COMPLAINT: Laura Gronberg, Sandy Springs, Ga.

While I was at work, my washer's hose burst, flooding half of my main floor and basement. My insurance company hired a water damage specialist crew, who removed carpet in the living room, master bedroom and walk-in closet, and tore out the tile flooring in the master bathroom and laundry room.

I hired Juan Vasquez [the owner of Planet Tile in Alpharetta, Ga.] to set 25, 16-inch-by-16-inch tiles in my laundry room, but he ordered one of his helpers to do it without the right supervision.

He did not follow the pattern, did not start with a full tile piece, and he left the grout chipped and a huge gap at the threshold. He said he usually lays out the tiles directly from the box in a random manner.

A few weeks later, another contractor gave me another estimate for tiling the master bathroom and the removal of the laundry room tile. When he saw the laundry room tile, he realized that the pattern was going in all directions, that the grout was chipped, the partial tile at the entrance and the big gap at the threshold.

That contractor said it'd require $700 to tear out and re-set the tile. This incident caused me a lot of disappointment, and left me with a big monetary loss.

DESIRED RESOLUTION: I want a $633 refund.

STATUS: Stalemate

Editor's note: Planet Tile responded to Gronberg's complaint, declining to fulfill her refund request. The company did not want its response published.

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