I don't know if I got B teamed or what, but Concrete Doctors didn't perform the service I agreed or paid for, and that seems like a big deal when you're pouring big slabs of reinforced concrete. When Carmen, or "Junior"s guys left, I had a brand new, sunken, sloppy looking garage floor. See photos uploaded.
I spent the rest of the night learning the hard and fast way how to trowel concrete smooth. Hardly an endearing task after you just paid a company 3k+ to do a better job. I called CD because our old garage floor was sunken and cracked to bits, and we agreed to pour a new floor to raise it up to the correct level plus an inch, because our old driveway was also sunken, but a project for a later date. So this new garage floor would be an inch high to ensure proper drainage slope once the new driveway was poured in future. Junior also showed me the newer side of my garage as an example of how baby smooth the slab would be.
On the day, Junior stopped by in the morning for a few minutes before the concrete truck arrived, then left a crew with one good English speaker to do the work. The truck came and they did the job efficiently, though I noticed towards the end they were scraping the bottom of the barrel to barely come up level with the existing driveway. I knew enough about pouring concrete that there wasn't anything to be done about it at that point - ordering a new truck would take too long to pour and mix in with this already setting batch - bottom line was they didn't order enough concrete for the job. Junior also had said they'd be pulling the wire mesh up to center in the slab, but I watched the entire process, and they left that mesh at the bottom. Soon enough the English speaker had left and the last two guys were troweling a soupy, gloppy surface. It was a cool day and the concrete was delivered a bit wet - it was taking its time to set up. The guys kept coming to ask me in broken English if they had done good enough and could leave. The first time I checked it, it looked like a photo of a puddle on a rainy day and was clearly still very wet. I had them go over it a second time... they came and asked if they could leave. It looked terrible. Go over it again. Concerned, I called Junior, who reassured me while asking ME to police HIS crew and make sure they didn't go home until the job was perfect. Really? They called me out a third time, over 3 hours had passed at this point. The job still looked super rough, the concrete was still clearly too wet to trowel nicely, the sun was down, and they kept telling me this was about as good as it was going to get, because clearly they wanted to go home, and as far as I knew, maybe that was honestly as good as they were capable of. At this point they left. See photos of what Concrete Doctors delivered.
I spent that night on my hands and knees trying to salvage the surface, if not the height. Of course I brought all this up to Junior the following day when he showed up for final payment, and he was apologetic, but not nearly to the point one would expect as the head of a company that just shorted us on concrete, did a terrible surfacing job on a brand new sunken slab which the homeowner spent the night troweling himself. He also swore the previously detailed crack relief cuts (which he noticed his crew didn't actually do) were now unnecessary. A more excitable homeowner would probably scream, kick, and litigate until Concrete Doctors came back, broke up and hauled away the new slab and did the job right. Now, I have a garage floor that's level most of the way, then kicks down in the last few feet noticeably. I have to figure out how to re-frame out the new garage doors, because the opening on Junior's side of the garage is almost two inches taller than a standard garage door. The bottom of the existing outer trim for the doors, which was at one time level with the old garage floor, is 2+ inches higher than this brand new floor. The concession made for all of these errors together? He graciously subtracted, from the $3000+ total, the 30 dollars I spent on a trowel madly speeding to Home Depot after his crew left. As I signed the check with my blistered hand, I was also treated to a near-earnest job offer for the nice troweling work I did.
*EDIT* At first I generously gave a second star for the few good points of the work performed and a modicum of perceived decency. Sadly, the BUSINESS OWNER HAS SINCE VOTED HIS OWN INCOMPETENCE SEEN HERE, "FUNNY", which really ranks him with the worst sort of prepubescent douchebag. These jokesters also operate as THE CONCRETE ADVISORS in another town for reasons I can only imagine. I have a brand new below-grade garage floor, which gets water in it whenever it rains. Concrete is a fairly permanent thing, I encourage you to get it done right rather than turn over your hard earned dollars to the guy who botches the job and laughs about screwing his customers. read more