Muskoka Wood Decks & Fencing

On 4 May 2016 Mr. Sorrenti represented his company to provide a quote for work to expand an existing deck on our house, install stairs, 2 fence gates and replace a few fence boards for our back fence. Start date for the work was supposed to begin on 25 May. He was a no show. No contact or explanation for not showing up was provided. 30 May, started work. His employees left food containers and garbage on our site. No work or communication until 9 June until we asked via email for an update on the status of our projects. 17 June, demolished our old back fence due to rot. This required it to be rebuilt and delayed construction of the deck. Mr. Sorrenti requested another deposit which we provided for this work. 28 June, no show since 18 June. Advised us on 30 June that he was attending his father-in-law’s funeral in Montreal. He stated he would be at the house on 4 July to re-start the work. We later discovered after reading another review on this site that he had given another customer a similar story. An email search for an obituary that seemed to be his father-in-law was found that showed a man who passed away a few years ago and not the dates in question.

On 7 July Mr. Sorrenti removed the safety rails on the ends of our existing deck in order to start working on the deck extension, therefore making it unsafe to use. The deck is over 9 feet above grade. Mr. Sorrenti dug 9 holes for the new planned deck posts and attached a ledger board to our house. I asked Mr. Sorrenti if he had gotten permits for the deck work since he agreed that he would take care of all the permits and contact with the city building office. He stated that the permit application had been started several weeks ago and it was just waiting to be finalized. 16 July, Mr. Sorrenti sent an email with forms to allow him to act as our agent for the city to acquire building permits which were dated 15 July. Clearly, he had not started to permit process when he had stated he had back at the beginning of July.

19 July, Mr. Sorrenti called to advise us that our permit, as we had planned and discussed with him back in May, could not be approved without a variance. The wait time for the variance would be 6 weeks. I contacted the city office building department to confirm when Mr. Sorrenti had first contacted them regarding the permits and plans and they stated it had been 15 July so not back in June as he alluded to. We challenged him on this and he offered and we agreed to a refund. We also told him his services were no longer required. 9 Aug, after several emails and calls he finally answered his email and stated a bunch of personal reasons for the delays regarding the refund and he would get us the refund by the end of Aug. Never happened. I ran into him in Barrie at the beginning of Sept and confronted him about the refund. He stated “Take me to court”.

In the end, another contractor had to complete the deck. Upon initial inspection by the city building inspector of the work done by Mr. Sorrenti, several items of his work were found to be inadequate and needed correction. The post holes as dug were found to be inadequate for depth. Three unnecessary large holes had been dug that weren’t required because of his lack of diligence in obtaining permits before he started the work and there was subsequent destruction of the lawn from this and where the earth had been piled around the yard. They needed to be filled in and re-seeded. The ledger board that was attached to the house had joist hangers installed that had one side cut off because they were attached next to a bolt. So rather than correctly attaching the joist hanger, Mr. Sorrenti cut them, defeating the intended purpose and strength of the item. The building inspector stated he would never had passed the work had it been left in this manner.

Based on my experience, I would not advise using this company.

Michael Sorrenti of Muskoka Decks & Fencing signed a contract with me to install a wood fence on 2 sides with a rear chain link fence at the back of our house and extend our deck,I gave Michael a deposit of $3500.00 to start the job on the 17 Oct. 2016 when he did not show on the 17 I phoned several time finely after a week he called and said his uncle had died and he had to attend the funeral and that he would be there the following week he showed up with no material and started to dig some holes for fence posts and disassembling our deck, he left the following day and said he would see me the next day, the next day no Michael so I tried to phone several times the following the next few days but no return call so I emailed and told him if I did not hear from him I would start a court claim, I Immediately received an email stating that Michael was sick and that he would be here and all the material delivered to our address the following week Michael showed up with 4 posts and some cement for a fence that required 20 posts, he installed 2 posts and again disapared, when he did not show again I called and threatened with court he said he would be here with all the material in a couple of days as he had left his trailer here he showed up and took his trailer but no material materialized, again I told him to return my deposit and his answer to that was that he no longer wanted to work for me and that he would return a part of the deposit less the work he had done so far I have not heard from him.

As you can see by the pictures he tore the stairs from my deck and mostly destroyed the stringers and railing and left me with no fence. I don't think this man is a professional.

Please do not hire this man.

STILL NO REFUND AS PROMISED OF OUR $3500.00

Within two months of install...the 2x4 shifted.....one year warrenty.

I called.emailed ....Michael promised he will be out in sept...too busy when I called ,emailed in june..

Guess what no show....he bailed and closed business.

He didn't own where he lived in utopia....just leased the house and garage / shop.

Do not use him

I'm sure he will start up another business...beware.

All looks good on paper...2504742 ontario inc.

Takes visa . Mcard. Amex.

Don't use this business...

Our experience with Michael met all expectations, he provided insightful ideas. Even though we were tying into an existing fence we changed style from friendly neighbor to a completely closed in look the finished look is great. In fact my neighbor was so impressed he hired Michael to fence in his yard. Having the work done and finished in a timely manner was much appreciated. We would not hesitate to hire him again or recommend to friends.

Michael did a great job with our fence and walkway. The winter caused the edging of the walkway to sag a bit but Michael should be out to fix it this year.

Great quality of work, on schedule. Contractor provided feedback throughout, including how to approach some challenges.

Michael ...Muskoka fencing did his work in a timely matter . Not rushed , made my backyard clear and tidy.

My dog likes her new space, and I like the new treated wood that was suggested.

Thank you for all your patience and hard work.

C. Thomas, Angus, Ont

They provided a reasonable price and done it according to schedule.

I hired Micheal to replace my backyard fence. Micheal was a friendly man, got the job done in a very timely manner and the fence looks great. He did not hesitate to answer any of my questions, he addressed every concern of mine and he guided me throughout the whole build. I'm not much of a handy person when it comes to wood construction so having him do this for me was a great relief. I would not hesitate to hire him when I need more work done and I would recommend him.

Updated July 2016 :I hired Michael from Muskoka Wood Decks and Fencing to install a concrete pad for my shed summer 2015. I thought Michael knew what he was doing, what a complete disaster! The rear side of the pad needed to be reinforced due to slope of our grading. Michael used fence boards to hold in the large amount of gravel. These boards would not hold back the gravel. The concrete surface was also very rough. Had several contractors come in and look the job and was determined the concrete pad had to be removed and rebuilt properly. This was due to the gravel under the pad giving way and our pad sliding into our neighbors yard.

Michael was contacted and after a long delay in responding due to illness Michael agreed to refund my money. After several months no refund. Very costly mistake going with Michael and his company! Michael has verbally and in email promised to refund my money. Never happened. NO REFUND! Michael once again promised a refund by end of June 2016, ONCE AGAIN NO REFUND AS OF END OF JULY. Buyer beware!!