This is the kind of review I love to write - all positive. After 45 years, my retaining wall holding my driveway succumbed to the elements, and termites. It was about 30 feet long, 3 to 5 feet tall, made of redwood, and falling apart. Redwood rots! It had to be replaced. I had observed the Perkins guys building a 10 foot tall, complicated, concrete foundation wall for a new home. I had met Austin Perkins on site and decided that he was who I wanted to do my wall work. So, I hired Perkins Grading & Underground Company to replace my retaining wall with concrete. His bid was fair and reasonable. The first day was spent demolishing the old wall and digging the footings. Demo took only 2 hours. Digging the footing was hard work because my soil is mostly broken shale. Day 2 and 3 were spent assembling the rebar and building the forms, and on the 4th day we pumped in 6 yards of colored (standard "Sandstone" at $25/yard extra) concrete. At just the right time, the forms were striped and the finishing work began. Finishing took about 4 hours. With concrete, timing is critical. The form construction was a little challenging since I live on a hill and two large oak trees had to be contended with. Carlos spent two days jackhammering old concrete footings for removal. At the end of each day, they used a leaf blower to completely clean the construction site and carefully stack building materials out of the way. Austin's guys are the best - Omar, Carlos, Robert, Jose, and Superintendent Jesus. How can you go wrong with Jesus in charge? I just told Austin what I wanted to accomplish, in general, and specifically, regarding details such as size, shape, color, radius in the internal and external corners, finish, etc. He relayed that information to Jesus who instructed the crew about what was required. Nothing was lost in translation - every detail that I communicated to Austin was ultimately transmitted to the team. They worked extremely well as a team and it was obvious that they liked working with each other. There was no wasted motion and very little communication required as everyone knew exactly what to do. I found that the team members were professional, friendly, and accommodating. As questions came up, we discussed the issues and quickly decided on solutions. I guess you could say we were all on the same page. Even the concrete pumper guy, Jose, was quite friendly. In my 60 years of project management (Hewlett Packard, Apple, Plantronics, and others), I have met and worked with numerous contractors. I have found that nice guys hire nice guys and Perkins is no exception. They treat employees well which creates loyalty and they work hard. Beats having to constantly train new people as disgruntled employees resign. It's amazing how few companies get it. I have never seen a crew perform the finishing like the Perkins guys do. It was fascinating to watch them take six yards of wet blobby concrete and transform it into a beautiful retaining wall. They were incredibly meticulous and careful and must have gone over the concrete about 20 times with various floats, trowels, radius tools, brooms and brushes - over and over again until the surfaces were perfect and the texture exactly what I wanted. And it was obvious that they were happy with the results also. So, if you need concrete work, who ya gonna call? Why, Perkins Grading & Underground, of course - they are absolutely the company for you. read more

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We love our new stamped patio. It came out better than we ever expected. We had a 30 year patio which was looking terrible. Austin and his crew did all the excavation when we were on vacation and came home to a clean slate. The next week-end they poured the patio and it beat all of our expectations. read more

Austin and his crew extended our driveway and we are so pleased! They completed the job on time, showed up on time and ready to work, and they cleaned up every day which made my neighbors very happy. My husband works in the construction industry and is very picky and him and Austin worked well together making a plan and the crew executed it beautifully! We would definitely recommend Perkins Grading and will likely have them do more work for us in the future! read more

Perkins Grading and Underground - Masonry/Concrete Near Me

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Very responsive team! They were able to evaluate my sketches and combine on site measurements to determine all possible options.

The crew at Perkins is highly skilled, very professional, and responsive. They've done a number of jobs (driveway, shed pad, patio, sidewalk repair) for my place and have done a great job on all of them. The patio was actually also designed to be a mini-rollerskate pad for which I exacting standards for the finish (smooth - for rollerskating!). The crew were really careful and made an awesome finish for it. Their coordination when doing the concrete pours is serious choreography - they guys are artisans who have mastered their craft. read more

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I thoroughly enjoyed working with Austin and his crew. I reached out accidentally when yelp extended a request for quote to him. I'm really glad they did. I had a small job where I needed to reconfigure a stamped concrete patio. I needed a portion of it demolished, a fire pit removed and a trench dug to reroute a gas line. He responded quickly, was courteous and professional. He came out a few days later when he said he would. We discussed the scope of work and said he would get back to me with a quote - he did within a few hours, less than what he initially mentioned. They began work two days later to demo and dig a trench. When my plumber became unresponsive and could hold up the subsequent pour, Austin recommended one. They came out a few days later, rerouted the gas line. However, during that gap from demo to pour, Austin and his crew took extra care to cover the trench. Austin realized we had a little child and made it clear to his crew to make it extra safe for her while in progress - I found it very thoughtful. After a couple days delay for rain, they came out, they formed out a new perimeter, were completely amendable when I went back and forth about exact placement. Austin took time to find the pattern of my existing stamped patio and did their very best to match it. They even helped us put our hand prints in the wet cement (cheesy i know). I could not be happier with the result. The new pour looks like its been there all along. I found Austin and his crew to be good, hard working and honest. He even invited us to his property so my daughter could meet all his farm animals. He was great with her. Overall, the job itself was done excellently. His quote was far more reasonable then the others I got. He was VERY responsive and completed the job quickly. read more

