I hired The Grout Medic of Mckinney, TX to replace some loose tiles in my bathtub that were about to fall off due to water getting behind the tiles. I called The Grout Medic and spoke to the franchise owner, Allen Butz. He came out and told me that the bottom two rows needed to be replaced. The tiles were so loose that he said his installer could probably remove the tiles without breaking them.

I could then clean the adhesive off the backsides and they could reuse these tiles. These tiles were a discontinued style so if were not able to reuse them, we would have to use some tiles that did not match or redo the whole bathtub with a different style tile.

His tile installer, Jeff, came over and removed the two bottom rows of tiles and was able to get them all off without breaking them. Over the next couple of days, I spent about five hours soaking the tiles in an adhesive removal solution and scrubbing them to get the adhesive off. This was very time consuming as the adhesive turns hard after it dries.

Jeff came back several days later and started replacing these tiles back onto the wall of the bathtub. As I watched him, I noticed the tiles he was replacing were very uneven and that the lines did not match up as they should have. I questioned him about this as it looked like shoddy workmanship. He made some excuse that this was the way they had to go on.

During his time installing the tiles, he became very frustrated and used profanity quite often. I realized he did not really seem to know what he was doing. He was constantly going outside to use his cell phone and smoke and seemed not to care too much about his work.

When he finished, I was very displeased with the work (see photos) and told him that the tiles did not line up property and were crooked. He said there was nothing he could do about it. He left and I called the owner, Allen Butz, and told him that Jeff did a poor job installing the tiles and that I would like them removed before the adhesive dried and then re-applied by someone else. Allen said he did not have time to come over and remove them and that Jeff was his only installer.

A couple of days later, after the adhesive on the tiles had already dried, I was finally able to get Allen to come out and look at the poor job. Allen admitted that the job was done poorly and that he would be displeased if this work had been done on his bathroom.

He said that since the adhesive had dried, the tiles probably could not be removed again without breaking. I complained to him that I had tried to get him to remove them the day they were installed but he was unwilling to do this.

I was very upset as I had already paid $225 for the work. I called the corporate office and they said I had to deal with Allen as he owned this particular Grout Medic franchise. I finally had another tile company come out and they could not believe the poor job that was done and said that someone definitely did not know what they were doing.

The rep for this other company said in addition to the poor workmanship, the third row from the bottom should have also been replaced, as those tiles were loose also. The rep tapped on the tiles to show me this and sure enough, they were loose. The Grout Medic had only replaced the bottom two rows and had missed the third row.

I got an estimate from this other company to correct the shoddy work that The Grout Medic had done. The estimate was $500 if they were able to remove the two rows of tiles that had been replaced without them breaking. If the tiles broke while they were removing them, they would then have to replace all the tiles in the bathroom with a different tile since the tiles I had were no longer made. If this were the case, the cost would be $840.

I sent a letter to Allen Butz along with the estimate and requested that he refund me the money I had paid them and that I felt I should be compensated for any additional charges I would incur from having to correct The Grout Medic’s shoddy workmanship. He mailed me a check back for $225 but stated he would not pay for anything else even though had admitted that it was a poor job the installer had done.

I would not recommend anyone use The Grout Medic as their workmanship was terrible and they were very difficult to deal with. The corporate office would not offer any assistance as they said I had to deal with the franchise owner. This company has franchises nationwide.