DIRTWORKS INC

Scott and his team are excellent. They squeezed me in the day after I called, came on time, and were very professional and courteous. They did the job quickly and professionally.

They brought in an engineer to test the soil. Then worked with me to find best location for new drain field. Installation went smooth and they left my bacj yard landscaped as I wanted. Very professional.

Our leach field failed in Sept of this year, partly in part to very heavy rainfall and partly due to misuse and abuse by previous tenants. (We just moved in this place in February of this year). Dirtworks, Inc. did the previous leach field in 2005 (this is the 3rd leach field on this property), so we called Scott to come out and help us find the missing leach field monitor tubes so we could check the field. We had been unable to find them and they were not found for the inspection prior to purchasing the property either. We dug where he told us to and still were unable to find them. He then sent one of his employees out with a min-excavator and dug a large, 8 ft deep by 15 ft long hole and finally found the broken monitor tubes and leach pipe down at 8 ft. The hole immediately flooded with septic water. It was then decided that we needed the leach field redone. We were recommended by another professional to have the water table level checked also due to the recent heavy rainfall. We called Scott with Dirtworks to see when he could begin digging the new leach field. He said he was tied up with other jobs and could not begin for a week. It was actually 15 days later from date of the test hole (on Oct 18, 2012) that he begun on Friday, Oct. 2 and 2:30 in the afternoon. They worked until 5:00 pm and left. They came out on Sat and worked on it. Scott has his own engineer, Micah, who showed up later that morning and began working on the design details. He first figured out we would need a 50 ft by 16 ft deep trench. They had dug a test hole the night before to determine water table level. The next morning, after looking at the test hole which now had water in it, he changed his mind and determined that we would need a 60 ft by 11 ft trench. Then after performing the perk test he changed his mind again and determined that we would need (2) 82 ft by 11 ft trenches. We had had 3 side dump loads of washed rock delivered previously to the dig. We also had bought 70 ft of heavy duty perforated pipe and a large roll of typar in an effort to cut down on our costs. After starting and restarting due to changes in engineering, the backhoe operator and guy in the trench continued working. The got one trench dug and laid and back-filled to 70 ft. We were unable to get more rock or pipe on Sat due to business and gravel pits being closed. On Monday we had the rock and pipe delivered before the crew arrived. We also had our 45 ft semi-van which was now in the way, moved to another location so as not to hold them up. Scott sent an entirely different crew out here on Monday that had no idea what had been done. They finished the one trench to 85 ft and put monitor tubes in. They then started digging the second trench and completed the "T" intersection of both trenches and got about 40 ft into second trench by the end of the day. On Tues they finished digging the second trench and laid the pipe. This took the entire day. On Weds they arrived and put more rock in the trench while waiting for the engineer to show up and okay the second trench. Meanwhile they dug up the line to the septic tank and inspected the tank and line. After Micah gave the go ahead on the trench, they backfilled it and installed monitor tube. They finished around 4:00 pm and left. Scott had originally quoted us a price of $4,000 total for the leach field. This would have included the rock, pipe and typar, which we then supplied in an effort to reduce our costs. We realize they had to dig an additional trench which was not realized at that time. After completion of the work he talked to my husband on the phone and told him the cost was going to be $7,787.50 with an additional charge of $705.00 for the engineer's fees, for a total of $8,492.50. We were shocked to hear this! My husband discussed this with him and reminded him that we had provided all the materials needed for the job. Scott mentioned how this "always happens when the clients are standing there watching all the time and taking pictures". Scott called us back a few hours later and told us he would discount $1,000 off the bill which bring it to $7,492.50. This was still almost double what he quoted us before he knew we would supply all the materials. My brother, who is an operator by trade and works for a construction company who installs large water and septic lines for city work, etc, was enraged that we would charge us that much and that it took them 5 days to complete a job he said should have taken only 2 days. Needless, to say, we are very unhappy with the outcome of this project. I only hope and pray that this is the last time we have to have the leach field replaced. We feel he overcharged us. The second crew he sent out we did not feel was competent ,and were quite slow. We feel that we are paying for all of that unnecessary labor hours. The multiple indecisions of his engineer cost a lot of time and labor also.