Perkins Grading and Underground - After - Masonry/Concrete Near Me

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I am so sad to not be able to recommend Austin's company, I was so excited when the job started. Apparently the job went "sideways" is what I have just been told by the electrician that Austin hired to do the electrical work. (I was never told there were any issues on my job or that he was running out of time!) Jerry @ Corralitos Electric told Austin that he did NOT have time for my job. Jerry did come to the house to drop off some supplies & gave them some direction on where this job should go. Several people had looked at my job while the job was in progress & told me the electric work was not up to code. I had to hire another electrician reccomended by Hot Springs Spa who came to look @ the job-it costs me $5,900 to fix the mess that Austin & his crew did who are NOT electricians. Austin even told me he never touches electric because he does not know what he is doing. Damian from Ullman Electric (AWESOME) has known Jerry @ Corralitos Electric for years & was shocked @ the job & even told me someone else did this mess! When I asked Autin about the electric mess he never admitted HE & his crew did the electric work & instead said, "I just don't understand, Jerry has always done all my electric work with no issue. Austin did not admit that HE did the job which lead me to write a bad review on Jerry (Corralitos Electric) which has now been deleted. Austin's company is new, it's my fault not to have done more research. It was my fault to go to work-I should have applied for vacation to watch this job closely! Austin gladly took almost $58,000 CASH $ never told me there we're issues- which as a single women I would have no ideas! One problem there we're never any official designs drawn up-I have 2 patios high in the air that do not meet code. Austin did not figure in the price of the fences/rails to have the 3 patio terraces so high. When the final $16,000 quote came through for the fences & rails-I just about fell over. When I spoke on the phone with a fence guy & described my job he gave me a rough guess of $7,000. When he saw the job, it more than doubled. Austin did give me $3,500 towards fences & admitted he forgot about fences & rails for the job! Unfortunently his money wet towards fixing his crews electric work! To make a long story short-I will never have $16,000 for fences, my yard is not up to code & unsafe for children & dogs! I am having major problem with the drainage on the lower patio-trying to figure out who to call? I am guess the drainage will need to be completely re-done!!! It is super hard to even look at my back yard-what a waist of my hard earned money! I don't think anyone is impressed with what my yard looks like. I'm positive more seasoned companies have people to profesionally sketch out the job so you can really see what it's going to look like. The yard that I have is far from what I imagined, it actually makes me sad to look at it! For these reasons I would look for a company that has been around for a long time & who will stand behind their job. Austin screamed at me for a review I put on another site which was 100% true. I did remove the post after he gave $3,500 for the fences. VERY HARD LESSONS LEARNED!!! IN RESPONSE TO AUSTIN's COMMENT- Never once did he imagine this project needing fences or rails had he figured this job out properly-he admitted that to me!! Austin states in his comment....he should have kept pushing the issue for rails/fences is a complete lie, he didn't even know this job wasn't up to code & that his floating high patios needed to be secure! Hell, he didn't even figure out that this hill would need a water sorce-that will be a whole nother project!!! As far his company not being able to do the electric work (because they are not licensed to do so) he went ahead & did it, then lied about it & threw the real electrician under the bus who never had time to do the job in the first place! Shows what kind of business man Austin is! I only found out about this last week from Jerry @ Corrilitas Electric & had apologized for Austin's work & lies! I had posted on "HomeAdvisor"& Austin screamed at me-he wants to keep this a 5 star business at any cost, I removed the post & HomeAdvisor wanted me to file a complaint. Several of my neighbors are needing to have their backyard done-after my issues one neighbor found someone more qualified-their yard is coming along it's so beautiful-I'm jealouse! What is rattling to the core is why he would do this to someone & he's just started his business too-CRAZY!! Had I known this job was a rush job & done half ass I would have fired him mid job! With the drainage not working & the patio flooding, I'm taking a wild guess he is not even qualified to do that type of work either! Moving forward I will NEVER recommend this company! read more

We contacted Perkins Grading and Underground and were immediately impressed that we received a call back from the owner, Austin the same day. Austin scheduled a time to come out and meet with us and he showed up on time and was very professional. We received our detailed and professional quote for the work we requested within a couple days. We had many questions and changes to the scope of work we wanted done and every time he had questions or changes, Austin came out to discuss the plan with us. He provided samples, pictures of other projects and set-up for us to go see a project similar to our project. Throughout the entire project, Austin made sure we knew the schedule start to finish. The entire crew is professional, courteous, clean and does incredible quality work! They all have a great eye for detail as well as thought and input to create an amazing finished product! We are a customer for life! Austin and his crew will do all of our future work. We feel like we hit the lottery finding such a great company to work with. It's extremely rare to find a construction company these days that responds and follows through like Austin does. Thank you for your awesome work!!! read more