so perfect either but I felt they did the best they could with what they were given to work with and with no help, oftentimes it was just one person doing a job that should have been 2 weeks tops, but took over 8 weeks and didn't get done until I stepped in with the glass company. For as much as I paid, the solutions their workers came up with was the best they could do for the whole mess of the crappy designers/owners of Breakwater and Design had done. They had chosen the expensive as crap cabinets that did not match up nor fit with the sink measurements at all for one! It is just bad. The baseboard trim isn't angled right as they didn't replace the walls like they were going to or had stated on the scope of work they were going to. So it didn't match up. The issues went on and on.

Then of course as the new stain was to be put on the trim, it wouldn't match the door so they said I would need a new door, more money. They ordered the wrong size, delay. The sink ordered by them came in, wrong size, another delay and even then still didn't match up to the cabinets so the solution was jacked.

 

I got charged for everything without any work beginning including interest all the while product sat in my garage for weeks.

 

This is just some of what happened with them. Has this shown you how important your local tradesmen are yet?

 

Now Home Depot itself is not innocent either. After this fiasco was over as we were stuck and had a contract with those bozos, we took pictures and went to the manager of the Home Depot Waterville location, arranged for a meeting with him and the regional manager of this area's Home Depots. We sat in the back offices for 2 hours and I went over my 9 pages of crap and we showed pics to them too of the before and afters and the costs. Their mouths hung open and they were shocked. The bathroom was nothing special. They started to back pedal a bit by saying oh well they would of course not be able to give us the cheapest prices (WHY NOT?) and of course we'd find it cheaper with local guys. But they did say they would look into it and let us know. You could tell they were shocked at everything and felt bad. They were nice enough to talk to, but it resolved nothing.

 

For you see, the whole situation was very confusing as we made the mistake of having them do two projects at once. Therein started the whole mess.

Plus, Home Depot's computer system went down and they lost my entire account and orders as it got locked up and it all got recreated from scratch. Now I don't know how or what was on it and if it was done right or that is where the labor got doubled or what? I don't know. It was hard to tell. So much went back to Home Depot and I wasn't sure what was credited or not like the color of the paint was wrong and had to be swapped out. There was never a record for that. Never a record for anything being changed if Breakwater & Design or Home Depot did it, but if I wanted something else, I had to pay extra or submit paperwork. Even so much as to stagger the tile slightly, they almost wanted to charge me an extra $250 for that. Talk about nickel and diming me. Finally relented to do it for free when I complained, but if I had not, they would have charged me an extra $250. Whoop-di-do in the whole scheme of this mess!

 

That was just the bathroom issues!

 

For the flooring for the hallway and bedrooms, we had picked out that nice porcelain tile that looks like hardwood floors. They were holding it in their warehouse waiting for their other 3rd party installer to give me a date. But no date. They wouldn't give us a date. Said we were on a list, and they'd call when they had freed a date. My whole project was on hold due to this only to be told finally by the Breakwater & Design people that they didn't need to wait for the floors to be done, they could go ahead and start their project with the bathroom. DOH! That was weeks of waiting for nothing! I finally told Home Depot to deliver the materials for the floor (they were charging me for it for weeks and I didn't even have possession of it!!) So they deliver it and thankfully my Mr Fix-it offers to install my floors for me and gave me a price. So as I decided to go with him and I would fire Home Depot's third party installer. I called them and Home Depot to give them a chance first. I told them I needed to know by Friday what the date of install would be and if I did not have a date by that day, I would be going with someone else to install it. No word. Nothing until Monday comes along and I had already told my Mr Fix-it he could have the job and the 3rd party calls me to announce they had a date! They were going to come in September at the start of the month and then leave and come back at the end to finish. They were going to charge me $16,000 to just install it. I said nope, too late. I have hired someone else to do the job. They were like but no, we have a date set now for you, I told the lady too late. I told you and Home Depot that I needed it by Friday. I was not kidding. I have hired someone else to do the job. My Mr Fix-it did it for less than $3,000. I saved almost $14,000!! And he did a great job with it too and helped to level the one room and made sure all the angles were done correctly and pointed things out to me as he came upon them. He was amazing!

 

Yet the bathroom issues continued. It was so bad.

 

Finally, in Sept after having a meeting with the managers and a month nearly of silence, I receive a check for $2,000. We were overcharged labor by about $12,000. But this was our pat on the head or hush money I felt. When I emailed the manager to ask what that was for? I got no answer. Not from him nor from the regional manager. Silence. Crickets. I was being ignored.

 

That was it as far as they were concerned. It didn't matter one bit their 3rd party installer had done this to us. They just simply didn't give a damn. Nevermind that we had been loyal customers for years with Home Depot. Who were we? Just a small little customer in the grand scheme of things. We have 46 acres with big plans and thought Home Depot would be a big part of it but nope, not after this whole mess. I refused flatly to step foot into that Home Depot again. Nor any Home Depot if I could help it.

 

No, we would travel the extra 20 mins and go to Lowes. Which we did. Spent money and opened an account, got a whole house generator and other large items, easily worth over $11,000 that we would have spent with Home Depot. Now we also decided to look locally and make inquiries to see if we could get the lumber from closer to home and other things at the hardware stores in the nearest town.

 

Finally, I wrote an email to the CEO of Home Depot and told him what my horrid experiences had been with the Home Depot here in Waterville and their 3rd party installer Breakwater & Design. They sent me another $4k that I didn't expect to get back. I didn't expect anything at all but the lady who had called me was very apologetic and kind. She told me that she had printed out my email and read it out loud to the CEO of Home Depot. They couldn't believe it and so authorized the $4k being sent to me. The amount wasn't enough however but it was a nice gesture at the very least for all that we had gone through with them. It showed us that the upper management did care what one of their customers had gone through. It showed us they too felt it was wrong and it redeemed Home Depot to a degree in my eyes.

 

 We learned that if you want any materials, you either get it locally and if you don't do it yourself, you hire local tradesmen or if you have to get the item from Home Depot, then either you or a local person needs to install it. Don't let them hire out a 3rd party to do so. Save yourself some misery and money instead. AND! If you do want something from Home Depot, you order it yourself online, don't let them do it for you in the store. That's another nightmare.

Needless to say, Home Depot's reputation up here in the north west woods of Maine is not so good. And of course my tradesmen carried the tale to all they knew and so on and so on. It may not make much of a difference to Home Depot, they are a huge company. But I can say at least that their CEO does care. You bet your bippie he does. I thank him whole heartedly for having taken the time to hear of my experiences and trying to do the right thing by us. He and the lady who had contacted me as well as the dept employees are the only saving grace of this whole mess.