We have been fixing up our house for resale, and one of the last projects to tackle was replacing our countertops.
We placed the order for the materials and installation services on Memorial Day weekend, with the template services scheduled for June 15th. The third-party installer was WareRite. The template was done on the 15th with the understanding that the countertop installation would take place June 29th.
We received a voicemail from WareRite on Friday the 17th asking us to call about a sizing issue. It was late in the day when we received the voicemail, and they close at 4:30pm. I called Monday and Tuesday, leaving messages. I asked specifically to be called on my cell phone because I was at work, but when they called back on Tuesday, they left a voicemail on my home phone. Again, we received the call too late in the day to call back.
Finally, I got in touch with someone on Wednesday the 22nd. There was an issue with the countertop sizing. I answered questions to the best of my ability, believing the correct countertops for our kitchen would be ordered. I asked for the date to which our installation would be rescheduled, and I was told WareRite would not know until the order was placed. I asked for a call back. I heard from no one on Thursday or Friday. I called Friday to find out the order still had not been placed. I was told it would be placed Friday and they would call me Monday about the installation date. I never heard anything Monday, and I had to call again Tuesday. I was told they were not sure if the order had been placed (again, some sizing needed to be verified?), but the person on the phone would check and call me back (this was at noon). At 3pm I still had heard nothing back, and I called to speak to a manager. The manager helped me and told me right away when the installation would be scheduled, which was now July 12th. I left the call thinking everything was in order.
Tuesday, July 12th rolls around, and my husband is home with the installer. While I am at work, I am told first that they only brought 1 of the 2 pieces that make up our countertop. The installer even said, "I'm surprised no one called you." (Taking time off of work, we would have rescheduled if they did not have both pieces.) Then the piece that was brought was sized too small. The original template was measured wrong.
I called WareRite back again to find out what happened. Their remedy was to redo the template and get us customized countertops. The installation was rescheduled for the following Monday, the 18th. I also called Home Depot to let them know I was greatly displeased and wanted to be compensated for what we had gone through (i.e., taking days off of work, having to constantly reach out to the installers, and delaying putting our house on the market). The Home Depot services manager stated she would call me Monday to make sure I was 100% satisfied, and that would be when they would talk about compensation.
On Monday the 18th, I was told the installers would be there between 10 and 12, and they showed up at 12:20. When I asked, the installers were not aware of our experience at all. The countertops were installed. The new countertops now sit on top of the cabinets with no lip overhanging, instead of sitting lower with an overhang. This was not made clear to us. We were told we would have to do a square edge because of the sizing issues, but we were not told the square edge meant no overhang. This resulted in the countertops sitting oddly high now (more at a bar height versus countertop height), and our stove now sits at least an inch or more below our countertops. We cannot raise the stove because one of the edges of the countertop is slightly angled, which the stove would catch on. Furthermore, you could see a gap now where the countertop met the cabinets. (You would think that with "custom" countertops they would have been able to do an overhang to match the previous counter.)
I ended up fixing the gap with some caulk instead of dealing with the installers again. I also never heard from Home Depot that day to find out how my installation went.
Today (July 19th) I called Home Depot to tell them about my experience. The service manager said she was out sick yesterday (which seemed convenient, just saying). Also, before I told her about what else went wrong, she said, "You'll get $100 back." So they did not really care about what else happened.
In the end, I would not recommend Home Depot countertop installation to anyone, given the experience I had. I work in sales, and when it comes to customer satisfaction, you should not have to constantly reach out to the people doing the work to get updates, and you should at least act like you want to make the situation right. We would not have had such a bad experience if we had been kept informed and communication had been open.
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