Bruce Clark & Son Plumbing & Mechanical Ltd

Due to my curiosity just read the previous reviews and they made me really happy to learn that Bruce Clark & Sons are making major renovations as well. Good to know.
I am just a small customer but for the last decade I have been solving any plumbing problem or making any unit instalment in my house with this company. And I feel good that being just a small customer I am treated by them as a valuable one.
Today I had a minor leak in the basement and Corey came to fix it. In seconds he diagnosed the problem and was ready to fix it.
As usual all the necessary parts were in his truck, I didn’t need to wait or to rush to Home Depot to buy any parts.
Corey explained me what happened and how he was going to fix the leak. He was very professional, handy and efficient. He didn’t waste a minute though paid by an hour.
You know, plumbing is generally a messy job but after the leak was fixed there was no any sign of any mess in my washing room and the basement.
As usual I was impressed by a very fair and reasonable pricing.
Great job guys! Thank you so much! I wish all the team good luck in business and prosperity.

We recently completed our reno - front hall tiles and closet, powder room fixtures and tiles, completely new kitchen and mater ensuite - with Jamie and the amazing team at Bruce Clarke & Son.
Jamie's team is friendly and courteous, well versed in their respective areas of expertise and incredibly talented. The workmanship and attention to detail is second to none.
Working with Jamie and his team made the entire process bearable considering our home was in complete disarray during the three-month project. Step-by-step updates were communicated leaving no questions unanswered.
Reliable and trustworthy - this is the team we recommend without hesitation. This is the company that actually cares about their clients and doing things right. Pride of workmanship is increasingly difficult to find but is in full abundance here.
Bruce Clark & Son is our go-to team; there is simply no other option. Big or small - call Jamie and experience your dreams into reality.
Tom & Kathy - Stouffville

I am still waiting for this company to finish a job that should have lasted, at most, 2 weeks. It's been 7 months. Workmanship was not consistent, appointments to finish the job were constantly missed. I'm very unhappy with the lack of follow-through and absence of professionalism.

They did a nice job taking care of a problem we had with a toilet that was leaking. It wasn't a big job, but they managed it very well. Our next experience wasn't as good.

I had three tired bathrooms that needed help. Bruce Clark and Son did a total reno. They gutted the bathrooms and built a beautiful custom bath and shower. Jamie Clark and his team were knowledgeable, professional, prompt and creative. They were prompt, reasonable and on budget. Jamie Clark was always available for questions or advice. I have had many compliments from friends on the amazing transformation. I plan to ask Jamie to renovate my kitchen next. I highly recommend the company.

In late 2010 we hired Jamie Clark, Owner of Bruce Clark & Sons after consulting with a number of other local contractors. One of the key factors was that Jamie went out of his way to be present when quoting and explaining the quote. Additionally, where possible his discounts were passed along to us and explained. While for some this may seem unimportant it goes along way in goodwill when there is a bump in the renovation road, and there are always bumps.

As for the important aspects when determining who to hire for your next project - Jamie and his crews are on time, normally arriving at 8:30 am and leaving 4:00 pm (crew stayed late when required).

Quotes for projects, in my case, were 15% lower than others performing the same tasks. When considering a budget of 10,000 or so this can be an added savings or backsplash depending how you look at it.

All of our projects were supervised by Jamie and he oversees them regularly.

Our projects were completed on-time and on budget, critically important for those on a tight or specific budget and crucial if you are borrowing funds from your local financially institution.

Finally, some of the things that cannot be quantified are the number of times that Jamie came by to make sure our family was ok during the reno process or the number of times when an odd job needed to be completed or during reno something extra needed to be rectified he did so many times without additional charges.

Last note, Jamie and his crews are polite, well dressed representing the company, punctual, and leave the work organized once they leave.

If you are considering a reno I highly recommend a conversation with Jamie, and I am sure you will agree that his abilities can fit your vision and pocket book.

Jamie Clark did a complete tear-out of our old ensuite, and installed a new high-end walk-in spa shower, together with all the tiling, insulating, exhaust fan, new vanity, etc. He was most accommodating to us, consulting us multiple times before we agreed to proceed with the project. While any renovation can be lengthy and disruptive, Jamie and his crew went to enormous lengths to get the work done and to clean up the job site. We were on a tight schedule, but Jamie and his crew worked to complete the project on time.

We would highly recommend Bruce Clark & Son Ltd to anyone interested in this kind of project.

We had Bruce Clark & Son in to do a tear apart and redo of the bathroom in our newly purchased home in 2007. We had to ask the bank for extra cash attached to the mortgage in order to be able to do so. Jamie, a son of Bruce's I'm assuming, did an decent job on the rough plumbing requests we had. (ie. move the toilet across the room). This is where our satisfaction ceased.

If they haven't done so already, I'm hoping that they soon stop billing themselves as renovators. They do plumbing. That's it.

Where to start?:

1. Jamie gouged us. Plain and simple - he took advantage of our naivete and took more money from us than he should have - in one instance charging us $1000 (ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS!) to remove and dispose of the old claw-foot tub.

2. They chipped our $3000 Maax bathtub when they temporarily placed the toilet in it. They admitted as much and offered to repair it, but that never happened.

3. The very expensive wainscoting kits that I bought were poorly installed. When I say poorly, I mean "brutally". Corners were not properly finished off or were mal-aligned. Cosmetic finishes installed backwards etc.

