Champlin Fence & Welding

Jeff was initially very responsive when we called him to get a bid on our project. In addition to having him install about five acres of horse fencing, we also wanted him to make and install four, swinging, walk-through gates and three, sliding, drive-through gates that would roll back against the fence. We spent some time discussing the drive-through gate design as it was important to us and he assured us he could build what we wanted. I initially thought his bid at $2.00 per linear foot was cheaper than the other bid we got, but in retrospect, by the time I added the extra fees for braces, gate building and installation, and his overages for his miscellaneous supplies estimate, I am not sure this is correct. Anyway, we did initially like Jeff and his reference was positive, so we hired him. The work was to be done in two consecutive jobs. When we checked Jeff's references, we were told he was a slow, but good fence builder, so we were not unhappy with the fact that it took him from July 16 to September 19 to complete the first two jobs. We never complained about how long it took him to do the work, and tried to be very understanding when he explained that his best worker had broken his ankle shortly before he started working for us. In fact, we all made a joke out of the fact that he would only come to work a few days a week. To his credit, he worked much more steadily after his worker had healed enough to return at the beginning of the second job. Communication became an issue for us fairly soon after we hired Jeff. During the bidding process, he would answer our phone calls when we called him. Once we hired him, he became less responsive. Early on in the first job, he quit answering our phone calls, but he would respond to our messages with a return call usually within a few hours, so we weren't too concerned. So far, we only had minor complaints about Jeff?s process as outlined above, and overall, we only had minor complaints with Jeff?s products, too. For example, while the fencing is tight at the bottom, some of it is not very tight at the top, and we are concerned we will have to re-stretch these runs fairly soon. Also, we wish Jeff had used his level when setting the gate posts, so the gates would swing in a more level way. All in all, we thought these issues were in a range of acceptability, and we did not complain about them. Perhaps the most significant issue we had with the product Jeff provided revolved around the building of the drive-through gates. When it got time to build the drive-through gates, he said he couldn't build the ones we had discussed in detail prior to hiring him. Specifically, he was worried about the weight of the gates being too heavy. In addition, he had way under-estimated the cost of the hardware for the rolling gates, and we had not put enough aside to cover the additional costs, so we had to settle for two swinging gates over each opening instead. We were very disappointed. Not only did we not get the gates we wanted, but Jeff' mis-measured the space over the main, house driveway (despite my husband marking the height for him) and the gates turned out to be unusable. Even though this was Jeff's error, we paid for the extra supplies to have them rebuilt to the correct specifications. Because we had to build swinging, drive-through gates instead of sliding ones, we had to hire Jeff to install ?bumps? for the swinging gates to rest on when in the open position and this became his third job. Where Jeff really got in trouble with us was at the end of the second job when we reimbursed him for supplies. Unfortunately, when we checked his receipts and math, we learned he had over-billed us $225.74. We thought we would just deduct this over payment from his pay for the third project, but he never came back to complete it. In fact, he lied to us several times about having called to get the utility lines marked, and after four weeks, quit returning our phone calls. Needless to say, this ruined what had been an okay experience. We will now have to hire someone else to finish this third job.