There won’t be much to this page but pictures that I took through out the Landfare project and sent to Zach and John to show them issues I was uncovering.
Patio brick
Landfare had to lay the patio that was part of the initial SoW 4 times. I’m still working as of today (December, 30 2017) with the new sub they selected to get to an acceptable end state. The new sub wasn’t to a point of general completion March 23, 2017… nearly 1 year and 8 months after the project start date. Happily the new sub is responsive and accountable. I’ll go into that story elsewhere.
However, the sub they had working on the patio created this as a finished product the 3rd time they laid the patio. Yes, Gerald and crew laid this as a third attempt and left for the day. There was no inspection and proactive review so far as I am aware as this was news to Landfare when I contacted them. Who’s minding the store?
Your eyes don’t deceive you. Somehow the entire thing jogs and an extra row sneaks in.
The rear gate
The initial SoW had Landfare completely replacing the fence around my property. There were construction issues with the fence. Also, Gerald’s crew abused the new gate to the point that much of it had to be replaced. (I’m not even sure who to be mad at on that. Gerald and Co for being so careless and disrespectful? Or Landfare for putting the order of installation in the wrong order?)
Regardless, the gate wasn’t right to begin with and irrespective of the mason’s abuse, it needed to be remedied. Roughly a year into the project, I put Landfare on notice. The fence was worked on after that point, so one would expect a high level of studiousness. Landfare knew well that they were on my sh*t list and I was mostly livid. A quick excerpt from an email I sent them on December 27, 2017. (More details on this later. There were many emails.)
Understand the situation you are in. All build quality is suspect and if I have not personally inspected the work, there is no confidence corners were not cut, wrong materials were used, or that proper installation methods were used. I have no confidence in the workmanship or attention to detail in any masonry based work as well as the fence.
I go back to inspect the rebuilt gate and what do I find?
One of these things is not like the other.
I find beat up hardware and a screw that is not even screwed in completely nor does it match the rest of the screws. The fact that the head was stripped out likely due to no pilot hole and over zealous use of an electric screw driver is just icing on the cake. Again, Landfare cut a corner for something that would have taken an extra few minutes of time. Nit picky, sure. But c’mon, this is just sloppy and all after I have made my displeasure with Landfare very clear. This doesn’t even consider the fact this was the second time building the gate.Recall, Landfare estimated this to be completed within 8-10 weeks. On May 23, 2017 this was finally fixed which was nearly 1 year and 7 months from the project kick off.
Mangled grounds keeping
As part of the initial SoW we had some boxwoods removed to make space for an expanded patio. One problem, was that Landfare pulled out too many boxwoods and left a hole. No big deal, they dropped in replacement plants. Now, if you work with Landfare, John will be all over you to sign up for a maintenance contract. This shot the chance that they would ever get that contract. Here was a brand new boxwood and their grounds crew hacked it badly. The boxwood still hasn’t recovered or filled back in.
Poor guy never had a chance.
What’s fun about this is, Josh, in talking about another client that lived around the corner from me made a remark that that other client was so difficult to work with that they would have forced him to use a laser level to trim the bushes. I now see why.
Lighting
Part of the initial SoW was adding outdoor lighting. When the lights went in, John was absolutely insistent that they have these little anti-glare filters installed. The only problem was that Landfare’s folks installed them simply by laying them on the glass lens. The right way is to take the fixture apart and put the filter inside the housing behind the lens. (See page 2 for what I am talking about.)
I found one that even Zach missed when they went to redo this. Photo taken September 17, 2017.
This REALLY makes me question Landfare’s experience and expertise.
In case you still think I am a crack pot and making all of this up… from the source.
Drains
Drains were installed in various strategic places to make sure that rain was carried away properly. The only issue is that no one ever tested them seemingly. I found after a few rains that I had a swamp on my hands and our plantings were washing out.
That’s enough for today. Look for more photos and videos in the future.