Pulsed Electromagnetic Therapy

Erik Kowal
1 Star
_DO NOT REPEAT OUR MISTAKE_ We hired this company in September 2015 to add a kitchen extension, convert a garage to a dining room, enclose a porch and dig foundations for a garden shed (which would accommodate the contents of the garage). Their salesman Simon lied through his teeth about all the most significant aspects of the job. He promised the company would treat each part of the house separately to minimize disruption (because it would still be occupied during the works). We ended up living in the middle of a building site that occupied the entire ground floor. He promised timely completion. The scheduled three months of works turned into six before the job was finished. He said there would be two project managers overseeing the job. What he omitted to mention was that those two project managers were also overseeing a total of 40 sites simultaneously. My then 78-year-old mother and I ended up _de facto_ having to manage the project day-to-day (except when the appointed project managers appeared from time to time), but without the benefit of possessing detailed knowledge of construction techniques or the authority to hire and fire the subcontractors or schedule the works. The subcontracted tradesmen put on the various jobs varied wildly in terms of their degree of competence. Some of them did not turn up when they were supposed to, leading to problems when they either got in the way of other tradesmen or caused the latter to have to delay their own inputs. The Polish tradesmen hired to attach plasterboard to the former garage walls covered over the electrical outlets completely, despite it being impossible for them to have overlooked the presence of the outlets. They also installed a ceiling in the porch at the wrong height. Both these jobs therefore had to be redone. Some of the electricians were not fully qualified, and made a mess of the wiring in the kitchen that also had to be partially redone. The carpenters installed pull handles on the wrong side of the folding doors separating the dining room from the living room. The quality of their finishing also left something to be desired. The labourers who dug the foundations for the rear extension dug them three feet short of the specified length, making it necessary to reduce the size of the conservatory attached to the kitchen extension by a corresponding amount. They also took an inordinate amount of time over the digging and subjected the entire neighbourhood to the racket of drum-and-bass from their ghettoblaster. The labourers and the plasterboard installers were surly, brusque and unpleasant to deal with. If we hadn't complained about the jobs that were done poorly or not according to specification, the project managers would happily have overlooked the deficiencies; no procedure existed for systematically checking and ensuring the quality of the work done that we could detect. In practice, Bromley & Gaines's quality control system was one that depended on complaints from customers and rectifications being carried out in response, which was frustrating, time-consuming, and left us having to supervise . The only tradesmen who did their jobs well were the plumber, the plasterer and the bricklayer (though the bricklayer added to the time slippage by failing to turn up when he was supposed to). The project managers were half-competent, which I put down mostly to them being stretched so thin, having 39 other sites to manage as well – though it's possible that I'm being too charitable. They tended to treat my mother like an idiot because she is old, female, and hard of hearing. John Bromley, the owner of the company, who also visited the site from time to time, was pretty grudging when we asked him to sort out some of the problems that came up. We made a terrible mistake in not insisting on a performance clause for time overruns, or checking out the company's credentials more thoroughly. Overall, we considered Bromley and Gaines to be a shambolic operation that grossly overpromised and grossly under-delivered. Don't say you haven't been warned.
Saturday 27th February 2021

Manuel Blanco Garcia
1 Star
This builder is being sued for fraud. John Bromley repeatedly misled us requesting advanced payments for material that was never delivered on site. We are aware of other affected parties to which Bromley ows significant amounts of money. If you have also been affected, please get in touch with the police
Sunday 12th November 2017

Anon amous123
1 Star
Beware now operating as Performance build Ltd
Tuesday 11th February 2020

Jennifer Angela
5 Star
Simon quotes us for our extension. It was a detailed quote and he explained it to us very well. Still considering work to be done.
Friday 4th December 2015

Antony Jacob
5 Star
With their architect we managed to get our extension built with more space and less money impressed!
Thursday 21st May 2015