Jackson Tile No Longer In Business

Chris came in I gave him 40% deposit two weeks prior, he was there when he said he completed the project , my wife referred him to her sister and he has done three jobs within our family, and I must say I was afraid to let him do the tile but he presented and explained the process from start to finish and he nailed it I did not experience any issues with him or his helper they were clean efficient and in and out, thx Chris

My advice to readers: take a gamble with someone else. I think Chris at Jackson Tile has proven, based on the reviews on this site alone, he has failed too many times and should not earn your consideration. There are great people out there who put their heart and soul into their work and your project for the same price. I strongly recommend looking elsewhere.

My experience, in a nutshell:

My wife and I just finished building our house. We hired all of the contractors and trades to complete the various tasks at hand. Despite going through ups and downs throughout the 6 month project, we've had no worst dealings than with Chris at Jackson Tile. I only wish I would have read the reviews online before signing a deal with him. Anyways, we now sit with unfinished tile work in our home, and, go figure, Chris is no longer coming back to complete the work. We had an agreement that stipulates the scope of work, the project schedule and payment terms. A big part of the problem is that our deal was meaningless to him.

1. The schedule: what was suppose to be 9 days of work ended up taking 2 months... but those 2 months only got us to 75% completion. He did, however, start on time. But, after working here for a couple of weeks, he left and was impossible to get back to complete the remaining tasks. His reasons for not coming back? Too many to list here.

2. Payments: The agreement was for cost of materials up front and the remainder (i.e. cost of labour) upon completion of the work. This is not out of the ordinary with small trade contractors. As the project got underway, he consistently requested for advancements (not per our agreement). His ultimatum to us: No pay? No work!

3. Scope of Work: We supplied him with the tiles, he was responsible for all other materials. The workmanship for tiles that they installed is decent, however, there are some careless mistakes that really stand out and will end up costing us money to fix.

In the end, we had no choice but to fire him. Thankfully, I didn't pay him for more than what was completed; however the headache continues since we're left with a significant amount of tiles to complete the project.

I was a little scared because I read the above reviews AFTER I gave Chris the deposit but I'm glad I decided to give him a chance.
He knows his job .Great work. My kitchen looks amazing. Chris did an awesome job.

Horrible experience, needed kitchen floor leveled and tiled so tile floor would be 17 mm higher than existing floors in adjacent rooms(for hardwood installation later) , bought all tiles myself, hired Chris to install. Mistake was not to put on paper the agreement. Chris started tiling. but in the washroom, not kitchen, and of course ran out of tiles, demanding more money to finish the job. And argued that we agreed on kitchen and washroom tiling. 75 % of the time Chris was not there to do the job, he had an apprentice doing it. In the course of 4 days, he demanded money installments 3 times, and naively, I gave it to him. End result,- kitchen floor was not leveled before underlayment, which resulted in tiles having hump in the middle of the room, finished tiles laid level with existing floors in living room and bedroom, so new hardwood would have to have unnecessary step into kitchen, floor in the washroom ( the one Chris forced on me) was tiled over heat register and partially over toilet receptacle ,window opening corners were done not plumb, tub in washroom never cleaned from mortar that dried hard to clean, dirty used pales and pile of cigarette butts left in my driveway, key to the apartment never returned, I had to change the locks. Receipt issued was only signed, without company name or address, so I can not use the receipt for Revenue Canada tax report. I would not be surprised if guy never claims these jobs as income, so sneaky he is .He introduced himself as Fernando , middle name Ceasar, but signed receipt as Chris. Advertised on KIJIJI a lot. Do NOT hire him. It is worth to pay few dollars extra but to reputable company . This guy gives all trades people bad name.

My Horrible experience with Jackson Tile.

I had been looking for a tiller to redo our entire first floor (from the entrance to the kitchen) and found Chris. He came by and seemed like a standup guy. We decide to go with him. He asked for a deposit to confirm the install date which was 2 months away. He was very pushy to get the deposit which I was not keen on but proceeded with it as he said it was to cover the material. On the day of the install I called him and this guy was not going to show up. His answer when he picked up the phone was “Is the installation today?”. I lost my confidence there. He did end up coming that day however. This should have been my first red flag as he didn’t even have his scheduling in order. He came that day and ripped up most of the floor and at the end of the day asked for more money for materials. I thought my original deposit was for materials, but he wanted more money. This should have been my second red flag. Then he missed one day of the install. He had agreed to be here for 5 days to do the tiling job but misses one day saying he has an appointment. This is on top of not being on time every other day. This was another red flag. Once the tiles were laid, he had told me that he had laid more tiles than agreed to therefore he wanted more money. Another redflag. He measures incorrectly and low balls the quote then says there is more square footage and demands more money. This is an unethically practice. I ended up paying the extra. After the entire job was done I had paid him in full. I was not able to walk on the floor as it was just grouted therefore thought he had done a good job (viewing from a far).

