Earthscape Curb & Mulch LLC

I had the estimate on a Saturday (they were considerably late). Was told I would receive an estimate within 24 hours. 4 days later still nothing. Called to remind and they claimed they had no idea who I was and that they had never been to my house (even though I knew their names and had their phone #s). Rather than saying hey look a mistake was made somewhere let’s get you a new estimate, nick the owner said I should go somewhere else. Apparently this company doesn’t feel they need anymore business. Be warned.

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We had to reschedule the appointment a few times due to weather, but once the work began they were in and out in just over two hours. They were flexible with us changing the pattern on them at the day before insulation and everything went smoothly. The end product looks great.

I've had them out twice. They did a wonderful job. I left a message through their website for them to call me and they contacted me the next day!

Nick seemed like a nice enough guy during the presentation & was priced comparably with other companies I'd checked with who provide the same services. During the presentation I asked Nick if he would be on site during the installation & he assured me he would be. I was concerned b/c I had a couple areas where I wanted to make sure the details of what I wanted didn't get lost in translation. The day of the installation Nick came by early & we walked the areas to be edged & he painted lines indicating exactly where the edging would be installed. As we concluded that process (which was very detailed) I again asked if Nick was going to be on site during the entire installation & he confirmed he would be. That was the last time I saw Nick & the last time anything went as planned or expected. The crew had some mechanical difficulties which I understand can happen to anyone so the crew was a few hours late arriving - no problem. I stopped home to check the progress a few hours after they got started & immediately saw some things that didn't look the way Nick & I had discussed. I asked one of the crew if Nick was around & I was told they hadn't seen him all day. I made several attempts to contact Nick but had no luck. At the end of the day I did a thorough walk around of the house & here is a list of some of the unacceptable things I found; chunks of concrete in my yard the size of golf balls (some larger/some smaller), dirt tossed into my landscape stones (some the size of softballs & some piles the size of a shovel scoop), multiple areas where the painted lines for the edging were missed completely & other areas where they missed the angles by as much as a foot, one area they removed & discarded the sod were there was to be no edging. The two most obnoxious fouls in my mind is the fact that dirt was tossed up & over the 30" seatwall & onto the pool deck (which likely took some effort) & the total mess left in my driveway once they were "finished". I spoke to Nick the next day & asked him to stop by to take a look & expressed my disappointment with the sand in the driveway but everything else there wasn't much fix for. When he didn't show up for our meeting & I called him he became defensive & started with the "i thought you were going to call me if you could meet" & every other excuse. Over the next few days I became more frustrated with his lack of response & arrogant attitude. When I told him to quite making excuses & just take care of the problem he responded "Oh my god, is this how you talk to your customers?" I warned a family member not to do business with this company via Madisonbids.com. He did anyway now cant get his services performed or refunded. My advice- find another company to do business with. FYI. Nick never once stopped by to look at the work or errors made by his employees.

The price and installation of the curbing was decent. However, the quality of the stamped concrete patio was poor to include cracking and other issues that was not expected of a company with experience. Most importantly, we paid to have the old block and bark mulch disposed of and found out that it was simply thrown in the woods behind the house (we were charged for it as well). As with other reviews, the communication was poor and there was constant rescheduling. I would recommend paying the extra money for somene that is more dependable and will do quality work.

I called earthscapes in March 2012. Nick came over within a month and gave me an excellent price I'm doing landscape work at my house. He was very charming. after several emails, I agreed to a price of $1275. You never came to do the work all that summer, although I waited and waited. But I was patient because again, the price was really good. summer came and went, and because I was battling cancer that summer, it soon turned to winter and I never did hear or see Earthscapes. In March of 2013, I called Nick @ Earthscapes again. Nick advised he remembered being at my house the year before, but he wasn't sure where the estimate was. H called me a week later and told me he found the paperwork and he was willing to honor the quote. I again waited all summer long, with mutiple emails, calls, and broken promised dates for getting the work done. I finally realized he wasn't ever going to show up so I gave up hoping & contacting Earthscapes. It was getting too close to the cold weather coming, so I decided I would wait until spring 2014 to get it done by a reliable company. Ironically, and unannounced, Earthscapes crew showed up in mid-October 2013 -- a yr and a half late. They proceeded to do the curbing & scantilly added the WRONG color landscape stones to the beds. I don't really know how the curbing will look -- SINCE IT HAS BEEN COVERED IN SNOW since before it had time to cure! And then came the bill for almost double what I had been quoted!! Needless to say, we will be going to small claims court soon -- when the snow melts & the ground thaws.

I hired Nick Hahn to plow the driveway and parking lot of my commercial building in the winter of 2012. I called him in December 2013 to find out if he wanted to continue to plow it in 2013. He never called me back. I saw him plowing the driveway and parking lot next door to my building one day and I asked if we wanted to continue to do mine. He said yes and he plowed the driveway and parking lot that day. During the next snowfall I cleared the snow from the driveway and I left him a message telling him that I still needed the parking lot plowed. He did not plow the lot and he did not return my call. I know a lot of folks don't check their voice mail, so I sent him a text message. No response. I ended up clearing the lot myself with a snow blower. Two voice mail messages, two text messages and two messages through his website later and I have still not heard from him. He did a god job last year, but I need a contractor who will return my calls.

