My Disastrous Experience with Leroy Merlin's Ceiling Installation Services

We're in the middle of a major renovation project at our countryside home, and we're looking for a company to install our ceiling. I've been a loyal customer of Leroy Merlin for years, and I've always had a good experience with the company - it's a big, well-known, and reliable brand. We buy most of our renovation materials from them, and we even ordered a kitchen from them 7 years ago. This time, we're looking for ceiling installation. We didn't even consider other companies because we thought Leroy Merlin would do a great job.

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We contacted Leroy Merlin through their website form, and a manager called us to schedule a measurement. The measurer who came to our place was a nice guy in his 30s. We discussed our options, chose the design, and took some photos to get an estimate. At this point, we were a bit concerned about the price - the average market price for ceiling installation is around 1000-2000 euros per square meter, including materials and installation. They quoted us 100,000 euros for 18 square meters. We thought, okay, let's see the breakdown and we'll figure it out.

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While we waited for the detailed quote and checked if the materials were available, we read some reviews online. We were shocked by the number of complaints about poor installation quality, unprofessional consultants, and so on. But this is Leroy Merlin - they have thousands of customers, and maybe some people just had a bad experience or made a mistake. Although, there were some interesting reviews where the installers just left the job unfinished or cut the electricity cables. Okay, we thought, let's wait for the quote.

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The next day, we received a completely uninformative quote with a bunch of unclear options and a final price:

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If you can't see the image:

When I saw the estimate for my kitchen, bathroom, and sauna ceiling, I was shocked. We've got square rooms with a maximum width of 2.8 meters, straight walls, MDF on the walls, and 3mm PVB laminate in the bathroom. Under the finish, it's 12mm GKL, 12mm OSB, and a wooden beam. No fancy constructions or features needed – just a standard tension ceiling with wall mounting on an aluminum profile. The current ceiling is clad with boards, and there are a few vents. What do we see in the estimate? A complex metal beam run, insulation on the ceiling, and some kind of air conditioner (which isn't even there). The price tag is a whopping 125,000 rubles! I'm writing to the manager, feeling a bit disappointed and frustrated, because the estimate isn't informative, lacks specificity, and I have no idea where this cost comes from. 18 square meters for 125,000 rubles? That's 7,000 rubles per square meter, Karl! It looks like the ceiling is made of solid gold, cast by the Pope himself. The manager just sent me a generic response, and I'll let that slide.

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exchange with the manager 1 – not an adequate price exchange with the manager – my understanding of pricing xa0

After that, things took a turn for the worse (spoiler alert: the contractor changed the design more than 5 times, trying to deceive me and make me look like an idiot, even going so far as to be openly dishonest).

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The manager told me I'm a super client, so they'd consider giving me a discount. Just 20 minutes later, I got a new estimate. This time, they even took my request for specificity into account. The discount is 40,000 rubles! It's nice that they reduced the price by 30%, but it's still way too high for such a small area. It's like they're just making up numbers out of thin air. I thought, okay, let's break down what they're charging:

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Quote 2 - A Ton of Extras at a DiscountA 15,000 Ruble Obstacle CourseWe went with 1,500 square meters of Italian fabric, supposedly top-notch quality. I'm not sure, but at an average 350-500 square meters, it's a real budget-buster. However, it's tolerable for us.

Installing 20 LED spotlights will set you back 20,000 rubles. We're basically lighting up a museum with heavy crystal chandeliers (and we've got them installed and connected, no less). It takes 5 minutes to remove them and reattach them to the anchor.

We also installed some mystical 7 chandeliers for 14,000 rubles. We don't even have any chandeliers - just one in the kitchen and 4 in the bathroom and 4 in the sauna.

And of course, more insulation.

It's absolute madness...

I'm already fed up and writing to the manager, telling him we don't have any insulation, and trying to figure out where this wooden beam came from. The conversation quickly descends into chaos, with the manager making up some nonsense on the fly and unable to give a straight answer. He claims it can't be attached to plastic, then says it can, and can't decide where to put the metal profile - in the bathroom or the kitchen. He's got the poor technician stumped, and convinces me that there's insulation on the ceiling, and somehow a ceramic tile appeared in the bathroom. I don't know if the technician was real or a master, but if he was, I'd recommend ordering the ceiling tiles from Leroy Merlin, with installation, not to mention the cost and danger involved. I've never seen such a level of 'genius' before:

Email exchange with the manager after the discount, trying to come up with a solution for the obstacle course and insulationxa0

Email exchange with the manager, who basically gave upI got a call from the measurer an hour later, asking what had happened and if there were any issues with the kit. I explained that I didn't need the insulation, special fasteners, or any kind of batten, since the PVB tile is easy to drill into. The measurer started telling me some wild story about how the techs had told him that in bathrooms, you're only supposed to attach the tile to the ceiling because the tile will warp and the ceiling will sag. I mean, come on. I repeated the construction of our sandwich to him:

3mm SPC (PVB)

12mm dense, water-resistant GKL

12mm OSB

150mm batten

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— (Me) What kind of screws are you planning to use to attach to the mesh? Two millimeters?

— (Measurer/Master) No

— Then what's the problem? Why all the extra labor when you can just screw it into the wall?

— Well, the techs said that's how it's supposed to be, I'll discuss it with them and recalculate the quote for you

— Okay, and can you please replace the manager? I think the guy's not quite right in the head?

— Send me the email exchange with the manager

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No revised quote or answers to my questions were sent. It's now morning. At 9:30, I get a new quote. I'm expecting it to be a joke, but I open it anyway. It's interesting to see that the first one was formatted one way, the second another, and the third was even on a Yandex Disk (I guess they just scatter the specs around the office). Let's take a look:

Quote 3, they removed everything but the extra light fixturesMy first impression was that some items were missing, they removed the metal frame and insulation, and the price went down, but somehow 7 extra light fixtures popped up for 14,000 rubles =))) I'm writing to the manager again, knowing that I'll probably never order from them and they're just trying to jack up the price, but I'm curious to see how they'll react if they remove all the extras?

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Manager, new quote, new scamsAnd then it hit me - bingo! I think they've finally reached the point where they can't scam me anymore, they've got nothing left to add, so they'll probably remove these pesky light fixtures and the price will be fair. If they fix it, maybe I'll order, but I'll read a few dozen reviews first.

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Can you smell the scam? I could:

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I fixed the quote - removed the light fixtures, removed the discountxa0

The manager removes the light fixtures and... removes the discount for the exact same amount!

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No one wants to scam you anymore ))))I'm being honest, at this point I was just furious, such blatant dishonesty, it's just ridiculous. And this is Leroy Merlin?!?! Seriously? A major company like that, and behind the scenes it's just a bunch of scammers making a profit off people, without even trying to hide it.

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My conversation with this company's manager ended abruptly, and I ended up calling another company. Thanks to Leman Pro for wasting my week and the hassle. I hope someone reasonable in their quality control department sees this review.

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Let me put it bluntly - steer clear of this outfit. You don't need to bother with their services. They don't deliver like Leroy Merlin, their work is subpar - I've already found hundreds of reviews to back that up. They overcharge (their markup on top of the contractor's fee) and flat-out lie about the prices. I'm not sure about their tech team, but from the chat, I wouldn't risk it - they can't tell the difference between insulation and cladding, and they can't even screw a simple plastic screw into place, justifying it with some nonsense about sagging ceilings due to plastic degradation. The worst part is, people who've never done any DIY work will fall for this and pay triple the cost. I hope this review saves someone the hassle of finding a decent company.