Stonescapes LLC

I wish I would have looked up this contractor on Angie's List prior because our experience was almost identical to the other homeowner. It took over a month from when we first decided to use Stonescapes (Joe Mele) to when he provided us a contract and said that he would start the work. It then took several more weeks before he came out and even started the work. It only took about 2 days to lay the pavers and they looked amazing. However, this is were all the problems started.They didn't protect the pool from any of the sand, dust, grout, or mar-cite, that was used and caused me to do several cleanings to get majority of the sand out of the pool and filter. When I approached him about it, they said that they would clean it but never did and I couldn't leave it or the pool would be useless and the equipment could be damaged. When we text or called about what the estimate time was for the enclosure to be completed he got very frustrated with my wife and cussed and threatened her over the phone that we were harassing him and if we didn't want him to finish the job we would still have to pay him. At this point we were ready for him to be done and gone. The enclosure was a HUGE disaster. He started by doing work without a permit and when we confronted him about it he stated "he didn't need a permit until final inspection" I knew this was false and became very uneasy with the rest of the process. The final inspection on the screen wouldn't have even passed except that my father-in-law just happened to be at our house fixing some of the problems with the enclosure when the inspector showed up. The inspector told him it needed to be grounded so he did that with the inspector there and he passed it. When I told Joe (Stonescapes) about it he said that wasn't mentioned in the drawings or permit. So clearly he doesn't know what he was doing when he built this enclosure. The enclosure looks good, but he could have done a better job at sealing up the gaps between the enclosure and pavers and caulking the gaps between the aluminum beams. The entire point of the enclosure is to keep the bugs and other animals out. My father-in-law and myself went back and fixed all this ourselves. He has a very poor attitude and doesn't like to be questioned about his work or when he's going to be done. The total build time was about 2 months for something that shouldn't have taken longer than 2 weeks. We learned that any future work we'll ask for a completed date from any contractor on the proposal.

He gave me an estimate and told me it would only take two weeks to complete. After 7 weeks all I had was a retaining wall and a pile of dirt. He promised myself and my wife on two different occasions that he would be here on a specific day. When I called him on that day to ask if he was coming he CURSED ME OUT for about 5 minutes! I could not believe it. This was the first time I had called him about the delays. He threatened to quit the job, but I didn't want that because I had a mess in my yard, piles of pavers in my driveway that I am sure were not paid for and I had already paid him 2/3 of the overall cost (1/3 at contract signing, 1/3 after starting the job and 1/3 at finish) Finally today (week 8) they came with big crew and got it 98% of the way finished. It is quality work and I like the way it looks, they just have terrible customer service and were not pleasant to deal with.