MID-COAST MASONRY

I asked for a patio to be installed using pavers and for the grading to be done so that the level of the ground next to the house could be corrected to be 6 inches from siding to ground/patio. He said he did not think he could do 6 inches but could do 4 inches clearance. I said the 6 inches was really important to prevent water damage to the building, but he pointed out why he thought they could only get 4 inches and I agreed to that. When the pavers were going in, I noticed that they were right up against the bottom of the siding. I pointed this out and Paul Belcher, the owner said he really did not want to rip everything out and told me id that I had told them that 2 inch clearance was OK. I said I did not say two inches was OK, but even if I had, there was not even 2 inches of clearance at which point after me making several calls to engineers and code officers, he said they would be willing to rip everything out and start over but it would add several days to the work. He said our estimate did not include resetting the pre-existing granite step. The estimate did actually include the resetting of the step in writing. I think this is why the level was off because they did not want to bother with resetting the step properly in the first place. Several places on the siding of the house were damaged and left covered with dirt and polymeric sand that had turned to a hardened substance which could not be removed (dark gray stuff on white vinyl) which they never offered to repair or clean. When I asked about repairing the damage they had done, Paul said "You can pay someone to fix that and it shouldn't cost much." The damage was broken siding and trim. We finally agreed that he would pay a few hundred dollars to have the siding taken off and additional flashing and ice and water shield put on under it to protect the wall and sills from water damage rather than rip the whole excavation up and start over. The patio itself is beautiful. They also did a very poor job of placing loam and seed around the work area. There is hardly any seed which is very patchy and lots of rocks which have had to be picked up in the mowing area. They also installed PVC underground for gutters to be installed into and cut those level with the ground and got a lot of the polymer sand into them when the sanding was being done. Then he told my husband that I said to cut them level. I did not say that and wouldn't have as I did not know if they were supposed to be level or above ground. Because of them being cut off, a good amount of the polymeric sand got down into them when the sanding was done. Luckily this was noticed and hopefully most of it removed so it did not harden and clog the PVC when it got wet with rain. The guy who did the sanding told me there were a few places where there might be cracks as he was rushing to finish that day and that they would come and fill them in if needed. When Paul Belcher came over to do his final inspection, I pointed out to him that indeed there were many open cracks between the pavers and could they fix these. He said they were too small and the sand would not go between them so he would not fix them. I went out and bought the super sand and filled them myself and of course the sand went right down into the cracks and filled them nicely. It was frustrating to have to finish the job myself.