I am a former kitchen installer and cabinet refacer with Sears Home Improvement located in Santa Fe Springs California. You should really have your head examined before using this company to do any type of contracting work on your property.
Especially pause and think before you sign on the dotted line before commiting to a cabinet refacing contract with these villians. For what this company charges (with is usually 2 1/2 times the normal rates) you can have brand new cabinets and counter tops installed by reputable cabinet and counter installers.
If you sign a contract with Sears you will be ripped off!
Most of this companies installers are poorly trained, under-equipped for the job and whipped along like dogs to complete a job within the work week the job begins—no matter what the size of the job. This is so that management can put another job on the table for this installer the following monday.
This means that quality is always sacraficed to the detriment of the customer.
Cabinet refacing in general is a big scam. Years ago this was a viable option for customers seeking a quick fix for a kitchen. But today, with all the custom cabinet shops available and competitive bidding in large urban areas, and all the high-quality knock-down cabinets available from overseas suppliers, it is much cheaper to go with new cabinets and counter tops than a cheap looking refacing job.
For what Sears charges you can obtain brand new custom made cabinets from a private shop and pre-fabricated granite counter tops (including installation) for much, much less.
Cabinet refacing with foils and formica looks cheap and cheezy, and counter to what any salesman will tell you (and they are all under tremendous pressure to sell), a cabinet refacing job will not stand the test of time. Forced to used compliant adhesives by the government, cabinet refacing peels and chips easily. And although you are paying top of the line prices for such jobs, Sears uses bottom of the barrel (as in the cheapest) materials, doors, drawers, hardware and fittings.
Now combine this with poorly trained installation technicians, and management who only cares about generating sales numbers... And you can easily figure out where you will stand if any problems arise.
When I was with Sears, I personally witnessed two full time managers who's job it was to deal with complaints and customer problems. Let's just put it this way, if you got your phone call returned, you were lucky.
Yes there are a few very good field installers with Sears, but it is the luck of the draw to find one of these guys. Usually these installers are handed the huge jobs jucy jobs that have lots of comission. And oh yes, the installers also work on comission at Sears. I installed jobs in the $9,000 to $12,000 range. For everyone's information... Sears makes a profit of about 1/3 of the total cost of each job. That is your materials cost slightly less than 1/3 of the price tag. The installer gets less than 1/3 of the cost, and the rest taking into account overhead leaves Sears with a tiddy profit of about 1/3 of your bill.
So like I said, you can do much, much better with you dollars. For what you will pay to Sears Home Improvement, you can get a whole new custom kitchen installed.
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