First - the Good. Ryan and his team were pleasant to work with and responsive to email and phone. I had good advice from Ryan, and he gave me different options with his quoting. Once the deck and fence were done, I was happy with the result. It was quite a big job, as it involved dismantling the existing pergola and substantially rebuilding, as well as washing and staining the deck, and fence. Yes, I did have to get Ryan back to do touchups, but I expected this, and it is part of their follow-up if needed.
The not so good was the process and length of time. Ryan had indicated that the job would take about a week - supposed to start on Monday 6/25 and be pretty much done that weekend, or maybe 1 day extra into the next week. It took more than double that duration.
Crew actually started a day early, on Friday 6/22, and pressure washed and were back the following week. Each day for just 2-5 hours at most - with Ryan coming to work with the team on one of the days which was the only day the team was here for a substantial amount of time The team was off for a few days over the 4th July holidays - understandable - but I was left with the deck partially done (10 days after starting) - and their equipment just dropped anywhere - ladder was laid in the middle of my lawn, and the bits of the pergola - still with nails etc sticking out - lay on my lawn for about 2 weeks in total. To be honest, it seemed like the team was very much part-timers - and it was frustrating to see them pitch up at 11am, and be gone by 2pm - that sort of thing for the most part. But nice folks). Perhaps my expectations were unrealistic, but I had expected a professional team to be on-site and just get it done in the timeframe, maybe working 9am to 4pm, that sort of thing. It left me with 3 consecutive weekends when work was still being done. (there were no weather delays - e.g. rain).
Some select other specifics:
One of the pergola beams was split when it went up. I noticed it on the very first day. Ryan did replace it at their cost, but surely I should not have had to ask - they should have automatically seen and done it - it was pretty obvious.
I had old worn lattice enclosing the front of the deck that I asked the team replace with the plastic lattice. They did a good job of that - and fitting it took about an hour or just a little more. They brought 8 pieces of lattice, didn't need one, and took it away. These lattice pieces sell for around $13 a piece at Lowes - so about $100 in materials was used.....I ended up paying around $400 for that part of the job. read more