GuySolomon

I would like to start off by saying how thoroughly impressed and appreciative I am of all the superior craftsmanship and professional demeanor of the staff at Penguin and its tradespeople. The team has been extremely helpful, understanding and have provided us with helpful advice and suggestions based on their extensive knowledge, expertise and experience. Additionally, I would like to give special recognition to Guy, the General Manager, as it is clearly evident that he takes a hands-on approach to ensuring the quality of the workmanship, level of service and overall customer satisfaction is met. In this regard, I must note that we encountered an issue with the design element in our kitchen which had the ancillary effect of also effecting the electrical plans. I was expecting a long, tedious and confrontational discussion with the team, however, this was far from what happened. After discussing the issue, we were able to come to a resolution to the matter that was 100% what I was hoping for. Ultimately, I will undoubtedly be recommending to all my friends, family and colleagues to use Penguin as the preferred choice for home renovations because they are, quick, the industry-leading experts, kind, reasonably and fair-minded persons, customer-centric and all around good people. If any company deserves a 5-star rating it is definitely Penguin.

We had been thinking of completing our basement for the last couple of years and went through several quotes from various people and companies. We are quite meticulous in addition to being cautious due to past negative experiences with tradesmen and wanted to ensure we do it right. My husband found Penguin basement on Google, went through their website in great detail and read their reviews. We felt comfortable enough to call them at the beginning of March and speak with Ryan who directed us to Matthew. From then on it was a breeze! From speaking with Matthew to Guy over Zoom, the whole project was explained to us step by step. Everything was finalized online through Zoom meetings, phone calls and emails and we didn't have to go anywhere. Initially, the project was to start in the middle of June as they were extremely busy. I requested them to see if it could be done sooner as we didn't want to be stuck with renovations in the middle of summer after such a lengthy lockdown. Guy said that he would do his best to see if things could be moved a bit earlier. It was quite surprising to receive a call from them within a couple of weeks, informing us that they could start the project in May and we can start planning the basement with Rodrigo and Stephanie. Everything was finalized in April and they even started the work a week ahead of schedule. From then on it was like a revolving door! Different tradesmen came in, completed their work professionally and left quietly. All of them were extremely polite, well mannered and tried to keep the dust and dirt track to as minimum as they could. The project went smoothly and here we are, in the middle of June with a fully completed basement. Once the cleanup was done, leaving the place spotlessly clean, Jon came in for inspection & corrections and did an absolutely amazing job with the final touch ups. The project ended up with a Zoom call with Lisa to ensure everything was satisfactory from our perspective. Of course, when there are so many different trades involved, there are bound to be some glitches but ours were miniscule and not worth mentioning here. Needless to say, these small issues were dealt with immediately. We appreciate the work done by everyone at Penguin Basements and would definitely recommend them to anyone looking to get work done at such a professional level. Wishing the company all the best in their future endeavors!

Penguin Basements came up top from the recommendations from fellow investors. Hired Penguin Basements at the beginning of the year, received permits (mid-March), and the major part of the work was completed (mid-May) unbelievable, I haven't heard of this kind of timeline to complete the project, especially with issues around the world, Covid, supply chain issues, inflation, etc. During the initial meeting when Guy gave this timeline, I was skeptical and thought maybe it will be extended a few more months. But now I have a tenant moving in 2 weeks, very impressive work and timelines. Penguin is super capable of handling the project, workflow was smooth, great company culture, any enquires are responded timely (email responses/updates were received in a matter of few hours depending on the seriousness of the query). From beginning to end of the project, Penguin team demonstrated a high level of professionalism, knowledge, customer-first, attentive, fast-paced work, and central command post-project management style (North York). The overall project took 2 months from permits to finish. Considering number of trades, inspections, material supply chain issues, and so many moving bits and pieces in a project of this size, if I had to use one word to describe Penguin that would be BRILLIANT. Builder trend App is handy and easy to message, schedule, and upload pics, and videos. I follow the project very closely, had communicated with different team members on the daily basis. To mention a few notables: Ryan (phone calls), Guy (quotes, design & a great visionary), Stephanie (material selections), Iva (accounts), Rodrigo (drawings, design, and initial stages), Michael (Permits), Valerie (Intermediate stages), Roberto (Final finishing stages), Victor (electrical), Jorge (Plumbing), Oscar (Painter), Edgar (Inspections), Felipe (services) and Lisa (super-friendly, customer service, made sure all my concerns are addressed). Several other supporting team members that I had not interacted with directly (tradesperson, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, framers, drywallers, painters, finishers, 3D matterport team, etc). Loved it, keep it up!!! Would I use Penguin again for my future project? Absolutely YES! Kudos and wish you the best for the whole penguin team to your success. FYI: Penguin is not a basement-only builder anymore; recently they expanded to build GARDEN SUITES too. Give a call to Guy (see pic attached) If you have any basement/garden suite projects in mind, I strongly encourage you to give a call to Penguin and see if your timelines and budget aligns. You won't be disappointed.

