Barnes Inc

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I had a quote within 24 hours of requesting it on line. I was able to do sign the contract on-line. The phone staff is incredibly courteous,even under situations of great stress (blizzard). When I told them that I needed to be plowed out by a certain time, I had three trucks at my house within 1.5 hours. My only critique is that the price very high, but so is the quality of service.

This is the letter I sent to Barnes after the entire debacle: October 28, 2009 To whom it may concern: I like to report my disappointment in the project management and customer service skills of your employee, Jeremy Holmstadt. The project included the removal of sod and dirt and laying/packing of gravel in order for me to lay a patio and walkway consisting of pavers in my backyard. Prior to Jeremy’s arrival for the estimate, I had staked out the proposed area with small poles and spray painting the ground. When he arrived to draw up the estimate I explained to him my intentions, the size and height of pavers, the fact that I was planning on placing a retaining wall parallel to the back of my garage (which was also staked out), the dimensions of the patio, etc. What I received for an initial estimate only had one sentence that said the project would be done in two phases; 1) to put an initial layer of gravel down so that I could put in a small retaining wall on one side of the patio and 2) to come back and fill it in. I had numerous phone and email conversations about the lack of details in his estimate. Even after my requests, he never included the actual dimensions of the patio and walkway on the estimate, instead he said the square footage was good enough. He never wrote down the size of the pavers, although he asked me 3 different times the height of them. He did not indicate the preferred slope away from the house although we spoke about that as well as something that I wanted to make sure was done correctly. So, if he never writes these things down, how can he ever be able to communicate them to the team that is supposed to be working on the project? Due to the fact that he had not written anything down, I had discussed with him that I wanted to be at home when the first work crew arrived so that I could explain everything to them (maybe they would listen since Jeremy didn’t). Once the date was set for the project to begin, Jeremy called me. I told him that I had a meeting the workday morning that started at 8:30am so I needed to leave promptly by 8:15am. He replied, “Oh, no problem, I’m sure we’ll be there in time”. I received a phone call from Jeremy at 8:10am the workday morning. He nonchalantly stated, “the guys are just about done packing up and with traffic, we’ll arrive around 8:30 or so.” Once again, I reminded him that I had to leave in 5 minutes and all he could say was “oh.” I don’t like being told something just because “it was what the customer wanted to hear.” He obviously did not write my time constraint down nor did he seem too concerned. I was able to run back home during the middle of the day and talk to the work crew. Jeremy had not mentioned anything to them about the slope because when I spoke to the work crew, they were planning on something different. In addition, in order to do their work, they removed the stakes marking the original dimensions, which was expected. We also discussed the distance of the planned wall parallel to the back of the garage. They did their job and everything was fine. The next time a different crew showed up. I get a call from Jeremy asking why the small retaining wall stopped five feet from the back of the garage. I remarked (as I had remarked on numerous occasions), “I told you and staked it out that I was planning on building a wall parallel to the back of the garage at that point.” Once again, his answer was “oh”. In the meantime, the pavers had been delivered and one was obviously pulled out by the crew for use (which was fine). The next crew was obviously not aware of the dimensions of the planned patio, walkway, nor of the concept of putting the pavers flush with the top of the small retaining wall. Once they left, the crushed stone patio was 1 foot too short in one dimension, 3 feet too wide and 2 inches too high. The pavers would be sticking 2 inches above the top of the retaining wall and about 4 inches above the top of my lawn instead of being flush with the lawn. In addition, the walkway was supposed to be 3 feet wide, the crushed stone is over 5 feet wide. The walkway was also too high, the crushed stone is even with the soil – I still need to place ¾ inch sand plus 3.25 inch pavers on top. I don’t want people tripping on the walkway and my patio. Therefore, I have had to work over 10 hours to create the correct dimensions of the patio, remove the extra crushed gravel from the surface and re-level/slope the patio and walkway. I have about 6 cubic yards of extra gravel now piled in my driveway. In addition, the amount of leveling sand that was left is far from sufficient and I need to purchase more. (If you don’t know the dimensions, how do you know how much leveling sand is required?) Since “completion” has Jeremy called to ask how it went or stopped over? NO. If you are going to be a project manager, you should be able to listen, write things down and communicate it to the crew(s). Jeremy was ineffective in all of these areas. I will be posting this review on Angie’s list as well hoping that no one else needs to be served in the same inexcusable way.

We had a couple of plum trees that I had planted too close to the house. I knew we needed to have them taken out, and after hearing a Barnes ad on the radio decided to call them on the spur of the moment. I had an estimate the same day, and received appropriate follow-up while I decided (in other words, they didn't constantly harass me because I hadn't responded yet). I accepted their proposal. They showed up exactly on time and performed the work professionally. It looks like the plum trees were never there. We are planning a major landscaping in the next year or two and I would definitely put Barnes on the top of my list

We got a lower price for doing our own clean up. The price was very reasonable.

Scheduling was uncertain since the company also does snow removal work, the work was good in general, now that tree is well leafed out it seems more branches could have been taken

Very good. They have been doing our lawn for 5 years and our snow removal for 2. They are responsible and the price is reasonable. They do a good job of reacting to accidents. Responsiveness is very good. They are very timely about getting the snow up when it snow.

The staff at Barnes were rude to me over the phone, brusque via email, and only willing to meet with me before 7am. Their estimate was the second highest we got, and assumed that we wanted a whole bunch of other services (at additional cost), like pruning and trimming surrounding trees. Overall they left a bad taste in my mouth.

Mr. Barnes responded the next day with a crew that came out and made sure no other branches were going to fall and hurt someone. The following weekend another crew came out and cleaned up all the smaller pieces and finished cleaning up the mess.