FENCE GUY

Our neighbor had this company do her original wrought iron fence along the front of her property and it looked great and had no problems that I know of so when we discussed having a joint fence installed and splitting the cost of the fence line between us, she wanted to use this company again. I met with him and had a talk of what we wanted but when i asked if he had insurance, he said he did not because he subs all the work out to crews he uses regularly He stated that it costs him too much to keep liability insurance. When i asked if his subs had insurance he said they did not. I was ready to walk right there as I do contracts for a living and no insurance = no work. However, my neighbor wanted to use them so I agreed. I should have walked. I walked the intended fence line with him and the "foreman" of the sub that he would be using and we laid paint and flags on the corners and property lines. I wanted to go on the property line on the other side from my neighbor but he talked me out of it as I was not going to have it surveyed (there are pins front and back already from survey but no middle). As they did the neighbors side first, I walked my line with them again the day before they were starting my side. When i went out to check on them the next day, that same foreman had moved the entire fence line about 3' closer to the house from where it was PLAINLY marked with orange paint and flags! Also, when you put up a fence, you put it on the side of the posts that you want to keep the animals (cattle) on so that if they push against it, they are pushing on the posts and the fence holds. This is a game fence; intended to keep deer and such out of my property so the fence should have been on the outside. Nope, on the inside. When I asked he said it is to keep our animals in...I don't have "animals", I want the animals to stay out. I said to just keep it and keep going. We has also discussed with him about moving the fence on the far side to the property line which is about 6-7 feet over from the current dog run fence but he said about using the old dog run poles as support and raising them up to the 6 feet as they were cemented into the ground and solid. I saw the logic in this and so I agreed. Imagine my surprise when I came home and found that his people tore out those posts and put in regular green T-posts!! If I knew they would tear them out I would have moved the entire fence 6' over to the property line on that side. The installers also didn't measure accurately between our partner neighbor and us where to put the corner posts, the "foremen" just stood there looking down his arm holding up his thumb and eyed it up and said "right here". I have no idea who's side the fence is on on the back of our property because the foreman didn't put it where the fence guy and I had the mark. There were also some T posts that were wobbly and needed to be cemented to be secure. We had to walk the fence line with the Owner and show him that you could shake some of the posts with your hand. He did have them come back and secure the posts. Now the gates - First, we had told him and he wrote it on the quote that the gate was to open inward to the right. His team installed the support posts to open left. No, we need to have the left open so work trucks can go that way to get into the back yard. They had to install new posts to open right but they did not remove the left posts. so now that way is more difficult for any work truck to get around. We went over his sample book with him when we ordered the custom iron gate and ordered an iron gate direct from his website pictures with grape vines across the top. He quoted us an additional 1,300 over the cost of the regular panel gate he had quoted in the original quote he wrote and we agreed. After weeks of waiting, we came home to find he installed a panel gate with our requested vines. We called him immediately and he said we didn't order an iron gate only grape vines on a panel gate. I said yes we did, and that if he looks at the quote, he wrote it on there when we signed and raised the price $1,000. He did and basically said oops. We waited another 3 weeks for a new gate. His people also installed the back gate to open inward which would be ok but that directions UP HILL. You cannot open a gate up a hill. He said we would have to dig out the area and I said no, you will put a gate on opening outward. To do this, he moved the "incorrect" gate from the front to the back which was a nice gesture as that panel gate had the $325 grape vines installed. All-in-all we had to call him for no less than SEVEN (7) issues with the gates and fence. What we got for all that hassle is a panel gate with grape vines in place of a plain panel gate. Granted that is a $325 upgrade retail but the frustration was not worth it. Here we are 5 months later and the nice custom-made front iron gate is sagging. I have a 2-foot level and using only that distance, the gate is sagging about 2 inches on the non-hinged side. How did we find this out? We had a new drive installed and when that was completed, the gate was working without scrapping. Now, we can't open the gate half way without it getting caught on the driveway. We have to actually lift the gate to open/close it. We have to now call him again and try to get him to stand by his workmanship and somehow fix the gate so it is sturdier or just call someone else and have them fix it. I had said I would not pay the last half of the quote until he addressed my complaints and he did fix all the issue we had brought to his attention. However, I would still recommend that you not hire this person as he does not do the work himself, he nor his subs carry insurance, and his subs do not listen or follow direction even provided by the owner. The workmanship is mediocre and the custom iron work does not seem to be holding up to the test of a brief 5 months of daily use.

Communication started out ok with The Fence Guy. He was a bit slow getting the project started, but he said that was due to ordering materials. The project was an electric gate install. The "guys" doing the work were efficient. End product wasn't exactly as we expected, but would work. He over charged for extra gate openers ordered, but did send a refund after this was brought to his attention. A family member damaged the gate a short time after install; the stop pole was bent and the gate would only open/close manually. I called The Fence Guy and explained the damage. He came to access the damage fairly quickly. He said he would call his electrician and also schedule the reset. I had to make follow up calls to check on when the repair would be started to reset the pole. During one conversation discovered he had not called the electrician. So I got the name and number and made the call. I just got frustrated after several excuses from The Fence Guy about being very busy and scheduling "of guys"; had a horrible phone conversation with him and in a subsequent conversation he said he didn't want to perform the repair. I was actually glad he said he didn't want to do the work because I didn't really want to deal with him anymore and I'm 99.9% sure the feeling was mutual.

Could have been better-I would suggest he listen to his clients.