This company has very talented sales people who know how to make a pitch, I will give them that. After that is where things started going downhill. The basement we were left with is an embarrassment (please see the attached photo for proof - yes, that wall is curved). No signoffs at critical junctures, I was just presented with this mistake at the end. You would think a company that has expertise in basements could do better than this. Even during the design process, mistakes were made and you would be forgiven for thinking this was the first basement this company had done. Vanities that were too wide, and then ultimately the one that was installed was too deep (and looks out of place). Substandard paint job, cracks in drywall, water leak, and the list goes on. The worst is that they are not responsive at all, and this behaviour goes all the way to the top with the president. We now have an open permit with the city that is dragging on and on with no resolution in sight, and remedial work that needs to be done. If we get a response at all, it is "we will try to book time at this time" and there is no follow up / no one shows up when they are supposed to. It honestly could be a coin toss between some Kijiji contractors and this outfit - take your hard earned money elsewhere. Edit (Spring 2022): I am now updating this review to state that Penguin did come back to fix the main issues we identified (in particular, the wall as noted in the photos) and are continuing to work with us to resolve any other more minor items. They have also closed the open permit that we had with the city and we have passed inspection. This is progress, but is still much longer than it should have taken, considering this project started in summer 2021.

I don't know if this is a one time anomaly, but here is my experience that did not lead to hiring them for our basement project. It started with unannounced and unscheduled employee that arrived at our door to complete measurements and 3D imaging. Sergio was nice and professional and he was apologetic as he thought someone from Penguin would already notified us of his visit. I told Sergio that no one called nor emailed us in regards to his visit. I still let him in as I work from him at the time, but I could not entertain him or be with him as I would like to. I informed Ryan about this issue and he was apologetic and admitted that it was his mistake as he thought someone else would have notified me about Sergio's visit. He assured me that it is not how Penguin work and it won't happen again. He called me to reschedule our zoom meeting from 12 pm to 3 pm. I accepted it. Saturday at 3 pm came. I still did not receive any zoom meeting link from anyone and I did not know the name of the person that I will be meeting. 3:15 pm and still no zoom meeting and no call. I sent email to Penguin. 3:30 pm and still no zoom meeting and no call. I tried to call Penguin using their 1-866 phone # and press option 1 and option 3, and no answer. Sent an email to Penguin and let them know how unprofessional they are as we already set aside time for them. At 3:50 pm, Guy Solomon sent email with zoom meeting and called me and apologize for being late. I told him that we can go ahead with the zoom meeting. He said that he messaged someone else to call us that he was running late. I told him there was no one called us. It made me wonder why would he messaged someone else to message us when he has our phone #. I told Guy that Penguin seems to keep messing with the appointments and told him about the unscheduled and unannounced visit by the 3D person. I told him that we can start and Mary Jane was here at 3 pm and she could not join us any longer. He flatly said "no" and he wants all stake holder to be present. He said that if a company missing appointment, he would discount that company and go with another company. He made it clear that Penguin is booking for December and very busy and there are hundreds of contractors out there. I got his message that he does not care for our business and we can go to anybody else as they are already busy as it is. Well, they should have refused new business from the get go and not send people to come to our house unannounced and take pictures and asked us to set aside 2 hours of our personal time in the weekend for a meeting that was one hour late. Remember what the old saying people, first impression counts! Guy Solomon is right that there are many contractors out there that will appreciate your time and business. Other options I can think of is AGM basement, Harmony basement, and other smaller companies. Update:Sep 20, 2021 Just realized that Guy Solomon who showed up almost one hour later to our meeting and then denied to continue with the meeting was actually the CEO of Penguin. Now this speaks greatly of the type of company he is running. Thank God I didn’t go with them. He certainly doesn’t have common and business sense at all.

