My husband and I started working with Bartz landscaping in April 2022. I interviewed 10 companies…read moreregarding installing a patio in the backyard of our Urbana townhouse. Bartz was able to quickly send someone out to give me a quote. He was really nice and energetic, but he never got back to me with a price. A few weeks later, I emailed Bartz to see if they were still interested in the job and was informed that the person who had given me the quote no longer worked for the company and my initial quote had been lost when he left. The owner came to my house and gave me a new quote. I was really impressed with their social media, professional website, and for a fee, they do a really nice 3D rendering so you can see what your backyard will look like when completed. We decided that doing 2 smaller patios with some 1-3" rocks in between the patios would be more cost effective than one huge patio, which is what we really wanted. I was super clear that I wanted the pavers from the garage to the door to have some sort of grout or be spaced really close together so we wouldn't be kicking up rocks when we walked across them. I was told the grading of the yard would be very subtle to allow for drainage, but we would not even notice it. We worked together, and after a few changes to the rendering, we all seemed satisfied with the ideas and with the price. We were told our patio would be completed by the 4th of July. I think had everything gone smoothly, it would be a 5 star review.
It is now October 24th and my patio has still not been completed. The initial patios were completed during a huge rainfall during the 2nd day of installation, so a lot of the poly sand washed away. The slope of the yard is way more extreme than we talked about with the walkway to the garage and the rocks actually being much higher than the patio. The rocks we received for between the patios were much larger than 1-3" rocks and they were so full of dust that the rains turned that dust into mud piles in my yard (I would have not gone with rocks had I been told this could be a problem and I would not have gone with rocks had I known they would be so huge). They were not able to put any poly sand between my walkway pavers, so they put rocks in between the pavers that were too big and got kicked around when we walked across them. They used a metal grid around the patios to secure the pavers that I have never seen on any other patio and it looks terrible. But, whatever, we were just going to have to deal with that. We decided just to deal with the huge sloping as well, but we did ask them to redo the poly sand, remove some of the larger 5-9" rocks that are difficult to walk across (and just look ugly), and to fix the rocks between the pavers. They happily came back to do all that and they used gravel in between the pavers. Not what I wanted, but less rocks are being kicked around when we walk across the pavers so it was a satisfactory solution.
Then more rain came and the poly sand washed away. Again. I contacted them and was told a rep from the poly sand company would come and address the situation. That appointment got canceled, so they were just going to order a "stabilizer" to be applied to the poly sand. I received an email that said the product never arrived and they canceled my appointment. That was a week ago. I have not been contacted again. The poly sand gets more and more washed away with every rain.
Let me be clear, the owner and the staff from Bartz are VERY, VERY nice and professional. Every single person I worked with was very nice and pleasant. They are all in their early 20's and excellent with technology, social media and with the 3D renderings. However, they are not excellent at problem solving or being realistic with customers. They are terrible at following up with an unhappy customer and we just continue to get unhappier the longer we go with our patios being unusable. Had I been told upfront that using rocks in between the patios was a bad idea because they would collect mud and be difficult to walk across, I would have gone with gravel or spent the extra money on grass. When I inquired about doing some flagstone or artificial turf to replace the rocks, the extra price was absolutely insane. Again, this could have been a 5 star review but it has been over 6 months since my initial patio was installed and we can't use the patios. We can't walk safely across the rocks in between the patios. We paid them $12,000 and we continue to have our poly sand wash away with each rain. We can't let our pets on the patios because they like to lay on the pavers and they become covered in crumbly poly sand.
I am extremely frustrated by the lack of communication. Sending an email to cancel an appointment just does not suffice after 6 months of being unhappy with landscaping we spent a lot of money on. At this point I wish we had gone with literally any of the other companies I interviewed and I could not recommend Bartz to anyone I know.
