Uggg. What a stressful project. Nate is tough to deal with. We met him in March. We wanted to…read moreget on the list early in the season as we heard he booked up quickly and you will never hear from him. We paid our deposit in March. We made several follow up and were delayed. On August 2, he sent me a text that he was showing up in 3 minutes. Good thing I was working at home. We start talking about the project. Now, he didn't want to do what we asked him to do back in March. Now, it seemed like he wanted to do what was quickest job so he could get his crew to the next site. Mind you, he had my deposit so there was no backing out now. After some back and forth, we agreed on the work needed. The project was supposed to begin on August 6. The next day, August 3rd, Nate sent me a text that the crew was arriving in 3 minutes. I was in a business meeting as it was the middle of the day. Nate asked me to remind the job leader of many tasks as Nate, the boss, wasn't coming to the job site. Now, me, the customer, had somehow become the foreman.
These guys made a mess. They wrecked my irrigation system. I planned to move some sprinkler heads due to their work, but in their haste, they just cut buried lines left and right. They moved my AC unit, per Nate's suggestion. They left it crooked and un-leveled. I had to deal with getting it moved back. They broke a gutter downspout and damaged newly planted trees. Their haphazard power washing took paint off my house and garage door (they were trying to clean concrete that they splattered). I have a video of the kid who did the power washing asking an older worker if he should tell me. The older guy told him not to let me know about it.
Overall, the concrete looked nice enough, but it was not perfect. There were flaws. Some caused by the workers. For example, one worker turned on the water spigot over fresh concrete. It caused corrosion. Nate promised to fix it, but that never happened.
Nate wanted to be paid in full before the work was done. He added a bunch of miscellaneous fees to the bill on the spot. For example, he wanted $350 for a downspout drain. He claimed I sent his worker shopping for it. I did no such thing. His workers damaged ours, but told me not to worry about it because they had one "at the warehouse." They showed up the next day with about $7.00 worth of mismatched PVC to replace it. To add insult to injury, when I was paying the bill, Nate told me to finish installing the drain (which they buried), myself.
We had freshly planted trees. Nate's crew leaned a Kubota tractor against them. Further, they laid large metal plates down which sunk in the ground. I took photos and videos throughout the project and incidentally captured what they did to our trees, which were all bent and leaning. I brought it to Nate's attention and his response was, "I'm not a landscaper."
All the neighbors warned me about Nate. They suggested that everyone knew Nate by name and continued to use him because there was nobody else in the area. However, everyone had the same story to tell about him. Be prepared.
The workers did not clean up. They left pop cans, candy wrappers, garbage, razor blades, and nails everywhere. I had to police the area nightly to clean up. I should have gotten a discount for all the work I had to do.
They will ruin your lawn and your neighbors, too. Both of my side neighbors came out talked with his crew multiple times as his workers were not respectful to their properties.
I had three big projects lined up for that summer: landscaping, exterior painting, and stamped concrete. We hired Nate first. He was last to start his project and he managed to ruin our landscaping and painting. We had painters, landscapers, deckers, and other contractors out, and he was by far the worst to deal with.
I sure hope his concrete lasts and was worth all the stress and aggravation. Yes, the concrete looked nice, but we had to rectify what they broke. I can tell you that the concrete needed to be resealed relatively quickly after installation.