Overall the project went very well. In hind site, I wish we had discussed resetting my old timbers used in the sidewalk for this project. Some of them were sunk into the ground over the years and where no longer at the proper level, but I made an assumption those would be reset and it did not happen. So that is really my fault for not clarifying this ahead of time. Other than that, the quality of the work and the end result met all expectations. Pros: - Nick is very personable and easy to work with. - There was a willingness to accommodate when I made decisions to make some last minute changes without price gouging. - The work was completed amazingly fast - one day for work and a few hours follow-up for sealing concrete and paving prep. - A very hard working crew of 6 men that worked like a well oiled machine until the task was complete. They all knew their roles. - To get the best job, the concrete was poured from 4 to 6 inches thick, depending on area and past problems with pavers. - They mix their own concrete and coloring is added as it is mixed throughout the mixture. - Not dependent on needing a large cement truck with chutes to carry concrete to an area as it was all done with wheel barrels. - A willingness to return on a Sunday morning to wash and seal concrete. Cons: - Our original date had to be moved back a couple of weeks, however, anyone that had a workload for the summer was behind with all the rain that we had. The first date we set up over one month in advance, so I can understand the change. - Did not communicate very well. I saw him one morning and he said he was coming to start job that afternoon and did not show up. He emailed me later that day and said he was bringing the crew the next day. He did not show up and emailed me later in the morning with excuse and said he would be out with a big crew the next day and that did happen. A bit frustrating, however, in the grand scheme of things the timing was close and the job got done by promised date. He told me that the bobcat work to prep for my old pavers we would do in the fall and a couple of days later (still in July) a man shows up with the bobcat. He had sent me an email that morning that I had not looked at, but fortunately I was home to show the bobcat operator what to do. I really feel I got lots of work done for the money. I had pretty much decided to do the work myself of resetting my pavers in the timbers, until I got the bid from Earthscapes. Other bidders were leery of this job because one of the huge yews could not be accessed by tractor and had to be hand dug and removed. That was a time consuming job. Other bidders did not want to remove shrubs at all and they wanted to bring cement trucks in and realized they could not easily access the job. Earthscapes did it all quickly and efficiently. I almost gave an A experience rating because the cost and end product were the most important consideration to me, but the lack of communication and punctuality have to get some consideration. I am willing to put up with a little unresponsiveness and lack of punctuality if all is well that ends well. The price and quality of work met expectations. The only reason for B professionalism score, was Nick not bringing up that some of the timbers should have been reset to get the very best job, but I am still happy with the end result. Also, in my mind, professionalism also includes communication, which I already commented on. I contacted Nick, because I saw a large rock wall, cement patio, and garden work that Earthscapes completed for a friend of mine which looked really nice and my friend was pleased with the end product. I am glad I took his recommendation to contact Nick. I would certainly recommend Earthscapes to others and I will use them again if the need arises.

He told me he would have the quote to me by the next morning and he never did. I thought I would give him the weekend, and I never got the quote. I left messages and sent an e-mail, but he never responded. And I had told him that we were looking to move quickly, because we were going on vacation and we wanted to make a decision prior to that and put the money down for that while we are away on vacation. We knew it was just a matter of waiting, especially since concrete and landscapers are so far behind schedule because of the spring weather. So I left a review on Google and he had a lot of negative reviews. And he then e-mailed me directly telling me that my review was unfair and he was threatening to take it down from Google, if I didn't do so. He basically was telling me that he didn't want the job, that is why he never replied and he was just extremely unprofessional. To tell me that I wasn't entitled to leave my opinion on Google, I thought it was also inappropriate. He was complaining that he wasted the $100 to come out to me and I said that if that was a concern of his, then why does he accept people that call form my area, if you know it is going to cost you $100. The e-mail he sent me was absolutely ridiculous. Some of his suggestions and comments and criticisms in this e-mail to me was just so unfounded. I asked him, besides to do the patio, to redo my stairs, and he did say that he didn't want to do the stairs. And I wanted to redo the sidewalk and he said that he could give me a quote for that. He never bothered to give me the quote. And then when I was calling to find out where the quote was, and to make sure that he had the proper e-mail address, he never replied. It was two e-mails and three phone calls and he never responded. It was like two weeks later, because we were on vacation for a week and a half. I gave him a final call and a final e-mail after we had come back, which would have given him sufficient amount of time to come up with a quote, if was as busy as he claimed he was. And then still nothing, I put the Google review out there and that is when he got back to me, after I did the Google review and he obviously didn't like it. He was very nice and polite when he was out here, but he didn't follow through on anything he told me he would do.

I contacted Earthscape for a quote via email. Nick was able to drive by my house, assess the work that needed to be done and provide me with a quote within a day or two. I appreciate that he didn't require my presence, so I didn't have to take time away from work unnecessarily. Earthscape removed my tree the following Sunday as promised. Both gentlemen were very pleasant and professional and left no trace of the tree behind. I have considered Earthscape for a few other projects, however, we weren't able to come together on a price. Still, I'd definitely feel comfortable using them again.

Nick was charming in person, doing the estimate. He was totally undependable after that. We had scheduled the work weeks in advance, but things were constantly rescheduled-usually on a day with thunderstorms in forecast. Then there were equipment breakdowns, wrong blocks ordered, lack of delivery coordination. I had to remind Nick when work was to be done/finished. Nice product, very poor customer service.

This company's headquarters are in Appleton but we dealt with Nick Hahn who works out of DeForest. He gave us a color chart and curbing style brochure and walked with us to get an idea of our needs. He offered a useful suggestion of putting curb around the propane tank to dress it up. He also suggested "softening" some of the curves to make it easier to mow around. The crew did their work while we were away so we never saw them. We love the result. It looks great , reduces our lawn maintenence, and we hope it will be a permanent improvement (unlike the plastic).