Top Notch Quality Service

I have one nice thing to say about Top Notch: they answer their phones. This is a big advantage over most contractors I’ve dealt with, and I had really hoped they would be our go-​to people for handyman work. Unfortunately, the quality of their work just wasn’t good.
There were two projects: put in a dryer vent, and fix up a bathroom that had been badly tiled, badly repaired, and then painted with tile paint (now peeling).
We had two dryers venting outside into one outlet vent, so the hoses had to be joined in a Y. After the workman added the Y, we noticed that when one dryer was running, it would pour hot wet air into the other dryer. We called our contact at Top Notch (Jim, the general contractor) and were told that they had forgotten to put one-​way vents on the hoses. A workman returned and made the adjustment. A week later, the hoses fell off of the dryers, as they had been tacked on with a little tape. My husband ended up fixing the problem himself.
Unfortunately, before the hoses fell off, we had already contracted Top Notch for a much bigger job. We’d had Jim, Top Notch’s general contractor, in to help us come up with a plan for our tenants’ bathroom. He suggested installing a new bathtub surround, and said it would last us another 3 – 5 years — a temporary fix, but that would give us time to save up to completely redo the bathroom.
The process was supposed to take two days, but lasted over a month.
Visit #1: The family living in the apartment was gone for a few days, so the workman came in to install the surround and repaint the tile on the walls. He said to give the glue 24 hours to set, which we did. Within less than a day, we noticed the edges were peeling away from the wall, and called Top Notch. This was around September 10.
#2 A couple of days later, the general contractor himself came out and applied more caulk. The panels began to peel. We called again, hoping for a different solution.
#3 A workman came again, but only recaulked the edges. Unsurprisingly, the edges peeled back again. (September 14) We complained to the general contractor.
#4 A workman installed additional plastic pieces to hold the edges in place, and more caulk was applied. (September 16) We expressed our unhappiness to the general contractor at the inconvenience to our tenants, who had to wait 24 hours to use their shower after every visit.
#5 The edges began to peel again. A workman came to drill through the panels and install anchors. (October 3) The edges were still not secure, and we were told that a second workman would return to apply silicon caulk instead.
#6 A few days later, a workman applied silicon caulk, which left ugly blobs along the edges of the panels. We complained, but the workman said the caulk could not be smoothed out any more. We are still concerned that the panels are still not secure (as the anchors were not installed at regular intervals, or in every panel) and will peel up again in a few weeks or months.
In a phone conversation that week, the general contractor (Jim) told us if we were unhappy with the surround, the only other option was to tear the project down and do it over. We were also offered a free hour of work for our trouble.
At that point, we were simply unwilling to further inconvenience our tenants. We ourselves were also not able to spare more time to play phone tag with and wait for the workmen, who often showed up as much as three hours late, making it difficult for us to juggle our clients and child care for our newborn baby (we had originally scheduled this work to be finished well before the baby came, and had told the general contractor our timetable).
Before posting negative reviews, we decided to try to resolve the problem with Top Notch by asking for a partial refund. We tried several e-​mail addresses with no response, then finally looked up the owner’s name and info with BBB and sent a letter through the mail.
Top Notch’s owner (Brandon) called us, but we couldn’t come to any agreement. In fact, we felt that he was doing his best not to take any responsibility for the matter. He told us that the surround had been a bad idea, and it wasn’t their fault it hadn’t worked (but, we reminded him, the plan came from their general contractor, not from us). He said we should have contacted the company about the problem sooner (but we had been in phone contact with the general contractor the entire time — the owner’s information wasn’t anywhere on the website). Finally, he said he would send someone to «evaluate» the work — but, as he admitted, if the work was bad, there was no chance Top Notch was going to rip it out and do it over for free. We weren’t willing to inconvenience our tenants with any more partial repairs. We offered to send the owner photos as evidence of why we should get a partial refund, but he refused them.
Overall, our interactions with Top Notch were exhausting, frustrating, and did not result in good quality work. Not recommended.