TOTALLY CONCRETE INC

Overall I did not have a good experience. I think Gary Cadill and Totally Concrete probably do a good job a majority of the time, but the true test of professionalism is how you deal with problems. At the start of the process, Gary spent a lot of time reviewing everything with me during quotation. I felt he was knowledgeable and very experienced. He told me that he would get back to me in a couple days with the quote, and almost 2 weeks later, I still hadn't heard anything from him. I ended up hiring another contractor for the job, but that contractor kept pushing out the expected start date. I was outside looking at the area before heading to work and out of the blue, Gary drives up and talks about submitting a quote (this is 3 weeks after our first meeting). If I hadn't stopped to look over the pool, I would have missed him. He said he wanted to get a look at the area now that the pool was finished so he could provide a more accurate quote. I told him to go ahead and quote (not mentioning that I already hired someone, and thinking he wouldn't come back with a quote anyway). He came back a couple days later with a reasonable quote that was a little higher than the current contractor, but Gary was able to start the job the next week and I was willing to pay for what I thought would be better quality work in the time frame desired. The next week, he called and asked if I wouldn't mind postponing since it was going to be ~100° Wed-Fri when they were scheduled to install. I told him that I would like the work done as scheduled as long as there wasn't concerns about the quality suffering due to the heat. He assured me that if he put extra retardant and started early in the day, that there wouldn't be an issue. They arrived on time and finished the job quickly. They did break a drainage pipe while bringing in the concrete truck, which they replaced with an "extra" one I had (which basically meant I had to get a replacement for the section they took). This was a minor issue, the real problem was that I started seeing surface cracks the next day. I informed Gary and he came out to investigate. He agreed that there were surface cracks, but they weren't structural concerns. He also had the concrete tested to ensure that wasn't the issue. In the end, he thinks that it turned out to be too hot to install that day and the concrete dried out too much before curing. He said that he told me he had those concerns, which I quickly corrected him by reminding him that I said not to install if he thought there would be a problem, and that I would have never agreed to an install if there was a concern. He agreed and said he never would have guessed there to be a problem since he'd never experienced an issue like that in the ~30 yrs he had worked. I felt that it was only a cosmetic issue but I still wasn't happy about having surface cracks in a newly installed deck. He understood and claimed to want to "do what he could to make it right". He suggested that he bring in a colleague that could install a vinyl coating (StarDeck) to repair the cracks and cover the entire surface. I felt this was a good suggestion but felt a fair solution would be for me to pay for the material (since there was added benefits for the coating) and form him to cover the labor. I also asked him to quote a concrete patio (which I would pay full price to have vinyl coated) as added incentive for him making things right. He agreed to this, but when I got all of the quotes back, he only credited me $400 for the labor on the vinyl coating (should have been ~$1600). He also charged almost double per sqft for the patio than what he charged for the pool deck (which was essentially the same type of work). When I asked him about it, he said that there were some stairs that raised the price and that he wasn't trying to "gouge me". I told him to leave the stairs out and then the story changed to him saying that he didn't make anything off the pool deck so he needed to "re-coup his losses". Long story short, he wasn't very reliable on communication (nothing electronic... he can't even use a computer), and although most of the time they will probably do good work, if something goes wrong, Gary will not stand behind his work and fix the problem if it means taking a loss. I would never use Totally Concrete again and strongly suggest others not to as well.