Vintage Projects

I really want you to read this as I have been a bit "traumatised" by my recent experience with Bartho and his team. I live in a beautiful home in Tamboerskloof and as I am particular about quality, I contacted Oggie, with the view to finding a reputable and quality contractor to take care of my open-plan lime-washed floor. The said floor had been previously laid incorrectly and needed to be properly installed. The Oggie consultant gave me Bartho's contact details. Bartho issued his quote in excess of R 84 000 and I gave him his deposit. The project was going to take 2 weeks but ended up taking a month. From the very start, the job was fraught with issues. Bartho was very apologetic each time his team messed up - alarm wiring damaged, deck damaged, American Shutters damaged - and he kindly saw to it that these were remedied, covering the cost of the alarm repair and Shutters. After a couple of weeks, I got the impression that he was spreading himself very thin, with several projects on the go elsewhere at the same time. He had sent insufficiently trained workers to the site at my home who, despite been "supervised" by a project leader, were producing sub-standard work. Last Monday, Bartho had a senior person who seemed to know what was going on, come to the property to ensure that things were being done properly. He acknowledged that the workers had not been adequately supervised and that entire floor was improperly sealed with the Woodoc product I had signed off. The floor had to be re-sanded and sealed with several more layers than anticipated. This meant that the project took much longer than necessary.

The team arrived on Saturday, 21 July, to apply the final coat. I took some photos of holes in the floor and areas where the Woodoc was app**** very unevenly and sent these to Bartho. I asked him to consider a discount given that the problems were still on-going and that it was unfair to expect me to tolerate any more. On receipt of my WhatsApp, he phoned me and lost his temper, using profanities and trying to make me feel guilty about expecting a quality job.

I had previously asked him to quote on sanding and sealing my deck and he had kindly offered a R10 000 discount, given all the uphill with the floor. I accepted. In a WhatsApp voice message on Saturday, he shouted that he didn't want to work for me any more that he didn't want to do the deck.

Unfortunately, contractors tend to juggle projects, take on more than they can realistically handle and customer satisfaction becomes a sore point. I think this was Bartho's case.

My experience has been ugly and I am now left with a bitter taste in my mouth. On a positive note, the floor now looks spectacular, thanks to me sticking to my guns...