My Concrete Artist

We contracted with Troy to grind down a pool deck, restain and reseal. It was to be a teo day job. He arrived and said the desk didn't need grinding but the price was the same. He used our power washer (he conveniently forgot his). Then he used a scubber machine. Then he put on stain and then a sealer. He slopped the stain on the white limestone pool coping. He put a bucket down creating a ring on the limestone. We did not see this because the area was taped off for a couple of days. He was finished at the end of the first day and demanded full payment. He is a smooth talker. The sealer was so thick in areas it would not dry and then had roller marks in other areas. He came back and put more sealer on and it just bubbled. After the first rain it went white and spotty all over. He refused to give us any kind of refund and said our pool must be leaking under the concrete. We knew that was not possible because this deck is in the side of a hill and unless water runs up hill it would not be in the concrete where the most white spots occurred. We could have sued Troy but that would have been very expensive and we doubted he had and resourses to pay even if we won. Therefore we contacted various sealer manufacturers and determined that the sealer had been put on too thick. We bought a $20 can of Xylene and rolled it on ourselves. This thinned the sealer and caused it to re-adhere to the surface. We now do the work ourselves each year and make sure the correct amount is put on the surface at the right time of day. If the concrete is too hot the sealer bubbles. The materials cost less than $100 and it takes us only a few hours. The stain marks in the white limestone will have to be sanded out. Troy got it all over the place in small amounts so we work on it ourselves slowly. Professional removal would cost thousands. Please do not use this guy. He does not understand his business and he plays on people's trust as a slick salesman.

We contracted Troy to remove old flooring and acid stain approximately 350 sq ft of bedroom, bathroom, and closet space. He completed the work and we paid him although because we could not walk in the space for 3 days and so we did not get to inspect the entire job before payment was requested. After we could enter the area we found that the bathroom area was extensively pitted with grinding marks throughout the job. Some of these marks included deep gouges where it seemed the grinding went too far. The pitting went beyond what we had been told there would be as "carpet tack marks along the edges". After a few days white discoloration began to appear in the bathroom and then spread to the entire floor. These discolorations are 3-18 inches in size and now pervade the entire job. We contacted Troy about this and he said he had "seen it before" and that he would need to come back and sand it down and refinish it. I told him at that time I would prefer to not have him return and asked him to refund half of our expense. He would not agree to that so I insisted that he come and see the discoloration and talk about our problems with the job. He was responsive and showed up about 2 weeks after the job was completed to look at the discoloration. He once again stated that he could fix the problem by re-sanding the floor and refinishing it. We talked about the fact that we were not overall satisfied with the appearance of the floor. He insisted he had made the possibility of pitting clear to us before the job. When I asked him about removing the furniture for refinishing he suggested, without even looking, that there was likely not discoloration under the furniture and perhaps he could sand around. We no longer trust him to complete this job to our satisfaction. He seems not to really know the source of the discoloration but is speculating that it is water in the concrete.

Troy did a great job on the floor. It cost more than I had hoped because he had to clean up the mess from the previous contractor. The finished product looks great.