Yuki Kozuki is the owner of the Kozuki Landscaping that has been around the bay area for 18 years. At least, that is what his business card stated. He is a licensed landscaping contractor. He told us his father is Japanese and his mother is Vietnamese. His English is very, very basic, but he understands what we want for our yards.
We recently hired him to install/repair the sprinkler system for the front and back yard with a new timer in the garage, minor clean up in the front yard, river rocks in the front yard, new sod for the backyard (approximately 1000 sq.ft. of new lawn), and a MAJOR clean up in the backyard. He first quoted me close to $10k for the whole project. I waited and received 3 other estimates for the project. I called him back and told him what the other landscapers quoted me, which is around $7k. He dropped his price to the high end of the $7k.
We wanted him to work on our yards, because he has his own stable crew. He works on-site along his crew members. He provided a huge photo album of all the houses he worked on in the past few years. His specialties are koi pond, waterfalls, concrete and wood works. We are not talking about the store-bought fountains or ponds either. He built them from scratch. His photos showed the step by step process of how he set up a waterfall/pond in one of his customer's backyard. Trust me when I say I distrust contractors like I distrust Bush's administration. I have had a horrible experience with a fraudulent contractor, so I was very skeptical of his promises to begin with.
He took the $1k deposit and started the job the next day. He worked on my yards for 7 days and about 6 hours each day. He did not ask me to pay him in the middle of the work. He did go out of his way to make my yards look great. He welded a new faucet in the backyard, because the old one is too old. He replaced an old lumber in the walkway. He made sure everything is neat and tidy. He dug the holes for my new plants. He put drip irrigation in some area.
The job was finished on 10/05. I noticed there was a small puddle of water next to the new valves on 10/07. I called him immediately and he came out today to look at the puddle. He promptly dug out the puddle and fixed the problem.
I am giving Kozuki Landscaping 4 stars instead of 5 stars, because of the initial over-priced quote he gave us. For the final payment, he asked me if I can pay him in cash, all $6700 of it. I refused his request and he was very amiable about it.
I would recommend his service for small or big projects. You can drop my name when he is giving you an estimate and ask him for a discount. read more
