The Austin Fence Company

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On October 14, 2011, we contracted with Austin Fence Company to erect a wood privacy fence on the rear of our property. Other than Mr. Henry, owner of Austin Fence Company being unpredictable about his work schedule and when the job would be completed, our first major problem arose when Mr. Henry dug holes for the posts on the lines of the property, which were in violation of the City Code. The city sent an inspector out once the post holes were dug, and prior to the fence being erected, to verify that the fence is being erected according to City Code. As a result, the inspector told Mr. Henry that he had to move the fence inside the property line. At this point in the project Mr. Henry tried to insist that we were responsible for his mistake and wanted to charge us an additional fee for the time it would take to re-dig the holes. We refused to pay him anymore than what we agreed to in the original contract. Mr. Henry claims that we told him to place the fence there, but that is incorrect. When Mr. Henry was writing the proposal we questioned about the property lines and how they are determined. Mr. Henry stated, ?I will measure them.? We mentioned that the city requires the fence to come in a certain distance from the property line and he agreed to check into it. Believing that he was the professional, we trusted him and didn?t question the subject any longer. Throughout the installation we had to contact Mr. Henry several times to find out when the fence would be completed because several weeks had passed and he would not show up to our premises for days, or if he did show up, he would only work for about an hour. There were many times Mr. Henry stated that he would be on our property working on the fence, yet he would never show. His promised date of completion would advance several days, if not weeks. When he finally did complete the job, which was on or around December 10, 2011 we were expecting a quality product. As the weeks passed we were able to take a better look at what we purchased and sadly realized that we did not receive the superior job we anticipated. We noticed that a gate was not properly graded and was tearing the lawn, and a post was not properly cemented and was severely leaning. In addition, several slats were broken when he nailed the slats on, concrete along the posts are cracking, slats are missing nails, and the gap between the slats have shrunk from ?privacy? to being able to see in through the spaces in the slats. Our property does contain an in-ground sprinkler system, about which Mr. Henry was aware. Prior to the job Mr. Henry said that if he damaged a sprinkler head that we would be responsible for replacing the damaged head, which we thought was fair. We asked him how many he has broken in the past and he said it only happened once where one head had to be replaced. At his request, we marked the sprinkler heads with wooden dowel rods hoping that would reduce the possibility of any heads being broken. Mr. Henry had to have seen that he was digging post holes directly into the underground sprinkler lines due to the parallel, in-line nature of the sprinkler heads. We did not realize that he broke any of the lines until we tried turning on the sprinkler system in the spring and noticed that the heads did not pop up and the ground was becoming oversaturated along the fence. Upon further investigation, it was very apparent that Mr. Henry severely damaged the sprinkler lines that required extensive labor and cost to replace. For several months (it is now August 2012), we have been trying to get Mr. Henry to return to our property and make the necessary repairs, however, he has refused to repair nothing more than the post. His reasoning is that he doesn't understand why he is responsible for the other issues. Fixing only the post falls far short of addressing the other issues that we have with the fence. When questioned as to when the repairs would be made, Mr. Henry responded with: "It will be done when I can get there. Warranty doesn't state or give a time frame on when repairs should or need to be done." We are still waiting for repairs to be made. I am sure that nine months is more than sufficient to correct the poor craftsmanship, professionalism and product. Please learn from our misfortune and choose another fence company for your fencing needs.