My Bad Contractor story. They started well, drilling and breaking a very large granite rock, and several medium ones. That was hard and time consuming. So I hired them to construct retaining walls. That's when Aharon, the owner/supervisor started showing up less and less. His contracts were detailed, and updated with every change in the scope of work, and with progress payments clearly delineated. He was promptly on site for, or requesting via email, those payments, if not a little early. Otherwise he was mostly on other jobs. I get that he's got a business to run, but he spread himself pretty thin. He often seemed annoyed and was rushed to go over questions and concerns as they came up. At one point he stated that he normally did commercial work, not residential because they're easier to deal with. I should have stopped then. At least at first, I was too easy going and accommodating. After realizing that there were problems with the shaping and drainage of the first small walls, I decided I needed to be more involved. Aharon didn't like my questions, especially regarding drainage. He just didn't seem to think it was that important, even though I had read and been told by other contractors that inadequate drainage is the primary cause of retaining wall failure. I thought he understood my concerns though. We moved onto the larger walls. In hindsight I should have realized that Aharon is like others in the industry that I had heard of: once the contract is signed, he's about payment first and cutting corners where he can. Despite him rewriting the contract many times, I had to insist on him following it. I had an engineer customize our plan because of various issues, but Aharon wanted to do it the way he always did it. He would fix some things (not happily) but still skip other things (filter cloth). I pointed out again my concern about drains/weep holes being clogged. His response was that he built the wall strong, with extra steel and concrete, and it has a drain pipe. That doesn't matter if "hydraulic lock" (trapped water) happens. I finally fired him when he wanted to pour a slab that was contractually 5 1/2", but measured 3" to 4 1/2" with ragged "slag" in several areas. I dug it and roto-hammered it myself and I'm drilling the drain/weep holes in the walls. A very unpleasant experience overall. I've been fortunate to generally have thorough and honest contractors in the past. Not this time. read more