FORTUNE'S GRADING & FOOTING

This is a split personality review, as part 1 went well, part 2 not so well. Fortune'e was hired by my general contractor to do grading/footing on new building (part 1). Site prep, septic work, and rough grading went very well, and amazingly quickly, under Chris Fortune's oversight. They removed some some very large trees that were close to our house. Quickly and with no problems. Foundation concrete forming/finishing was supposed to be done by Fortune's footing part of business (run by brother?). This did not happen, as my general contractor fired them for not showing up twice on short notice. After building was done, I hired Chris on my own to complete the driveway (part 2). Had many delays (multiple weeks). Not sure why, but there were some medical issues with an employee and himself, from what I later heard from Chris. Would have been easier to understand if there would have been communication up front, rather than me having to call to find out why nothing was happening. They ended up sub contracting the asphalt, which was eventually done OK. Nice curbing and a generous flare at the bottom to make it easy to access going up a steep hill. Fortune's did finally finish the concrete, but did a poor job finishing it, so it has a very uneven, rough appearance. This is a shame, because the forming included making some very rounded areas (going down the hill), and the shape turned out very nice otherwise. It does appear to be sound so far, with some typical cracking in a few areas. Hopefully just a cosmetic issue, but I was disappointed. Invoice was a bit over estimate, partially due to them forgetting to add cost of a pump for concrete pouring.I ended up only paying the original estimate, writing them a letter explaining I was not paying the overage as an adjustment due to the poor concrete finishing quality. Never heard anything further, so I assume they considered this OK. Basically, they were OK when working through a general contractor, but was not worth the hassle when I was on my own, due to poor communication and delays.