We don't know what kind of business you have, perhaps it is a business with a good reputation and it would be unfair for us to criticize your establishment. The reason we are writing, on Sunday June 20, while on the 401 not far the Odessa, towards Toronto one of your vans was tailgating a car, it could be considered reckless driving. This would certainly reflect badly on your company. We don't want to get the individual in trouble, but can you imagine if this caused an accident? Please kindly remind the individual in question the importance of safe driving. This happened between 1pm and 2pm that we noticed this event. The driver nding tailgated was in the passing lane but was not driving slowly or staying in the passing lane too long. That driver was doing nothing wrong just your driver that works for your business establishment. This is what we observed from the right lane. Please be proactive.

I'm not sure where to start as this project was pretty much a disaster once I signed on the dotted line. The sales process was very robust, pricing was in line with other companies, and there are areas that they delivered on, but I didn't expect to have to be the quality control. My opinion is to stop reading this review now, and simply don't select this company for your project. If you need more information here it is. A long list of areas of opportunity for improvement: -This company is based out of Toronto and the GTA. That could have been part of the issue as every group of people that entered complained about the commute to KW. -Their selections office required a reasonable 1+hr commute, I knew that, however that was my first sign that I should have walked away. It was not a well maintained office, floors scratched, needing a fresh coat of paint and some items for selection were damaged. -They showed up without an appointment for the chaulk lines, no-one was home so they left after 10 min, I called back after 20 but they were on the highway back home. Then the same thing for insulation, luckily someone was home this time given the commute :) -The waste bin they put on my driveway damaged the driveway with 3 or 4 gouges into the pavement and scared the concrete sidewalk. -They ran two blankets of insulation around the basement, leaving a 3 or 4 inch gap in space between the upper and lower application. Their fix was stuffing insulation into the gap and tuck taping it which just came off in pieces a day later. -Electricians were good guys and did a decent job. However, not sure who put the pot light brackets in but they were not aligned or centred. I fixed them overnight but missed the one in the hallway near the stairs. They drywalled the next day and cut the hole for the potlight. They ended up having to remove the drywall, adjust the electrical slightly and re-drywall. -The plumber would have forgotten or missed roughing in the wet bar had I not been present and because they are on a timeline it would have been drywalled over before I figured it out. Not sure what they would have done had I not noticed while they were doing the work. -Trying to stay on schedule they were laying the flooring while the drywall was being finished which is not the best approach if you don't want dust trapped under the floor. -Because the stairway at the top narrows 3 inches half way down they installed a straight railing with a 3 inch block screwed into the wall, protruding from the wall, to screw the top of the railing into. -Within 2-3 months there were 3 areas where the floor was peeling, we hadn't even really used it yet as we were still furnishing it. They did respond and come in and replace those floor boards, however they had to be cut out and glued to the concrete. -The bathroom was very poorly done. It looks worse than the one we took out. The drywall is sloppy and paint on the walls and baseboards is poor. Yes it's a very small space but it shouldn't look worse that what I took out. -They gave me a $500 credit to support me getting fixing it myself or hiring someone else - decent gesture but I would have rather had it done right and not have 2 extra meetings with the regional manager to get there. Those are most of the issues along with several other minor inconveniences. The worst part was having to monitor their work regularly, which I felt I had to do because from the chalk lines on there were issues. Had things for a week gone smoothly I probably would have backed off but there was a problem at every turn. Not an enjoyable process which I'm reminded of regularly when using the washroom or simply going down the stairs as I'll be replacing the railing given it's very cheaply made and looks that way. In some areas the paint will need some work also, seems if it's leaned on marks are left that don't just wipe down. There are some good people there, but, the quality and general quality of work and responsiveness needs a lot of work. Look elsewhere for your home renovation project.

