I employed Megasealed based on an outstanding recommendation from a colleague. Unfortunately, our experience has been very different.

After sealing, the shower still leaked. A second guy came out. It was better, but it still leaked. The first guy came out a second time. Again, better, but not 100%. Then the fun and games started in earnest. It was assessed by a non-technician, who said it "looked fine, apart from the leaking." One wonders if he knew what his company did. The next appointment was made and the guy didn't show. No one rang. I called back. I was promised it would be sorted before Christmas. This visit still hasn't happened. I was told I must attempt to let them fix it, and told to make myself available when their technician is available. I pointed out that I have now stayed home six times to let in someone about the same leaking shower, that my boss actually expects me to go to work and do my job, and that the story is pretty much sounding like the dog at my homework, at this point. This has become such a saga that I got holiday messages from friends wishing me a non-leaking shower in 2013.

I rang to suggest it's time for the money-back guarantee to be enacted and was asked to give them one last chance. I have agreed to this, but am wondering why I did. What's offered is a promise that the shower will never leak again and you'll only be inconvenienced for 48 hours as the shower dries out before and after. What's actually happened for us is that we've paid a lot of money to bring a lot of angst into our lives over a six month period and we've now had 6 weeks where the shower was out of action for 48 hours. I totally regret going this path, and wish I'd just taken the time to clean the shower thoroughly and then applied a product like Shower Plug to the tiles myself. It would have been a lot cheaper and it would have been over. I was worried that, as a non-professional, I might not get it quite right. I've since learned that the professionals don't always manage to get it right, either.

Approximate cost: $750

I ordered my coop online as the design looks to be very well thought out (I still think this, by the way). It was a little more expensive than coops of a similar size but seemed sturdier and as though more thought had gone in to it.

I was enormously disappointed, however, by the instructions and the after-sales service. I unpacked everything and was doing quite well until page 2, when it became apparent that there was no way in Hades that the ventilation chimney was going to attach to the panel - a panel which appeared in the illustrations but was not mentioned in the written instructions. After about 4 days I got an answer to my email query admitting that one step of the instructions had been left off and telling me that hundreds of other customers had managed just fine so if I sent a photo, I'd be told what *I* was "doing wrong."

I managed to hold my tongue on the tenor of the email, and send the requested photo. I got a 1-sentence response telling me to "swap and rotate the panels." I sought further clarification on this and asked what was meant by rotate the panels, since the instructions clearly state that the cut out pieces go on the bottom (and God knows, I'd read and re-read them when it all went wrong!) I then got another 1 sentence email admitting that that was the owner's mistake when writing the instructions.

Maybe it's just me, but I reckon that if you market a product as having easy to use clear instructions and being DIY, it probably shouldn't have 2 mistakes in the first two pages that require you to reassess where things might go and do the exact opposite of what the instructions tell you. Apparently the hundreds of other customers understood that by "make sure the cut-outs are at the bottom," what was meant was "make sure the cut-outs are the top." Perhaps they all have a background in carpentry. I don't. But I have constructed many things over the years, by carefully following instructions; ones that were actually right.

The company has also managed to ignore the part of my email where I queried why the discount for liking them on Facebook was not applied at checkout. I also asked in the additional comments of my order if we could try to get delivery to happen on a couple of particular dates when I could work from home. This was unacknowledged and ultimately ignored. Thankfully, the delivery guys dumped it on the verandah rather than taking the boxes back to the depot (which is what the checkout process advises will happen, for the security of your order), or they'd probably still be there.

Beyond disappointed, as I'd hoped to use this company again to extend our flock, maintain the coop with the oil they sell etc/. And I'm now very fearful of what other problems will arise when I take on the Chicken Coop, Round 2, this weekend, and attempt to complete it.

Approximate cost: $500

Great little business with personalised service. Sue makes a point of getting to know her customers and has a great memory for detail. My husband went to buy me some Dermalogica products for my birthday, and was most impressed that she knew exactly who I was and what I use. Dermalogica products are a little expensive, but the services (waxing, facials etc) are on a par with other providers who take a lot less care.

I love my trips to Scruples. The staff always greet customers politely. The service is fantastic -- I never feel as though I am rushed or that the hairdresser's attention is elsewhere. Little touches like massage chairs and personal attention make all the difference, and for a cost similar to other local hairdressers, it is a pleasant experience and I receive a high quality cut and colour.

This is a website designed to save families money. Free membership offers a monthly newsletter which always arrives the following month; paid membership offers access to Tips in the vault and a members' forum.

The tips, however, are sometimes very obvious and often recycled. The forum appears to be over-moderated and members are discouraged from posting dissenting opinions. There are a great many rules and there is a whole banning process posted on the site, which the Site owners sometimes appear to choose to circumvent. The owners' decisions are final when they offer warnings, and trying to query them seems to result in more warnings. Many emails, in my experience, remained unanswered, and I found the tone of correspondence received to be patronising in the extreme. My membership was ultimately refunded in what I can only categorise as an extraordinarily unprofessional manner.

For $47 pa ($17 after the first year), it can be a great social outlet for people who are otherwise isolated. The tips are OK, but nothing that can't be found elsewhere. The staff try their best, but don't appear, in my view, to be able to manage the sheer volume of alerts that are created by the long and subjective list of rules.

The site owner is fond of telling her members, "I really need you to lift your game," but I feel that this advice would be better applied to the business itself at the moment.