DMV Bath & Shower Remodels | Bathroom Remodeling Company, Bathtub & Shower Replacement

Apr 2023

TL:DR Expensive product looks nice but is hard to keep clean; Installers had to come back multiple times to fix leaks and I had to get 2nd contractor to finally find/fix problem; they made me feel bad. Small main bathroom on 3rd floor of 50 year old townhouse had years-long problem with bathtub/shower combo leaking. Had to replace whole thing. Contract signed in December 2022 with See Thru Windows. Initially wanted whole bathroom done, but was quoted ~$24K. Settled on just new shower/soaker tub combo with full plumbing replacement for $13K, financed through company. Install 1st week of February 2023. Installer seemed taken aback by extent of damage/repair needed: even though we had discussed with salesman that we knew we would need new subfloor under tub, this was apparently not communicated. Difficult install went into the late evening but looked great, even though we were left with a cut line through the floor tile (and prior cracks in floor tile by front of tub). 48 hours for everything to cure and we were excited to have first shower and tub soak. Still leaked. 1st callback cut hole in drywall to see new plumbing and added silicone sealant around/behind the shower valve. 2nd callback tub spout was leaking and they pulled it off, added silicone sealant and put it back on, now with about a 10 degree tilt off center. 3rd callback they asked me to run shower for an hour before arriving, but still couldn't find the leak even though obvious water dripping into bucket on counter below. They just silicone everything they can find behind the wall. Still leaked. Told they needed to come back with project supervisor. Waited more than a week, then called the office to ask about scheduling. Coordinator initially told me they determined that the problem was on my end and there was nothing they could do. After discussion she tells me she confused me with another client. Morning of supervisory visit, I take hour long shower/bath before arrival to duplicate use conditions. Installer and assistant arrive about 45 minutes before supervisor, and spend time trying to find leak. When supervisor arrives the shower head is spraying water onto the ceiling, which it HAD NOT been doing prior, and they immediately begin to try and tell me that leak is because of shower head and/or us not using shower doors properly. I am very frustrated at this point and say "then take the f@#$!)# shower head off". Supervisor immediately gets red and angry and in my personal space and lectures me on not using curse words and, frankly, scared me. At this point it is clear that they are no longer interested in finding the problem, just in blaming us. There is a big production of showing me the hole in the floor where water is coming through to the kitchen. They tell me that they are sure that the leak is because we are dripping water on the floor and it will stop when I fix the floor, which they will not do [I had asked installer if they could give me quote prior and supervisor pointedly said they would not take any side jobs and were too busy to do any other work]. I was totally shut down and sitting on my sofa crying in frustration when they left. Supervisor gave me his phone number and told me to contact him if still a problem after we fixed the floor. Eventually had to get different contractor in to fix floor [and repair the hole they put in the drywall to look for leak]. To no one's surprise, fixing the floor DID NOT STOP THE LEAK. There was no silicone sealant/caulk along the bottom inside rails of the shower door where bottom meets side. Fixing the floor made it easier to trace leak back to source, because water was pooling and not immediately going through ceiling, but problem was still with lack of sealant on install. Do I like the product? Yes? But bad experience that cost me significant time off work, significant additional expense in hiring a different contractor to repair damage to walls and fix the floor earlier than planned/budgeted, and every time I look at the mis-aligned tub spout now I want to stab someone. To their credit,

Mar 2023

I read many of the negative reviews about the company after I agreed to a shower stall replacement with Randy Marshalek, and perhaps if I read them before, I might not have contracted with them. That would have been a mistake. I obtained quotes from two other bathroom re-modelers and all of them use the used car salesman, high pressure approach to selling. Being used to that buying cars, it didn't bother me. Bath Planet provided the best quote, albeit not the cheapest but with the most improvement and features added to our shower stall. They scheduled an installation for one day, except for the custom door, and performed as advertised. The quality of work is first class, the installers were neat and cleaned up after the install so other than the new stall area, you couldn't tell they'd been there. The reason for 4 stars instead of 5 is because there were one or two glitches after the install. The door was supposed to take 4-10 days to be manufactured to the custom size. Somehow, the dimensions got lost at Bath Planet, requiring re-measurement and therefore the door took more like 18 days to be installed. Despite that it's a superior door to anything others quoted for the price. Lastly, the diverter felt loose and not having the right tool to correct it myself, they came out promptly and corrected it. I am very pleased with their work and their customer service, overseen by Randy, was very responsive and customer oriented.

Jan 2023

We reserved our gut remodel for our master bathroom with Randy Marshalek in late October 2022. The October 22, 2022 work order noted that this was a "Rush Job - Heavy Mold." The contract we signed for financing on October 24, 2022 mentioned a "full bathroom gut, new shower, floors." The work order noted all of the fixtures in the bathroom would be replaced, all of which we would purchase separately except for the shower. The work was scheduled to begin November 30 to December 1 and take 3 days. Until then, my family of 4 plus my two visiting parents had to share one bathroom while waiting to avoid adding more wetness to the master shower. Also, I have some serious health issues that were going to require me to use a separate bathroom so it was imperative that the remodel start and end on time. I was very disappointed and disgusted when BathPlanet called the day of the install to say that BathPlanet did not have ANY of my bathroom fixtures for the shower so they had to postpone my gut remodel another 2 weeks. That was more time I had to keep my other bathroom fixtures in the downstairs foyer, and more time sharing the bathroom. Once the shower pieces came in the work started. The guys who did the work were polite, but they definitely did NOT adhere to the "measure twice, cut once" adage of home improvement. However, we did encounter many issues during the installation, due to poor planning and a seat-of-the-pants, wing-it type of philosophy of installation. For example, the ceiling tray for the shower was not the right dimensions but that wasn't determined before a nice chunk of my ceiling drywall was cut out. Since the ceiling tray wouldn't work, I asked them to replace the drywall and they did, but the section doesn't match the rest of the ceiling. My ceiling is cream with a swirl pattern, and the missing/replaced chunk is white and smooth. That's more work for us. I asked them to remove the existing medicine cabinet and fill the hole from it. They filled it with drywall but taped the perimeter, and you can still see the green backing to the drywall. The section of wall is not smooth and is unfinished which is more work I have to get corrected. It's a messy looking closure of the spot. As for the two medicine cabinets for our double sink, there was definitely no prior planning before they took a saw to my wall. It's clear that they didn't use a pipe finder before cutting into the wall because they ran into a huge pipe behind the second medicine cabinet's hole. Oops! They said they could reroute the pipe, but I was losing confidence so I said no, just surface mount the medicine cabinets instead because they'd already attached the vanity to the wall and cut the pipe area. I didn't want new problems trying to get them to reposition the pipe, reposition the vanity, and move the medicine cabinets. Later on, I asked Randy Marshalek, our salesman, how much it would cost for them to fix the sloppiness and paint. Even though we were already paying $32,000 for the remodel, he quoted us $1800 to fix the messes they made of the walls and paint. I was appalled and said we'd paint ourselves. I was so done with them, but we still needed to have the rest of the bathroom's larger fixtures completed. This was insulting and a further disappointment considering the price of the gut remodel. The freestanding bathtub had a crack in it so I had to order a replacement. It was installed with an additional drain trap even though the tub came with a trap so I wasn't able to use it when I first tried because it wouldn't drain. Don't you think they should have tested the draining BEFORE saying it was fit to use? At any rate, the tub had to be uninstalled and reinstalled and we had to wait again for the adhesive to cure. That added to the time we couldn't bathe or shower in the bathroom. I'm glad we elected to leave the shower bench out because they ordered the wrong one and we would have had to wait for it to come. The shower looked ni