Caledonian Windows & Conservatories

Caledonian knocked down our conservatory and replaced it with an orangery. The actual work done and finished product we are very happy with, but the management and timeline of the project fell way short of the standards we expected from ‘The pride of Ayrshire’. The contract written up stated the work would only take 4 weeks but actually took 8 weeks for all major works to be complete, which had been a major influence in our decision to employ Caledonian to carry out the works, and was questioned before making the decision. When this issue was brought up with the managing director we were told that the salesman was only being ‘enthusiastic’ about the time scale of the project. The sealed units for the windows had manufacturing defects (glass marked on the inside of the sealed units), which was brought to the attention of Caledonian but we were told that the sealed units would not be replaced until we paid the final balance as the guarantee would not be active until we had paid the full amount (also if the balance was not paid at this point we were told we would be charged additional penalty costs), however the products fitted had manufacturing defect before fitting and should have been subject to quality control inspection before fitting by the manufacturer and those providing the fitting service. The sealed units had to be replaced a further twice after paying the final balance, for the exact same reason again, due to poor quality control/checks before fitting and brought to Caladonians attention again by myself. After the final amount was paid I had to chase for the completion paperwork which was eventually submitted by Caledonian at the end of May. We still had no completion paperwork by mid-July and checked the status of the building warrant online to find out that completion had been refused shortly after submission due to lack of evidence of construction methods and missing electrical drawings. I myself had to forward photographs of construction to Caledonian for the completion to be approved, even though Caledonian knew the council had not seen certain stages of the build and should have taken photos for evidence. We were eventually informed mid-August that the Council had approved completion, 4 months after completion of the build. Despite the poor management practices encountered the tradesmen were all very polite, very experienced in their field, and the work was completed to a high standard. This review was submitted to Caledonian for comments before posting on other sites. I received a call from the managing director commenting that the review was very fair.