OK. Here's my review. Not horrible. Not good.
My agreement was motivated by getting an experienced landscape professional to survey our 1/2 acre of land and help us arrest some erosion problems, especially at the back of the property where there lies a steep canyon, emptying into Chaminade territory.
Myself and my wife met with John David, owner of Prime Landscape a couple of times prior to signing a contract worth a couple of thousand $ with the following understanding: that his team [John David and assistant] would survey our property and record elevations and vegetation and create a computer file [CAD file] of the survey which we then could take possesion of and use.
After the survey, John David would review the survey and recommend a drainage plan, which would become part of the computer survey file. I repeatedly insisted that the final product of our contract would be a computer file which I could read and edit, as needed, in the future.
All was agreed. Surveying and revisions ensued. Then came the final reckoning: very unsatisfactory.
John David presented us with a computer printed 24" x 36" plan, and PDF which was accurate and contained elevations, etc., as we had expected - yet we did not get the required digital format which we could use, and the final drainage plan was never provided in digital format, contrary to our expectations.
John David's assistant, Donna, who prepared the plan could not provide us with a CAD verison which I could use: she only used VectorWorks 2012, [a $1,000 + software cost, at the time] which could only output to VectorWorks version 2008, at the time, and only to industry standard format .dwg versions which were also only 'state of the art' and prohibitively expensive - software export file format verions were never discussed when John David agreed to provide me with the final computer READABLE file, which was the basis of our contract.
I assumed 'READABLE' meant by me, for free or at very low cost; John David, probably never spoke to Donna about software details - It never, entered his mind - all he every cared about was the potential $54,000 contract. This company is about sales, not ethics.
I eventually found a free conversion program that allowed me to convert VectorWorks 2012 files into industry standard .dwg format - prior to the versions of .dwg that Prime VectorWorks was using could export. Get my drift?
It is a bit complicated, and, NO, I did not specify every software compatibility issue into the contract I signed with John David. Shame on me.
But, the meat and potatoes - the solution to my drainage problem, which was John David's analysis of all of this - was only ever finally scribbled onto tissue paper overlay, not even vellum, which would have been thick enough for FedEx, now 4 years later, to copy - still, in 2017 - 4 years later - I can't copy John Davids crayon-on-tissue-paper (weaker than vellum) "solution" to my drainage problms only because the thickness of John David's final drainage plan is so fragile that it cannot be easily copied.
John's final comment was: "this is the only way I've ever done it"
I can't really blame him for that. This guy is so old school!
I doubt if he even knows how to do email or answer a voice mail.
I blame myself for not going into deeper detail about .dwg, .vwx file versions which their version of VectorWorks would export. I assumed he was a decent human being who understood compatibility issues and would have naturally warned me, out of the goodness of another human heart, if there would be an additional cost of $1000+ for me to read the data he provided, per contract.
As I later learned, John David seems to have satisfied the letter of our contract, but not the spirit and nobody on the side of Prime Landscape seemed to care or try to rectify this problem.
Oh, the bottom line is that the cost of the work which Prime Landscape might have provided, based on the survey of our property was in the neighborhood of $54,000.
Now it is 2017 and I still need landscaping work done, but can't afford $54,000, which was inflated from the get-go.
Yet I only have a half-baked drainage plan, which our current landscaper insists on seeing.
Yet he takes two weeks to respond to a single email or phone message, or 2 days to respond to a text.
I can't give him a digital copy of our plan since it cost me around $2000 for the piece of sh*t and Prime Landscape only left me with a crayon / pencil on tissue paper overlay of the lot plan, which FedEx cannot copy without tearing it all to shreds.
So that is why I give Prime 2 stars: they left me with tissue paper and crayon as a solution instead of vellum - which might have cost a couple dollars more, or digital - which is what I thought our contract had required - yet they were after a $54,000 contract for future work - that is all that mattered to them - not interested in honor. read more
