STEW'S STOOPS & STAIRS

We hired Stew to do our front walk and it became apparent early on in the job that Stew was not the accomplished mason as he had led us to believe. On day one, after he had dug down several inches, he filled the hollow with large broken up concrete from the old walk. This raised a red flag for our general contractor, as well as my husband. While they are not masons, they could tell that there was no way that the walk would ever be level with those kinds of chunks as a base. My husband did some research on masonry and saw for sure that the job was not being done correctly. He had to call Stew on that and Stew had to re-do that part of the job. This set the tone for the rest of the job. Part of Stew?s agreed upon job was also to get a granite piece for the front step. After we hired him, he informed us that he did not know how to move the granite piece. He proceeded to strike a deal with a contractor that just happened to be doing work down the street at the time to help him move the step. My question: shouldn?t the mason already have people in place to do every part of the job? Also, before the step went in, Stew told our general contractor that he had to cut back some of his shingles in order to accommodate the step. The general contractor knew that again, Stew?s approach was incorrect. So my husband and the contractor had to explain to Stew how to lay the step. The shingles in no way had to be cut. Also, on the edges of the walk, where the walk meets the house, there is no support on either side of the bricks. If someone walks on those bricks, they will collapse into the soil. All of the contractors knew about this issue and had ways to address it. We thought Stew did too, but obviously he did not. So, our general contractor and my husband have to ?fix? the job that Stew did not finish by addressing the support issues. For now we have ugly yellow ?murder? tape erected so that no one accidentally walks on the edge and turns the edge bricks. Brick walks are also supposed to be filled with some kind of sand between the cracks to control weeds and offer support after they are laid out. Stew did this sporadically at best. Maybe ? has been filled. Again, our general contractor and my husband have to fix this issue as well. Stew was very loud on the job and was quite crass. He always looked like he just rolled out of bed and it became clear that his assistant knew more about masonry than he did. At the end of the job, Stew loudly declared to our contractor, ?Not bad for a couple of hacks?! He is indeed a hack, and a self-proclaimed one at that! I asked my husband if he wanted me to call Stew to fix the problems with the walk and he declined. He said that he ?really cannot stand to have the guy around?. So, now we are left with a walk with several issues that we have to fix, and oh yeah did I mention that the walk has a horrible dip in it? I have waited years to have this job done. We finally get to a point in our renovations where we can do it and we get a really bad job from Stew! I am so disappointed!

CONSCIENTIOUS, CLEANED UP AFTER THEMSELVES, WORK WAS BEAUTIFUL, AND I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND THEM.