The next day when the grout dried, there was crazy lippage all over. This was a horrible tile job. Each tile was up and down. I immediately called Chris and he gave me attitude that someone had walked on the tile. There was no one living in the house for someone to walk on the tiles. Even if someone had walked on the tiles, there might have been a few tiles showing lippage but this was on all the tiles. He blamed everyone and the actual tile, and never accepted that he did something wrong. After a month of calling him, he comes by to take a look at the job. He admits that it was a bad tile jobs and says he will make it right. Still doesn’t accept that it was his tiling job that was done incorrectly. Since he was going to redo the tiling for free, I agreed to buy more tiles. He comes the next day and starts ripping the tiles. On the second day of repair he calls me and says I need $1000 or I’m walking. This is with half my floor ripped up. This was blackmail at this point. He knew he had me cornered and used this to his advantage. I had no choice as at this point we were living in the house and I said yes. He finished the job and left. The repair job was just as bad as the original job. The repair job also had lippage and on top of that he installed numerous chipped tiles (in the pictures). Not sure if he is blind and can’t see the chipped tiles. Now I have to hire someone else to rip out the entire floor and redo the work. I should have cut my losses and moved on after the original install. I was fooled by this man. My experience with Chris is exactly what a victim on the Mike Holmes show experiences.
The sad part is that he uses Mike Holmes as a reference and makes claims that he will be on his show and his rates will go up after his guest appearance. He claims he has 20 years of experience but 20 years of doing something incorrectly is not the same of solid 20 year experience.

My advice: Avoid him like the black plaque. If you do go with him for some odd reason, don’t give him a deposit and don’t pay him in full until 2 days after the install so you can assess the crappy install. You would be better off trying to install the tiles yourself. The results might be the same or better. If I can give a negative rating I would but due to homestars I have to stick with a 0. He is polite until he gets the contract and your money and then he is arrogant. He does not stand behind his work. He claims he offers a 3 year warranty, but the warranty is not worth the paper it’s written on. How would anyone stand behind their warranty when they blame everyone else?
DO NOT HIRE HIM unless you have money to throw in the garbage or want to be on the Mike Holmes show as a victim of a contractor.
Reasons for the bad tile job: I am not a tiling expert but here are the reasons why I think he screwed up my tile job:

1) He rushed the job (was supposed to be a 5 day job but finished it four days as he missed a day)
2) Didn’t use leveling clips (I was going with 24 x 12 tiles)
3) Didn’t level the floor properly and bad prep job
4) Doesn’t care about the customer
5) Don’t think he used the correct mortar
6) Cut corners

Keywords so this shows up on google search: Jackson Tile, jacksontile, Chris, Cesar, Caesar, Soares, Christopher, Cambridge, 226-749-2458, 2267492458, Kijiji, #803907203, 803907203

Iwas very disturbed to see a negative review aboutjackson tile.being an owner of many dwellings as well as several businesses i have has the pleasure of using jackson tile for several years and have also referred Chris to many friends.I can certainly say that never once have i had a problem with him hiis crew nor his proffesional nor his personal demeanor.this man has worked tirelessly not to mention professinally at the many many jobs he has done for me.sometimes i believe its pure spite for people to bash companies and its a crying shame as i have seen only an honest hardworking and talented tradesman and would absolutely put my name on the line for this young man.i have used and fired dozens before finding a good one and i plan on continuing to trust him with all my tiling projects as he always goes above and beyond.

Many red flags I did not see with Chris "Caeser" Soares of Jackson Tile. He comes to your house and talks a mile a minute and is very negative--red flag #1. When you need to contact him, he has no voice mail and doesn't call back unless he is getting $--red flag #2. He asks for money in advance,--red flag #3. I gave it to him (trusting and foolish). He doesn't show up to do the job on schedule and gets his wife to call saying he is sick--red flag #4. He never called back after that. We had to call him from several different phones, that he didn't know the number, or he wouldn't pick up--red flag #5. He finally brought the heating cables, but by this time we had found someone else to do the floor. He told me he wasn't sure how to install the cables but that my husband and him could figure it out. We were more than skeptical at this point and we read a negative review on Homestars--red flag #6. We were unable to reach him again to tell him we didn't need the cables and that we were going with someone else--red flag #7. We finally reached him but again on a different phone--red flag #8. My husband got frustrated with the whole thing and confronted Chris--he got angry and hung up on us--red flag #9. We were all out of phones. I email transferred $470.00 to Chris and were only able to recover $300 on the heater cables after having to return them to a store in Hamilton which took a few hours out of our day to do. So all in all we lost $170 , had no floor installed and wasted 3 weeks of time running after this guy. I guess it's a small price to pay for learning a big lesson and that is not to pay people up front and check reviews. Don't hire this person unless you want an extreme run around and a headache.