What Our Clients Say About Us
This is a long overdue rave review! I hired Stone Improvement to redo my little front concrete ‘yard’; clean up layers of ancient sealant and stain the area. Couldn’t be happier with the results. They answered my call promptly, explained the process before and as they went, showed up when they said they would, worked really hard, and finished on time. The process from A-Z was smooth as can be and their staining job is gorgeous. Stone Improvement are the guys to go to, it doesn’t get better than this.
5-21-2014 as seen on Yelp
I recently hired Stone Improvement to clean and seal several sets of outdoor granite stairs at my home. Several of the stairs had tar stains from the underlying waterproofing material that had leaked during last winter’s rains and none of the stairs had been sealed or caulked when they were originally installed a year ago. Nick came by the property to give me an accurate estimate and set expectations on what could be done. He and his team exceeded my expectations. The work was done professionally and at each step of the way, Nick provided me with an update on progress as it took several days to complete the work. The stairs that looked hideous before are almost as brand new. I cannot recommend Nick and Stone Improvements enough. Having been working with various contractors and vendors over the past several years through many renovations, I was most impressed with Nick and his professionalism and quality of work. Highly recommended.
10-29-2013 as seen on Yelp
“I just wanted to take the time to give my highest recommendation for John and Nick at Stone Improvement. I am a pretty picky customer who is a resident in The Infinity, one of the luxury high rise buildings here in San Francisco. In our master bathrooms we have beautiful limestone showers. Beautiful yes. . .but also high maintenance. Anyone who knows anything about limestone knows that it can be porous. That means possible stains, and difficult to keep appearance.
I have had some bad luck with particularly porous stone in my shower, but also a poor grouting and caulking job from the initial builder. It resulted in me not being able to use the shower for a very long time and using the guest bathroom shower. One very prominent company “sealed” the shower and did a very bad job, resulting in stains all over the place.
I then proceeded to contact a few stone restoration people. One other stone expert (who will remain nameless) who has very high reviews here on yelp made me extremely angry by calling my stone “cheap” and that “it would be very difficult to fix and he usually doesn’t do this kind of stuff anymore, and maybe I should consider putting a gloss on it, or maybe just replace it.” He wouldn’t even look at my pictures telling the whole story of what had transpired over the last 6 months, and how I was not able to use the shower. He quoted me a price of over $2,000 to take the stains away and re-seal it. I was appalled.
When I called John and Nick, from start to finish they have been nothing but empathetic and professional. They looked at all my previous pictures, and read my long email about the previous failure of the other contractor who tried to seal the stone prior. They were so knowledgeable, and told me they had seen the same issue with other limestone in the building, and that they could fix it. They quoted me a price that was 1/4 the price of the other contractor mentioned above, plus gave me a deal for having them re-seal the other stone items in my place.
The first time they sealed and re-caulked the stone it looked great. But what impressed me again was that some stains began to re-appear before I used the shower again for some reason. But rather than do what typical contractors do which is say “no, it’s not my fault,” they worked with me to try and figure out why this happened by having me talk to our head of engineering to ensure nothing else from other units was leaking in, and rethinking what they had done. John just kept saying “we want to do whatever it takes to make you happy.” We solved the problem, realizing, that all along it was the defect in the caulking/grouting that was the problem causing recurrent staining of the tile (which they had already re-done for me). They came back to my unit a second time to remove the stains that remained a second time and re-sealed everything at no extra cost to me.
I really appreciate their patience. I haven’t turned the shower on again after not using it for so long, but I am confident the problem is now solved.
They are truly the stone experts in the city. I’m as picky as they come, and I’m sure those in The Infinity would be similar–I recommend them to make even the most fussy customers happy. They also left me a cleaner to clean my stone with–claiming it will make the sealant last longer–which I found so honest since this would make me seek their business less. I will continue to hire them for years to come. Kudos!”
3-7-2011 as seen on Yelp
“I found Stone Improvement through Yelp a couple of months ago and was very satisfied with their service. I noticed that the stone tile around the toilet and the stone tile counter top in one bathroom were getting a white haze from the traditional bathroom cleaner I had been using. They told me the clean and seal service would not correct the problem and that the stone would have to be polished in order to return it to the original state. However, both areas did look much improved after their service. They also gave me a concentrated cleaner to use on the tile so the problem would not get any worse.
The guys were very professional and took great pains to ensure that no damage was done to my wood floors while they were doing their work on the bathrooms and kitchen counter top. The final cost was close to the estimate, but a bit higher due to some bar counter space in the kitchen they had not anticipated.
I would definitely recommend them for doing stone tile work and will plan to use them again in the future.”
12-19-2010 as seen on Yelp