R T MACKENZIE IRRIGATION INC

After finding MacKenzie on Angie's list I sent an email on 4/19/11 asking if they would be interested in opening the system for me. I received a prompt reply indicating there would be a minimum charge of $70 for each of two men for the first 45 minutes and an additional cost of $60 per hour per man plus materials. I agreed and, on 4/20/11, received a contract to sign. I was surprised when I read the time and materials contract to find it only covered payment terms, hourly rates and other items designed to protect the contractor. It did not mention at all work to be done. If you're not familiar with contract types T&M means that you pay by the hour for every hour worked at an agreed upon rate. T&M is fine if there is a statement of work (SOW) that specifies the tasks to be performed. Otherwise an unscrupulous contractor (I'm not saying MacKenzie is unscrupulous, I'm just using this as an example) could send 10 men and install a new sprinkler zone and I'd be obligated to pay for it. In order to protect myself and bound the work I prepared an SOW detailing work to be performed and I also included a performance clause saying that if the workers were more than 2 hours late without notifying me in advance then there would be a $25/hour penalty. That's a minimum requirement and offers me some compensation if I take time off work and they don't show. I signed the contract, attached the addendum and emailed them back to MacKenzie on 4/20. In my email I explained what the attached addendum was and asked MacKenzie to contact me if there were any questions. By 4/23 I had no response so sent a follow-up email asking if they were still interested in the work. It is now 4/28 and I have not heard anything. If there were items in the SOW that concerned McKenzie I would have been happy to discuss but I was not going to sign an open ended contract. That's not good practice for anyone. I'm also not going to work with a company who's this nonresponsive.

They installed our sprinkler system 15 years ago and we have kept them on to do the maintenance for the system. They do a good job and we have not had any problems with them. They are easy to contact and easy to work with.