ACTS 29 Construction

Be very careful with doing business. He uses one job to finance another job and will not refund you when requested. The company is not reputable.

Project 1: 7'x84' dig out debree from West side of house, spray weed killer, place landscape fabric and 5/8 minus gravel, compact. --- While completing this project, he broke several pieces of siding on our house. When we first talked about him doing that project the one thing I was concerned about was damage to the house because he said he'd use a mini excavator and it's only 6/12 feet between the house and the fence. We just resided and painted our house last fall and I didn't want it damaged. He assured me it would not be. Then when I discovered the damage he said that it couldn't be helped. I told him that we had six siding boards left but he didn't offer to replace the ones he broke or offer to help my husband replace them. Also, he didn't compact the gravel that he laid so my husband had to rent a compacter and do it (because by the time we realized he hadn't compacted it he'd already walked off the job). Project 2: Remove sod, widen driveway remove tree, place 115'x10'x3" of 5/8 minus gravel compacted. --- He removed too much sod which resulted in 2/3 of the driveway then needing 6+ inches of gravel which meant that we had to buy $300 more gravel and the west edge of the driveway is loose because there's no dirt left on the other side to keep it from sliding down so my husband is now going to have to shore up that side of the driveway. Project 3: Gravel entire driveway 110'x29'x3" compact place landscape border along side, 115'. --- When he first suggested placing the landscape border I was concerned because I told him I'd seen some that looked nice because they were put in carefully and were straight but that I'd seen some that were crooked and not put in flat and looked bad and he assured me that mine would be straight and flat and that is NOT how it is. And because the border is on that west edge of the driveway where he removed too much dirt, it just wants to fall over so my husband needs to fix it. Project 4: Remove shrubs adjoining the driveway, remove railroad ties boardering the front of the house. Prepare and pour concrete porch from the front door to the fence on the West side of the house, apx. 10' x 35', including one step up to the front door landing. Contractor willbe responsible for dumping fees associated with excavation, Concrete will be poured after site is prepared and compacted with gravel and rebar. Six (6) sac concrete will be used and completed with a broom finish. The shrubs were in an area aprox. 10' x 3' and they were removed and so were the railroad ties, which didn't take long. In the patio area there were a few small stumps that they pulled out. He did somewhat level the patio site and place some gravel. But after the driveway was done and we paid him for that part of the job, he informed us that he wasn't coming back the next day to finish the patio. When asked when he'd be back, he said he didn't know. I told him that was an unacceptable answer and that he could not expect us to wait indefinitely and he then proceeded to whine about how much emotional distress we had put him through because of questions we'd asked while he was working. Actually, my husband had to SUPERVISE him and had to tell him, over and over and over, how he wanted things done, and it still didn't quite get done the way we wanted. Once, when my husband pointed out that the front of the yard he was cutting back from the street was suppose to be cut back 10' and he'd only cut it back about 7', his response was "You're really gonna hold me to that?" WHAT??? He never did cut it back to 10'. It's at 9' because he never did the finishing work with a shovel to get it cut off straight, like he said he would, so the front of the yard is all jagged and raggedy looking. So we'll have to fix that to. His last day here, before telling us he wasn't coming back to finish the patio, my husband decided to ask him some questions about the patio work to make sure he really did know what he was suppose to do because we learned after watching him work that he appeared to have knowledge of how something needed to be done and should be done but either didn't possess the professional skill to do it OR lacked the will to do it right. So, my husband asked him about whether he was going to place metal flashing against the siding so it would be between the siding and concrete and he said "no, I hadn't planned on it". My husband asked, well isn't that code? No answer. "Well we shouldn't have water run down between the siding and the cement, right", but Chris just stood there staring at him and didn't answer. Then my husband asked him how much of a slope he was going to have from the house out to make sure the water would run off away from the house and he said 1 1/2". WHAT? It should be no more than 5/8", and doesn't need to be more than that, and since it's a patio you don't want to feel the slope. Since he refused to finish the patio, my husband called him about refunding 1/2 of the 50% we paid up front because he didn't earn all the entire 50% but he won't return our calls. So after all the money we paid him, we're going to have to spend even more to shore up the west side of the driveway so it doesn't collapse, we had to rent a compactor and compact the gravel on the side of the house that he failed to do but was paid to do, and now we have to hire someone else to put in the patio because he refused to fulfill the contract and won't refund some of the money we paid him up front. Look him up on the Labor and Industries site. There's some interesting reading there. I sure wish I'd done that BEFORE hiring him.