This is the kind of review I love to write - all positive…read more
After 45 years, my retaining wall holding my driveway succumbed to the elements, and termites. It was about 30 feet long, 3 to 5 feet tall, made of redwood, and falling apart. Redwood rots! It had to be replaced.
I had observed the Perkins guys building a 10 foot tall, complicated, concrete foundation wall for a new home. I had met Austin Perkins on site and decided that he was who I wanted to do my wall work. So, I hired Perkins Grading & Underground Company to replace my retaining wall with concrete. His bid was fair and reasonable.
The first day was spent demolishing the old wall and digging the footings. Demo took only 2 hours. Digging the footing was hard work because my soil is mostly broken shale. Day 2 and 3 were spent assembling the rebar and building the forms, and on the 4th day we pumped in 6 yards of colored (standard "Sandstone" at $25/yard extra) concrete. At just the right time, the forms were striped and the finishing work began. Finishing took about 4 hours. With concrete, timing is critical.
The form construction was a little challenging since I live on a hill and two large oak trees had to be contended with. Carlos spent two days jackhammering old concrete footings for removal.
At the end of each day, they used a leaf blower to completely clean the construction site and carefully stack building materials out of the way.
Austin's guys are the best - Omar, Carlos, Robert, Jose, and Superintendent Jesus. How can you go wrong with Jesus in charge? I just told Austin what I wanted to accomplish, in general, and specifically, regarding details such as size, shape, color, radius in the internal and external corners, finish, etc. He relayed that information to Jesus who instructed the crew about what was required. Nothing was lost in translation - every detail that I communicated to Austin was ultimately transmitted to the team.
They worked extremely well as a team and it was obvious that they liked working with each other. There was no wasted motion and very little communication required as everyone knew exactly what to do. I found that the team members were professional, friendly, and accommodating. As questions came up, we discussed the issues and quickly decided on solutions. I guess you could say we were all on the same page.
Even the concrete pumper guy, Jose, was quite friendly.
In my 60 years of project management (Hewlett Packard, Apple, Plantronics, and others), I have met and worked with numerous contractors. I have found that nice guys hire nice guys and Perkins is no exception. They treat employees well which creates loyalty and they work hard. Beats having to constantly train new people as disgruntled employees resign. It's amazing how few companies get it.
I have never seen a crew perform the finishing like the Perkins guys do. It was fascinating to watch them take six yards of wet blobby concrete and transform it into a beautiful retaining wall. They were incredibly meticulous and careful and must have gone over the concrete about 20 times with various floats, trowels, radius tools, brooms and brushes - over and over again until the surfaces were perfect and the texture exactly what I wanted. And it was obvious that they were happy with the results also.
So, if you need concrete work, who ya gonna call? Why,
Perkins Grading & Underground, of course - they are absolutely the company for you.