Kinwood Landscape & Construction

Grade: F-. Kinwood entered into a contract with me, a $62,500 project, with no ability to actually follow through with quality work and structures as shown website or my design, as they appear to have utilized inexpensive, unskilled workers, as can be noted by the photographs of my project: with mortar and cement not mixed correctly, an absolutely abnormal amount of nails from a nail gun and staples from a staple gun, the sheer absence of any screw or brackets that would normally be seen by a construction company of any level, the location of the fireplace was placed directly on top of mature trees, which was later deemed a fire hazard, large pieces of pool coping and mud and cement dust, hammer, all just thrown into the pool, trash left everywhere, and things began to fall apart within one week of and quot;completionand quot;, which was then up and leaving one day, en masse. Ryan, the on-site manager, who I'd even invited to my party, would only show up every few days, and I had no way to communicate with the rest of the workers, as they did not speak English. With my disability I had to work from home, and these workers cut my phone and internet lines, and told no one, for 4 days, until I eventually had the phone company come out and someone asked them about it. I had to take 4 vacation days because no one mentioned it. The damage to the pool was extensive, and required a professional to come pump out the pool the night before my birthday party after we could not get anyone from Kinwood to return calls for help. The items we found that were thrown in by Kinwood workers was unbelievable. Since the and quot;projectand quot; ended, I repeatedly attempted to get Mr. Smylie send the crew back out to finish the job, and to fix a number of concerns I voiced during construction to Ryan (who stated that everything would be gone over during the and quot;walk-throughand quot;) - there wasn't a walk through, they just left. Mr. Smylie stated that everything looked great when he was at my home. I wrote back that looking good, and actual safe, quality construction is very different. He did send a guy out to and quot;button up the loose endsand quot;, and he spent a day and a half on a few things, but the overall construction was so defective, things began to fall apart, as early as the night of my party, as the mortar in between the flagstone caps began to crack and crumble. With each successive rain, every structure has fallen apart even more. My large pergola is falling over so badly, the cement is cracked at the base and it is pulled the travertine deck pieces up. Cedar and quot;wrappingand quot; pieces fell of the pergola from the wind alone! When you look at the pieces, they have between 9 and 15 holes in the front side, but only ONE nail actually went through on one piece, and 3 nails went through on the other. Clearly, the nail guns was empty, but they just keep shooting it at all the wood. The structural design of the pergola boggles the mind, with heavy cedar beams and joists, with only a single large bolt through each end (that goes through 3 large pieces). As the 4x4 treated posts are set in incorrectly mixed concrete, as the foundation for this pergola, it is no wonder it is twisted, and pivoted at each of the single bolts/nut locations. On the end of one of the bolts, a nut is seen barely hanging on, by maybe a thread or two. My travertine deck (clearly the most expensive option, but NOT the best option for someone with a disability and who wanted little maintenance) is cracking from underneath, as water has gotten underneath the deck. Pergola boards that are to attach to another board on the house, have nails going in sideways, and are pulling away. No brackets. On the wood deck, nails began popping up and wood began to warp shortly after completion. Only a nail gun was used on the deck (no screws), and the steps are popping up, with each step having 2 pieces of wood. In some cases, the distance between these 2 pieces of wood is so wide (one of the issues I complained about, and the and quot;loose endand quot; guy and quot;fixedand quot;), it is a danger and liability. TODAY, I walked outside, and I tripped and fell on the warped wood, and my foot was gouged by a nail that was sticking up almost an inch! The fireplace area - which Kinwood posted on their FB page and called it an and quot;awesome fireplace and patio areaand quot;, was built on top of the roots of my 3 mature river birch trees. So, when Kinwood spray-painted its location, I asked about fire safety with the trees above it and was told, it wasn't a problem. It turns out, it was a HUGE problem, and the fire dept deemed it a fire hazard and I had to remove the 3 trees!!! They are much needed for shade with my disability, now I have a desolate area, where the fireplace is actually moving, cracking, breaking and moving stones, which is going to have to completely come apart. And now I've lost my trees as well. but the fireplace and quot;patio areaand quot; almost defies description. I walk with a cane. I was walking with my cane when I went to the kinwood office and met with Mr. Smylie to design it. He showed me pictures, and I described what I wanted, a patio area that had like small moss in between the joints as it moved out towards the grassy area. Instead, I got solid pieces of travertine, spaced in some cases 9 inches apart, that aren't even attached to anything - so if you step on the end, it flips up, and it has many times and people have fallen. When they started laying this ridiculous hopscotch looking area out, the on-site manager wasn't here, so I tried to tell the workers it wasn't right, but no one understood me. when ryan eventually came back I said this doesn't look anything like the picture that was drawn for me, and how am I supposed to put furniture on this? He stated that they would put grass in between allt he pieces, and the grass would grow, and the stone would settle and it would be safe. Then he said when I got furniture, to let them know and they'd put some extra pieces down. They didn't. The stones didn't settle. The grass area in between these stones is impossible to maintain - you can't put a lawnmower on it, and it's broken a number of weed-eaters. The steps going up to the large pergola were going to be one large solid stone, and that was Mr. Smylie's design suggestion, which I thought was great. You can see an example of how neat it looks on Kinwood Landscape and Designs FB page, a beautiful home that has a lot of the elements I was supposed to have. My steps? Individual pieces of flagstone, with the crumbling mortar, differing thicknesses, overhanging so far they are a danger, and absolutely not to code. There was also to be a semi-circle cut out of the travertine deck, with a planting area. however, what I have, is not a semi-circle, it is like two halves of different circles. And the travertine has cracks going all across the deck, plants growing up through the travertine, and water has gone down under the one piece that houses the electrical area for a light. I have extensive photographs taken from the beginning of construction up until today, 6/4/2014 - almost one year later, and never was the project complete. Mr. Smylie and Kinwood's response to my repeated requests was to demand the final payment (I had paid them, EARLIER than payment schedule, $50,000) of around $12,000. But as things were falling apart, and he refused to return to the job site to repair what was clearly construction defects (almost every piece of flagstone applied had mortar cracking within a month!), the twisting and moving pergola (within a month), and a patio and quot;areaand quot; that no disabled person who walks with a cane would EVER design, much less be able to walk on, or use. The entire project is falling apart. I filed a BBB complaint last July, and Kinwood did not respond to their requests for information for 2 months, and waited until the last day, to have me served to appear in small claims court to pay the $12,000. They STILL have an A rating with the BBB, because once they filed a suit against me, it was no longer within the BBBs purview. I had to hire an atty, and sued them in Circuit Court. It will now cost at least $90,000 to tear down everything, dig up cement, travertine deck, everything, plus at least another $30,000 to replace the trees that I lost, over $5,000 in pool repairs from their damage, and then attorney fees and other costs, $150,000!!! But Kinwood delayed this process for so long, it took 10 months to get Shannon Smylie back out to the property, whereby he and his attorney, stated that I threw all the materials into the pool (which makes perfect sense that I would do that the night before my own party), that my DOGS cracked the travertine deck (wow, if a 75 lb dog can crack travertine, what person can walk on it?), ignored the fact that the pergola was falling over, the fireplace moving, my trees were gone, the deck with nails sticking out, and stated that everything was just and quot;cosmeticand quot;, and that they could come and fix it, and then I would owe them their $12,000! Obviously, every one of those statements was ludicrous. Then we went to mediation, where after 6 hrs, they offered to pay me $5,000. Fox17 News came out after I contacted them when even more damage was occurring with the large pergola twisting and leaning over, I'm afraid to be underneath it, and the fireplace was moving so that the large pieces of stone at the opening of the fireplace, were cracking and now of different heights. Eric Alvarez at Fox17 News did a great job, and after 2 hrs at my property, had to edit the segment to only 2 1/2 minutes. He did a great job. He interviewed Kinwood's attorney, who stated that and quot;Kinwood stands by their work, and Ms. Shaffer is just unhappyand quot;. After the segment aired on Fox17 News, Kinwood stated and quot;she wasn't disabled when she signed the contractand quot;, and quot;she damaged her own propertyand quot;, and quot;we responded to her BBB complaintand quot;, and quot;the project passed inspectionand quot;. Disgusting.

