Diamond J Fence Welding

Mr. Sherrill showed up on the day he agreed to start work on our fence and about 2 1/2 to 3 hours were worked the first day. Then, no one showed up for several days. We called, sent text messages and emails asking why no one was coming to work on our fence and Mr. Sherrill had several "reasons" (excuses) for no one being there. Ranging from working on other jobs, a truck they used had hit a deer, someone quit or was fired, phone got run over. etc,. etc. This went on repeatedly. Mr. Sherrill's website states that he uses no subcontractors and that was one of the main reasons we hired him to do our fence work. We soon found out that is not true, as he subcontracted the work for digging the post holes and welding. He later admitted to us that he had to, as he does not have the equipment to do the jobs. Part of our fence was vinyl privacy fencing and Mr. Sherrill told us that he had installed this type of fence before. He RARELY showed up to work on our fence and it was very obvious that the men he hired to install the vinyl fence told us they had never installed vinyl fencing before and there were numerous problems with getting that done and the vinyl fence was not installed correctly. We were very clear and specific when we told Mr. Sherrill where we wanted the fence posts placed at the corners of our property and he placed them in the wrong place, so he had to take the posts up that had been concreted in and put them in again. We even offered to pay for a surveyor to come show him where the property lines were if that would help him and he declined that offer. Mr. Sherrill's workers were careless in clearing the fence line on our property and cut a tree that was on our NEIGHBOR'S property. Thank goodness the neighbor was watching and pointed this out to them. The welding on our pipe fence was shoddy and left holes in the pipe. Our contract called for barbed wire to be installed on the top/bottom of the wire fencing and Mr. Sherrill did not install that until after he claimed to be through with the fence work and we asked that he do it and even then, he did not install it on the top and bottom. We provided Mr. Sherrill with a photo of the emblem we wanted on our entrance gate and he put the emblem on backwards. When he delivered the gate, he propped it against the front pipe fence and it fell over on the concrete driveway, ruining the sprayed on paint job. He attempted to take a short cut in fixing this mess by sanding down the gate and repainting with a paintbrush, leaving very noticeable marks on the areas he repainted. I have videos of him repainting and photos of what it looked like. During the landclearing process, Mr. Sherrill cut trees and limbs for the fence line and placed many of them on our adjoining neighbor's property. We asked his workers if they were going to put the limbs/trees back inside our property before they put the fence up so they could get to the limbs/trees to haul them off, as it would be difficult to get to them if they were left on the adjoining property. They chose to erect the fence without removing the debris and when they claimed that their work was complete, they had not cleaned our property or, either of our neighbors. I have photos of this. Mr. Sherrill had agreed to pick up the vinyl fencing at Lowe's and to save him time, we had the fencing delivered to our house. When they started work on it, they brought in sacks of concrete and placed a vinyl sleeve in the ground in concrete, with no wood post inside it. Later that day, they came back and removed the sleeve from the concrete, leaving a hole with concrete in the yard. I have photos of this. Mr. Sherrill proclaimed that the instructions on the vinyl fencing did not have instructions for placing a wood post in the sleeve, Had he installed vinyl fencing before, as he told us he had, he would have known this needed to be done. The workers left bags of concrete open on a pallet with the concrete spilling out and I called Mr. Sherrill to tell him that rain was forecast that day and if it rained, we would have a mess. He told me someone would come back to take care of that and no one did. It rained and we had a big mess of hardened concrete in our yard. They eventually cleaned most of it up. Our contract was for one brand of gate opener and Mr. Sherrill chose to install a different brand of his choosing without our permission. He has never provided us with the supplier's name or warranty info and we have had problems with the gate opener and via text message, Mr. Sherrill told us he would be coming to install a new battery and work on the gate opener, and that he would not take 2 weeks to come do it. That was in March and he has not come yet. In July of 2012 when Mr. Sherrill proclaimed that the fence work was complete, there were numerous items that he had either not completed or were done incorrectly. Some of the items were taken care of by him, many were not. The wire fence he erected was not of the height that he had agreed to install and it was MUCH too short. the fence came apart in two places and the list of problems is so long, the character limit here will not allow me to go into all of it. He told us that he badly needed the money and if we would agree to go ahead and pay him in full for the work, that he would sign another contract with us and would complete the work that was either not done or was done wrong.We drew up the 2nd contract on August 2nd, 2012 and gave him until October 10th to complete the work. As that deadline drew near, we attempted numerous times to contact him via phone, email and text messages and he was not responsive. When the deadline passed, we contacted the Better Business Bureau to file a complaint and we agreed and paid for mediation. On January 17th, 2013 we spent several hours in mediation with Mr. Sherrill and the BBB and once again, Mr. Sherrill signed a contract, this contract was drawn up by the Better Business Bureau for him to complete the work and repair what he had done incorrectly. The 3rd contract for this fence job. He stated that he could not start the fence work until the end of February, so we decided as a goodwill gesture to allow him extra time and gave him the date of March 23rd, 2013 to complete all work on our fence that he had been paid in full for. We started asking a couple of weeks before this deadline if he knew what day he would be coming to work on the fence so we could be sure to be home when he came. Once again, he avoided us for days and days. Part of the BBB contract allowed him to pay another fence company to complete the work should he choose not to di it himself and he waited until the last minute to contact this company and they could not do the job. Mr. Sherrill asked for an extension of time to complete the fence work and we did not agree to this. He did not attempt to come start any work on the fence. We contacted the BBB to let them know that he had broken the contract he signed with them/us and they suggested we enter into arbitration proceedings with them to resolve this. The BBB gave all of us a deadline of April 27th to agree or not agree to arbitration. We agreed and Mr. Sherrill would not agree to arbitration and now he is no longer accredited with the Better Business Bureau. We will now take legal action against Mr. Sherrill and Diamond J Fence and Welding and we warn anyone who is considering using their services to steer clear of them. Mr. Sherrill previously had the business name of Ace Automated Gates and we will not be surprised if he changes the business name again. His website has been down for days and the message stating that the site is down now calls the business Diamond J Fence LLC. UPDATE 5/10/13 In reference to response on 5/8/13 by Diamond J Fence and Welding: As for business name changes, we have the credit card receipts to PROVE we made payments to ACE AUTOMATED GATES AND FENCING, which was the business name used prior to Diamond J Fence and Welding, When we saw that on our receipt, we asked why there was a different name on the receipt and were told by the owner, that was the name of the company prior to changing to Diamond J Fence and Welding. As for having all documents to prove our claims are true, we absolutely have photos, videos, emails, text messages, voicemails, receipts, contracts and documentation as proof of what we have stated is true.