I made a deal with Eric to re-grade the dirt around my house to keep water away. In the process he would make a new path and inspect and patch any problems against my house. Also he would put in a French drain to make the water flow away.
He arrived two hours late but with a crew and tractors. They scraped my grass and path away. His guys quickly hand dug and placed a pipe and rock and finished the French drain. They started a path smaller than I was expecting. I complained to Eric and he said $300 more for a wider path. I said yes ok. I informed him all water stuff flows towards my house and I think the French drain is much too high. He told me many times "it's fine. Don't worry about it." The next day they poured the cement and creek rocks all around as we agreed. When I was finally able to step out of my house the next morning I saw that all of my landscaping still went down toward my house and was never graded and my house was never inspected for cracks or repaired. I held back my second half payment and let him know that everything he did was wrong. He's very reluctantly came back a few days later and we made a list of items he had to do. He never actually fixed the French drain and barely graded the front of my house and made the biggest mess all over my street with thick globs of dirt which I have been scraping off myself over the past week. He does not take pride in his work and just wants a check. I tipped his labor as I always do. Funny, one of them asked me to keep a huge granite boulder found under my yard. I said sorry because it went with my large rock collection. He felt the need to make it disappear on the last day anyway. I guess he needed that rock more than I did. Get every single detail and measurement in writing from this guy first and make him do the French drain last as he should have known. read more