Kinwood Landscape exceeded our expectations. Our patios look like brand new again. A couple of the pavers had settled and they repaired these without us even asking. We will definitely use Kinwood Landscape in the future and have recommended them to several friends/neighbors who have had work completed. When the original work was completed, Shannon worked with us to plan the entire project into phases based on our available budget. The work took longer than expected due to the weather but his team was very efficient. We may never move from our house because we love our backyard oasis.

Very professional company to work with. They did what they said that they would do, when they said that they would do it, even when we changed our minds in the middle of the project. One of the few contractors that I interviewed that actually did the work with thier own employees. Would highly recommend them.

Steve was very nice the two times he had come out previously.

Shannon was very professional and we felt absolutely confident his team would do a good job. They did provide good examples of their own work and again, I have no question they would have done a fine job. Shannon was prompt to our appointments, provided good work samples, and was very responsive to our endless emails and questions. We interviewed 2 other providers and the pricing estimates for all three were right inline with Kinwood's. We ultimately decided to go with another provider because we thought we would prefer to have a and quot;specialistand quot; do our pergola and a company that just does and quot;hardscapesand quot; do our pavers. (Kinwood would send one crew to do both the pergola and the pavers.) Overall, it was a good experience and we are considering calling them back for some upcoming landscaping needs.

unknown

They did a great job and they had some wonderful recommendations. Our experience with them was fabulous. They did it right away, finished quickly and it was very well done. It was a great price. We wanted it done before Thanksgiving and they were right on it. We were able to use the patio for Thanksgiving and they sealed it later. We will use them again.

Kinwood Landscape and Construction had great ideas. they were very professional in their work ethic. i would use them again in the future.