I called a few times to have someone come by and provide an estimate and was told someone will call me back, however, no one did. I called three other companies and they all showed up the next day. Quotes were provided soon after and now I'm moving forward. Not sure if this is a reflection of the company or not, however, will never know and this is just another business opportunity lost. Too bad. I'm excited with the quality and response from the 'chosen' company and if you're interested, look out for a review on them in few weeks ;). Follow up response; Thank you for your reply and the description of the process you go through, and to clarify, this is exactly why I reached out in the first place. The other companies did spend ample time with us and at our home, provided detailed quotes and drawings (10 pages), along with having a huge showroom of selections to choose from. We wanted professionals, who are certified and insured (not contractors) and all the details around how they do business is what goes into the selection process. If I'm going to spend 100k, it isn't going to be with someone who can't provide the level of expectation I have. Anyways, I don't doubt your quality or process, I just hoped that my request (clearly explained in follow up calls) would have been taken seriously. That's all.

Very slick sales people. We interviewed several companies and went with Penguin based on the presentation given, apparent quality and supposed 9-day deliverable time-frame which to us, with a baby on the way and relatives coming to town, was important and worth the extra cost over competitors. In addition, the majority of reviews seemed to be good. One thing that was definitely not clear in the sales pitch is that almost everything is an add-on. The 'standard' basement they quote includes very basic materials and clearly the ones they show as examples are not that and include every add-on under the sun. You only really find out the true cost when you go to select materials and realize what you had envisioned for the basement is going to cost you a good 15%-20% more than the quote. The salesman also made it clear that the reason they can turn around basements so quickly is that they don't use sub-contractors, everyone is a Penguin employee. After talking to several of the tradespeople working on our basement, I have my doubts. Not only had they never met or worked with the site supervisor, they said they just get a call the day before and show up where they need to, some didn't even know his name. Even if they in fact were Penguin employees, there seemed to be a lack of communication and I wound up having to play coordinator (the majority didn't even have the code to the lockbox to let themselves in). Payment schedule was conveniently set up on a 9-day timeline, to go along with the completion timeframe. Start date was June 7, 2018. We're now October 31, 2018 and it's still not fully complete (waiting for re-painting, sanding and finishing a wall that they had to come back and cut a hole in to finish the plumbing that was missing a part to be functional, fixing drywall on the bulkhead). There was no problem collecting the money on time, however. I even had the hot water tank and furnace moved along with associated duct work prior to Penguin beginning and so the major work really was electrical (which only took a day and a half or so), framing (which only took one day) and drywall and plumbing in the bathroom. The job began well and it's a very simple basement and the site supervisor was responsive and on top of things. Part way through the job, I found out the site supervisor had quit, but no one ever told me. I only found out because no one was showing up when scheduled and I was getting no answer from him either via cell or on the Penguin app. A new site supervisor was provided who initially seemed on top of things and then again, silence. Turns out he was promoted or changed positions and no one told me. Again, I found out by calling and emailing. Many times, contractors were supposed to come out, but either missed the days or the time/date wasn't communicated to them (plumber on several occasions - shower was only made operational one month ago - too late for the in-law visit) so we had to make do. Clearly once the major pieces of the basement are complete and they have your money, you drop to the bottom of the importance pile and here we are, almost 5 months later. Overall the basement looks ok. You can still see joins in the drywall, some doors don't close properly, and the painting was less than stellar. There were delays getting materials throughout the project and the site supervisor even asked if I could source a part myself and they would reimburse me because he couldn't find where his team had put it when they initially removed it. I'm not amazed by the work and less so because of the delays, changes and lack of communication. I'm still waiting to hear back from the site supervisor who said last week that he would call on Monday to sort out coming out and finalizing everything. I'm not holding my breath and am pretty tired of having to chase people down and follow-up constantly. Maybe Penguin is taking on too many jobs to be able to service everyone appropriately and so they are understaffed. The employees they do have are very friendly, but that doesn't cut it when you want your basement finished.