First, a caveat: I really don't like Yelp. It is unfair to a lot of businesses because it filters reviews. Yelp claims this is in the interests of fairness, but that is crap. We own a business that has gotten two bitchy reviews and a whole bunch of 5 star reviews. ALL of the 5 star reviews have been filtered out. Want to know the whole story on a company? Look for the charcoal "FILTERED" below posted reviews and read those, too. Even when I have offered to send Yelp the names, addresses, phone numbers and dates of stays of the reviewers, they have haughtily refused, saying that information is "irrelevant." If Yelp's alorithm is incapable of weeding out the phony reviews posted by competitors, and if it does weed out legitimate reviews filled with detail, what good is it?
However, I am giving you enough detailed information about this company so that you can decide for yourself if Don's is worth the risk; I know Yelp is not.
We first had Don come pave our driveway two years ago. He bugged out soon after the Bobcat work to attend a court case with his ex-wife, leaving his brother and crew to do the paving. They did a clean, nice job and put a slurry coat on top of it the same day.
That's when the trouble began. It was very hot, and every time someone drove into the driveway, they gouged it. Very soon after, we discovered the promised depth of 2" was in fact 1/2" in many places.
Just some of what we learned since then:
1.) You don't put a slurry coat over fresh asphalt because it doesn't cure right. Don blamed his brother (whom he claimed he fired soon after).
2.) One of Don's competitors claims Don bids low because he intentionally shorts customers on the depth of asphalt.
3.) It wasn't until my husband threatened a small claims court case that Don returned our calls.
To Don's credit, when he came up and looked at the driveway, he put it in writing that he'd come back the next year to lay additional asphalt, but neither he nor we could coordinate a time to do this.
He did come back in the fall of 2012. He then offered us a $2500 discount if we would just let him patch the thin spots where we knew we had a problem. The trouble with that was, who knew where all the thin spots were? We had him go over the whole thing and it looks good, although by adding material by our garage, where water runs off the drive, he created a place where there is now standing water after a rainfall. Had this been excavated and asphalted properly the first time, it wouldn't have happened.
Here is where it really gets interesting: We asked Don for bids on two more properties. This time, we were going to be a lot more watchful, making sure we got the full 2." One of the jobs was for a new entrance to an old driveway that connects to the county road. We pulled a building permit for the new cut, which was done several months ago.
The heavy equipment operator who did that job works with Trinity County all of the time and was confident about the requirements for Don to pave the whole thing and make the inspector happy. He had done the initial work well and was clear on what Don needed to do.
So Don gave us a signed bid on that job and was to meet with my husband and the inspector the next day to go over it. It is very difficult to schedule anything with the county, because their hours are so limited, so we were glad to get the appointment, especially since the weather is turning.
That night, Don called and told my husband that he was having second thoughts. He waffled on the job requiring the inspection by the county, saying it was too hard, not doable, should cost twice what he quoted and so on. Finally, my husband pinned him down and Don said he quit; he would not do either job. Mind you, we pay the day the work is done and that's exactly what we expected to do for these two jobs. But I guess to our discredit, if we have a problem with the quality, we complain and expect it to be fixed.
When my husband said it sounded as though Don had chickened out, Don threatened to meet him at the job site the next morning and "kick your ass." Not a rational approach.
Next morning, my husband did meet with the inspector and the original contractor who cut the new entry to the driveway. The inspector was perfectly happy with the job and the paving plan. But of course Don didn't show up.
Since then, an asphalt supplier who has sold to Don said he is completely freaked out by the idea of his work being inspected. All I know is we lost our paving window for this year, Don is out $15,000 in work and every time someone mentions paving, I will encourage them not to use Don's services. read more
