Vulcan Design & Construction Inc.

I hired them to build a 16x20 ft paver patio in August of 2022, by the end of April 2023 the project manager told me there is not much more they could do to make the patio better and I had to pay them the full amount. Even though they claim to have many years of experience, the low quality of craftsmanship does not reflect their years of experience. The patio is not square and there are many visible gaps in between pavers making it an eye sore and everyone that comes to visit is always surprised to hear the amount of money I payed for the project. It has been a very expensive lesson learned for me

This is a review for a job we had done back in 2017. Why 3 years later you may ask, lets get to the long story of a company (Vulcan Design and Construction) and how HORRIBLE they are. In 2017, we were just planning on adding a small section to our existing patio to put our BBQ and a small BBQ gazebo on. In the future we were hoping to add on to the opposite side with some stamped concrete, but thought it would be a few years away. So we started to look for companies to give us bids and found out pretty quick that it was going to be tough to find someone to do such a small job. When Vulcan came out to give us a bid, we also got a bid to do the stamped concrete as well. We decided to just get everything done now. We signed an agreement with Vulcan on 4/25/2017 to do both the small concrete addition on one side and a large stamped concrete addition on the other side. The total for the job was $9,588.20. During the signing, I specifically asked the salesman (Sean) if this included sealing the concrete and he said yes, we found out later after this horrible experience, it only included a 30 day sealer. After signing, the first sign of trouble was communication was very minimal and hard to get any answers, but we new construction companies were busy. We were told by Sean to email him example pictures of what we wanted to do and he would pass them on to the person who would be in charge of our job, named Eli. We emailed Sean pictures on May 27th of what we wanted to do. After a few more weeks on June 19th, we finally got in touch with Eli, he asked me to email him the same photo's I had already emailed Sean. So I thought we finally might get the ball rolling on the job. Then, we weren't hearing back from Eli. Vulcan contacted us to let us know we would be working with a new person named Tomasi. We found out later that Eli left the company. Once we met Tomasi, things started moving along. At the end of June, they would pop over to the house in the evening to start prepping the space. On July 5th, they finished getting the space prepped and ready. We noticed after they finished that the 2 sprinklers heads that they were supposed to remove we not removed and just laying on the ground still connected. It was a pain since we had a nice lawn and lots of shrubs, but we figured a few days and everything would be done. Unfortunately, they couldn't give us a time when the concrete would be laid as 2017 was a busy year for construction. So for the next couple weeks we had to hand water and by a sprinkler to water the lawn, which didn't work so well. Our nice yard slowly withered away. On July 17th, they came out to do finish the job and we were super excited. So we sat inside out of the way, watching the guys do their work. After some time, we realized there was a problem, a very big problem. Tomasi came to the door to talk and he let us know that the concrete was setting too fast and they couldn't finish stamping the concrete. He said they would be back tomorrow with a jackhammer and remove it all. We also found out that the guy they hired to pump in the concrete, drove a stake through our sprinkler system and that the sprinkler system was no longer working. On July 18th, Tomasi and his crew came over to remove everything. Luckily, we only had to wait a few more days for them to try again. On July 21st, they came out again and everything went smoothly. They came back a couple days later to take off the forms and when removing the forms, they broke off a large piece on the edge of the concrete. They said they would come back some time to fix the issue. Then on July 31st, Tomasi came back out and fixed the sprinkler system (so we were without sprinklers for a month) but said he would have to come back to fix the concrete. It wasn't until early August that he came out to "fix" the concrete and what he did was just use quikrete which is not anywhere near the same color but said that was all he could do. When we met with Eric (one of the owners) for the final walk through, we showed him all of the issues. Rebar was left behind our fence, they dumped access concrete at the end of the sidewalk (we have a corner lot), our yard was half dead due to no sprinklers (see before and after pictures of the yard), we had dead plants, concrete was not fixed properly, the concrete was never sealed (that is when Eric told me that it was, they put down a 30 day sealer. What good is a 30 day sealer? When I asked if it would be sealed, do you think I was meaning a 30 day sealer). I told Eric that I was not going to pay full price for a job with this many problems. He left and said he would be in touch on what was going to happen with all these issues. He called me back a few days later and we discussed the issues and he was dead set on us paying full price and I again said no way. We ended the conversation without an agreement and with none of the issues above being solved. So, I waited for a call to in regards to what was going to happen and that call never came. The rebar is still behind my fence, the concrete is still and the end of the sidewalk, I rehung the fence properly, and the concrete was never fixed and later that year, it developed a pretty long crack (which luckily hasn't gotten any bigger). I never heard from Eric again and we continued on with our lives. Fast forward to April 22nd of this year (2020) and I get a voicemail from a Christine {Last Name Redacted} saying she works for Vulcan Design & Construction and that she was newer there and just cleaning up the books and say that we owed money. So I call back as soon as I see the message and I talked with Jaime, the other owner of Vulcan. Since I didn't work with him, I worked with Eric, he didn't really know the story. So I told him what had happened and I said I was extremely upset that 3 years later I'm getting a call saying I owe them money. He said that he knows it sounds weird to call someone 3 years later and that he wanted to make things right and end this on a good note. I told him the same thing I told Eric, I was not paying full price for the job and 3 years later and none of the above items fixed, I wasn't going to pay anything now. He said he agreed that I shouldn't have to pay full price for that job, but then he started going down the same rabbit hole that Eric did, that they were not making any money on this job because the concrete had to be poured twice, like I should feel grateful for that. I told him I would talk to the wife and call him back. Everyone I talked to, told me don't give them a penny. After talking to the wife, I called Jaime back and told him we would give them $1200 if they came out and sealed the concrete as originally agreed. He said he would talk with Eric and get back to me. He called me back and said that they would agree to the $1200 and hoped that maybe when the weather got better they could come out and give us a bid on getting the concrete sealed. I said, " What? I said the offer was $1200 and they would seal the concrete." He said, "Oh I didn't hear that, there is no way we could do that, it would cost more than that to seal the concrete." My Wife and I, decided to just give them the $1200 just to get them out of our lives. We are both currently on unemployment, but at least we are honorable people. My advice to anyone looking at using Vulcan Design & Construction, RUN RUN RUN. They are horrible and they are not trustworthy. I've added pictures of our bid, our yard before and after, issues with the concrete, the poorly hung fence, the rebar, the dumped concrete. Again, DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!

Great from start to finish. While the initial bid was outside my budget, Luciene worked with me to bring the project into an affordable range. When I requested a last-minute change to the plan, everyone was responsive and prompt in making it happen. Alex and his team did the installation, and were timely, professional, skilled, and incredibly hard-working. I'd gladly hire them again.

Their work were exceptional, the work was beautiful, they have good ideas for the design that they've showed and shared with us, they were very timely and we highly recommend them.

Everything went well.

Everything went very well.

It was very good! I enjoyed it and they did a very good job.

It went really well.They are extremely quality. Their designs are very forward thinking, but they listen to what we really wanted. The owner, employees and subcontractors are top rate . I would use them again.

Great experience working with Vulcan (patio and retaining wall). The crew did a great job and the owner followed-up as well. They take pride in their work, which I greatly appreciate. Everything was done on time and according to the schedule they laid out. Owner is honest and professional. Yes, they are busy, but they do a quality job at a reasonable price. I did make one extra phone call to follow-up on the job start date, but that's just standard for any work like this as far as I'm concerned. Great job! Thanks!

Fantastic. Jamie Eric and Priscilla are a gem to work with. Quality work.

Professional team arrived on time and completed work with high quality and attention to detail. Owner wants to insure customers are satisfied!

Once started it went well and final product was great.