Cause of stress in a refurbishment project
Don’t retain Day True unless you want a constant headache throughout your refurbishment. Everything here is factual, no hyperbole or exaggeration.
I unfortunately spent 100k with Day True (2 bathrooms, kitchen, flooring and 2 x wall to ceiling bespoke wardrobes).Yet every delay/mistake on my project was caused by Day True. To summarise some highlights:
· On my license to alter, I got submissions from architects, engineers, builders on time for application to the freeholder, but was delayed 5 weeks by Day True repeatedly sending me the wrong drawings.
· After paying £27k+ for bespoke wardrobes, Day True informed me the installation wasn’t included and was an additional cost. Then incorrect measurements were taken by the designer and the alteration required an additional panel that delayed installation of one wardrobe. I also had to ask where the installers had disappeared to, and only then was informed re the rescheduling. (There are no detailed notes provided re scheduling).
· 6 weeks into the refurbishment, the day tiling was due to start on bathrooms, we discovered that the wrong tiles had arrived. They blamed the supplier, Popham Design, for this. Although the supplier did a rush order for the tiles and FedEx’d, this caused another 18 day delay.
· Bathroom floor tiles were never delivered, only noticed when the builder mistakenly put the only floor tiles onsite into both bathrooms. Only after I raised re non-delivery and reimbursement, did they repay the money I spent on the missing tiles.
· Other tiles arrived broken (yes, in addition to above mishaps!) and they confirmed it will take 6 weeks delay to replace these.
· 3 week delay in kitchen and wardrobes delivery despite 3-4 month logistics planning. I was given 1 business day notice of the delay. Again the supplier was blamed. Installation team caused damage to a drawer – which I’m sure will result in another delay (also as above, alteration needed to wardrobes, resulting in another delay).
· My en-suite can fit a full size bath (1700) but a 1500 was ordered by the designer. After the builder highlighted this to me, I insisted on a full size (which, no surprise, fitted) - that then incurred a 4 week delay to deliver a standard bath (they advertise as bathroom suppliers).
Neither the designer, nor logistics ever picked up the phone to communicate but rather put bombshells like ‘it appears the wrong tiles arrived and due to long lead times will take 6-8 weeks to replace’ in the middle of mundane emails at close of business.
I often had to ask where missing items/even wardrobe installers (!) were, rather than being provided with detailed scheduling. It was ad hoc addressing of issues (e.g. damage to kitchen drawer by installers), which often contributed to additional delays.
I hope in writing this detailed review I will help prevent others having the unpleasant, stressful experience I’ve had with this company. I would never have paid 100k to Day True if I’d known what was to follow. It is disheartening to have retained Day True for the majority of products and design for my project so as to take the stress away, but instead they added significantly to it (by contrast, my builder was excellent!).