4. They made a decision to NOT move a wall 6 inches to allow for the tub. Huge mistake. With brute force, they wedged said 5' tub into a 4'8" opening. Sounds unbelievable right? No joke. It looks as if the wall is eating the back end of our tub.

5. They didn't add an access panel in the wall as mandated by law for all power-tubs. The inspector in charge of certifying our home for the bank's mortgage insurance came "this close" to failing us based on the mistake. In no uncertain terms, we almost lost our mortgage because of Jamie's team's inexperience. It literally almost cost us our home.

6. The crew would disappear for weeks/months without explanation. My wife and I would often baffle at how the house across the street was built from the foundation-up faster than it took for Jamie and team to reno a bathroom. (over five months).

7. They admitted to losing the cosmetic Porcher "nipple" that goes in the tap handle, then failed to replace it. Small thing but the fixture, as a result, looks ridiculous.

8. We recently had to have a plumber in to fix a water pressure issue we were having. When he opened the very expensive (AquaBrass™) fixture, he was aghast to discover that Jamie's team had soldered parts of the mechanism in place. Apparently this particular AquaBrass™ model doesn't need soldering. In fact, soldering basically ruins it - making future adjustments impossible. All of this on top of the fact that we didn't even want the AquaBrass fixture. I have emails specifically requesting that we put in matching Porcher™ fixtures. We should have been more vocal when we saw this sort of FAIL but we weren't living there and didn't know that he'd done this. Sigh.

I could literally go on for pages and pages but don't have the time or the heart to re-live the horrors of our unfortunate run-in with Bruce Clark and Sons Plumbing. It cost us more than we could bear over five months, and what we have at the end of it all is a shoddily assembled mass of very expensive fixtures and tiles.

To add insult to injury, I gave Jamie a fair, but unflattering review online later that year. He badgered me and bullied me, imploring me to take it down. I did not. Nor will I remove this fair and unflattering review of his horrible services rendered.

In the Spring of 2008, my wife and I hired Bruce Clark and Son for a major bathroom renovation. It was a costly decision that we subsequently came to regret.

I’m aware renovations don’t always go smoothly, however many of the mistakes made during ours were downright amateurish and sloppy, including:

- installing a marble window jamb in bathtub area with the unfinished side facing out (even though there was a large sticker on this side)
- installing visibly chipped and uneven tiles in the bathtub area.
- marble jambs surrounding bathroom window and niche do not line up properly
- having to cut a huge (approximately 2 sq ft) hole in newly installed drywall (which I paid over $400 for!) because no one had the foresight to line up the existing plumbing with the new vanity/sink. Fortunately, the vanity had a backer board, but I'm still left with a huge, unnecessary hole behind it.
- having to cut large holes in the same newly installed and finished drywall because new bathroom fan wasn't properly wired. Problem was corrected after "Jeff", who was clearly older and more experienced than those who performed most of the work on our bathroom, was brought in.
- tub faucet not flush with wall. Had to use silicone to bridge gap.
- wall studs surrounding tub should have been shimmed or sistered before putting up cement backer boards as uneveness caused boards to warp.

Then there were the annoying things, such as:

- Losing my house key and failing to inform my wife and me. Instead, we came home to find our house unlocked.
- Somehow a large red bucket disappeared after owner said one of his workers “cleaned it”.
- Failing to use plumber's tape around the shower head. Had to apply and tighten shower head myself because it was leaking. Easy fix, but this is Plumbing 101.
- silicone caulk in right-hand corner of bathtub wall niche (located opposite tub faucet) extended more than 1" beyond the grout line. I'm not talking about a small bead, but an area approximately 1.5" square! Also, why silicone the grout on the right side of the niche (the side least likely to get wet) and not the other three sides?
- spent considerable time scraping and wiping excess grout off bathtub tiles. I have had two different tile companies do work at my house, and both did a much neater job.
- installing the toilet seat without bothering to take off the toilet bowl sticker first. Had to remove and reinstall seat myself. Also had to scrape the sticker off the marble window jamb with the unfinished side facing out. Minor stuff, but nevertheless sloppy.
- leaving a two-inch cutting blade angled up on a towel in the bedroom hall area, where a child or someone could have seriously cut themselves. The blade was partly covered by the towel. Luckily, I saw it out of the corner of my eye.
- left side of new vanity countertop was not shimmed. Had to shim myself.
- nicked new acrylic tub.
- left reno debris and old bathroom mirror sitting in my garage for several weeks after repeatedly promising to pick up.
- frequently missed or late for appointments

Things got so bad that I ended up doing some of the finishing work (installing vanity knobs, caulking, etc.) myself as I no longer trusted their workmanship. I even had to go into my attic to resecure the bathroom exhaust ducting as it had come loose and was venting into the attic.

As I mentioned above, I know things don't always go smoothly during a renovation, and can tolerate the odd mistake or two or even three or four, however we are not talking about a few mistakes here. What upsets me the most is that many of them were completely avoidable, and not what one would expect from a supposedly reputable contractor. Btw, the $7,800 approximate cost does not include the cost of fixtures, which I purchased separately. The total cost was about 11K.

Jeff from Bruce Clark came last week to switch over a new bath tub and shower. He was quick and thorough. He was able to problem solve easily some hidden problems under the bath tub and got the job completed quickly. I would highly recommend Jeff and Bruce Clark and Company.