Kohler Awning

If you happen to go with this company, make sure when the installers come to your home or place of business that you are around or make sure your daughter, girlfriend, wife whoever is not around because some of these fellas will go out of their way to shamelessly ask any other individuals or fellow employees or whomever if your daughter/​wife/​girlfriend has a significant other and perhaps make suggestive comments directed at them. A real class act.

I purchased a home with a fairly large kohler awning already installed and although not my taste, enjoyed its functionality for one season before I ran into trouble. Awning is fitted off the back of a 2100 square foot colonial for reference… pretty standard.
I was scheduled for early april installation, and sure enough the guys showed up with my awning april 1^st. Unfortunately, 45 minutes later, I went out back expecting to find my awning and it was not installed.
None of the installers knocked on the door to tell me any change in plans, so I was very confused.
I contacted Kohler a few days later to find out what was the matter and there seemed to be some confusion as to the source of the issue.
An hour or so later I received a call from one of the owners telling me that unfortunately my awning has some damage and could not be installed. He said there was a tear in the fabric. I said, that is strange because there was no tears in it when they took it down last fall (I pay kohler each fall to remove and store my awing, then again to reinstall in the spring). He said my options were to patch and maybe it makes it through the season, or full replacement.
I said that I would like to see the awning in person and view the damage and he politely offered to meet with me and explain.
In my estimation, one of their installers managed to put a 2 foot rip in the middle of my awning. Mr. Kohler stated that these things happen when the awnings age, mine being 9 years old. He said 10 years was the expected life span. He then continued to grab the fabric assessing it as near paper thin, due to the sun exposure over the years. I grabbed the fabric with my hands and stepped on the other end with my feet and proceeded to try my best to rip it apart, but alas me, at 6’3 225lbs, could not tear this feeble fabric!
He offered to patch the awning, albeit with a glue patch as it cannot be sewn in the vital spot the tear occurred.
Other options included full replacement of fabric with a 15% discount (5% bump over the prorated discount given to a awning that fails in 9 years… apparently within 5 years its covered 100%). This option would cost me around $ 3300 and while it wasn’t exactly shocking, I was disappointed that I landed in this predicament due to damage that occurred by the professional installers, whom I pay a few hundred a year to install and store my investment.
So much for having it made in the shade.

I didn’t want to review them b/​c they clearly spam the reviews and get people to rate them highly. But I will try to write a fair review.
Four stars for taking good care of my awning and for installing during the time period that I specified. They come without warning and put it up, plain and simple — very convenient!
I can’t give them the full 5 stars simply because they’re expensive. $ 150 give or take to store the awning every year and then an extra fee for installation and take down. Very pricey! That said, it is more convenient to have an awning that can come down every year — saves on wear and tear.

So sad to give this place a bad review because the folks seem pretty nice and I am sure they are good at their job, but I was really shocked by a bill I received from them.
I moved into a new house and received a bill for storage of awnings. We didn’t know the house had awning and we contacted the former owner. He said «oops forgot about them» so we decided to pay the storage on the awnings even though we didn’t know what they looked like or what condition they were in. We were a little sad that they sent us the bill at the end of summer so we hadn’t had the opportunity to enjoy them during the summer — but such is life.
Fast forward to this summer. We called Kohler back to learn how we could get the awnings that they had for us. They said «Oh we can come install them. Would you like us to do that?» I readily agreed. I had wanted to be there when they installed them so I could learn how they work, but they just kinda appeared installed one day a week later. Then another week later we got a bill for $ 90. At no point had they mentioned that it cost anything additional to install them (we had already paid for a year of storage). I think it is common courtesy if not good business to let someone know that you will be charging them for a service and what that service will be. I had made it clear to them that I had never used their service before and didn’t know how it worked.
So maybe this is generally a good place to buy awnings and maybe even a good place for taking down/​storing/​installing awnings (if you wanna may over $ 200 a year). For some reason, I just can’t bring myself to give them 1 star because their service people and products are probably good, we are just very sad about our communications with them.
EDITING MY REVIEW TO ADD A STAR. Owner called me personally to understand my problem and took $ 45 off the bill. Still not sure I will use their service again but I appreciate them trying to make things right.