Outdoor Concepts Landscaping (Auburn, AL.) Brian Truitt - owner
Scope of the project: Install 25 trees (three species) along the property lines to block the view. Install 24 common shrubs in the back yard. Install three-zone drip irrigation system for the trees and shrubs. Build 434 sq ft flagstone patio. Remove small tree next to patio. (April 2016)
Price: $10,300 (not much more or less than two other estimates from competitors).
Quality of work: Very poor. Buyer beware!
Customer service: Difficult to deal with. They exhibited very poor knowledge about tree choices etc. I had to do much of the research myself when it was clear that I was being told what they think I wanted to hear.
Examples of problems encountered:
The quality of the flagstone patio is horrendous. It is clear that this crew had never built one before. They had two crews, one that spoke English and one that did not. It was clear that they did not respect each other and did not communicate with each other which became uncomfortable / stressful at times. There was no supervision most all of the time. The grout turned out with two distinctly different colors (sections done on different days). There were many boot tread marks and other marks left in the wet grout and remain there.
The "three zone drip irrigation system" that he promised for $985 turned out to be one zone (owners direction to his crew according to the crew). The entire 75 emitter system is fed from one 1/2" drip irrigation hose. The trees at the end of the irrigation hose get less than half of the water that the trees at the beginning of the hose line. Barely any water is emitted at all to half of the trees and shrubs planted. When I texted the owner about the problem he sent over the essentially non-English speaking worker that installed it to look at it. Nothing was fixed as he indicated that there were just too many emitters on the line (no kidding!). Nice passive-aggressive move on the owner's part to send the non-English speaking guy to handle a customer problem instead of coming himself. Two weeks later, the owner has blown off the project is on down the road.
The "advice" about choices of trees to use was comical. The owner was flat out wrong on all accounts about the maintenance and health of very common trees. I wound up selecting the species and the owner agreed that he could obtain them. It turns out that was wrong about that too. At one point he tried to substitute his original tree choice without me knowing. He was upset when I caught it and he had to return them.
Overall: They promise much and deliver very little. If you don't speak Spanish you will have a hard time dealing with the crews. The owner was dismissive and borderline rude at times. He assumed that I was too dumb to understand such complicated things as "drip irrigation". He kept calling me "son" and "young man" (I am eight years older than he is). The owner appeared to care less about what the outcome was. He cashed the check in the first hour that he had it and that was all he cared about in my opinion. read more
