A Tale of Landfare

I went digging through the archives and found this message to Zach and John from August 15, 2016.  Here we were many months over our “8-10 week” estimate and they were already blowing me off and ignoring me. Let’s step through my message with some inline explanations. Also, some items have been redacted to protect the innocent. While Landfare was a mess, some of their subs were good.

Zach and Jon (sic),

I’m back in town. I am going to start to add initial request dates to some of these to show length of time outstanding.

I added the date of original ask as they weren’t being responsive. In many cases it had been over 6 weeks since I had made the initial request. Note the number of July 4 and July 19 requests with no response.

Honestly, I am getting quite concerned. This seems like behavior I have experienced in the past that makes me very nervous: the last 10% of the work drags on forever or is never completed properly or I have to put a lot of effort into follow up to get it done. Or worse, things are done in a way that perhaps it is hoped I don’t notice that it was done half way. I certainly hope that is not the case and this is a staffing/training issue, but the fact things have slowed to a crawl and I seem to need to repeat the same concerns over and over (> 6 weeks in some cases) are not making me feel comfortable. Also, as I lose trust, I tend to scrutinize things much more closely as I need to verify everything which is not a good use of my time and will drive you nuts. I hope you appreciate frank, but I am feeling very uneasy at the moment. What can we do to get this initial project completed (“done done” as we call it at the office) in short order so we can move on to the other things we would like to work on?

You can’t say I wasn’t clear with my expectation.

* Owed electrical quote. (P Diddy out 2 weeks ago)
* Rain sensor install. – On fence. To move to garage west side fascia.
* Receptacle install on garage for pool cover pump. – P Diddy quote to come.
* Break out drive way and painting quotes. – Done. Painting quote signed and returned.
* Scheduling to come. Drive way plans to come?
* Zach to provide paint details… what paint/stain/primer used, number of coats, application technique, how surfaces prepped, etc.
* Lighting quotes – waiting on GESmith and P Diddy (Been over a month, 6 weeks on GESmith? Are they interested in the job at all?)
* Gutter cleaning – Zach scheduled
* Blu pool service quote – Zach gave me paper work last week.
*I also mentioned a long while back fixing the down light on the NW front of the house. – P Diddy quote to come

P Diddy is Landfare’s electrical sub of choice. That is just my protecting the innocent with a goofy placeholder name. Dude is totally solid and I would and have used him since.

The rain sensor… they just installed it and under a roof edge so it wouldn’t get any rain.

I finally canceled the painting work.

P Diddy and GESmith… I have since worked with GESmith (another pseudonym) and they are doing significant work on my home renovation job. Guess what GESmith has never had a problem with? Getting me quotes and communication back in a timely manner. I can only imagine Landfare was sitting on the quotes, not following up, busy with something else… who knows?

The downlight… Landfare said they would fix it. Then they said they didn’t have a tall enough ladder. Then I never heard about it again. At least I didn’t waste any money on that fix.

* Clean out the masonry crud between the fence and east side fence. (July 4) – Looks like rather than cleaned out it was covered over? Can we clean this out properly, please? I could do it in 10 minutes with a ShopVac.
* Popped bricks (July 19) – several around the edges. Don’t know how we can proceed with sand if the bricks are not yet solid? This seems like grouting loose tile.
* Add a leg off of irrigation to the space on the SE corner of the upper patio to reach some of those plants. Unless it is a foot deep, it doesn’t exist. (July 19)
* Clean up mortar joints in limestone/brick (especially planter face and cheek wall) and once over those joints already starting to crack. (July 19)
* Railing on east side – In process.
* Back Gate clean up. Gate does not open/close well now.
(July 31) The board (center stile) still needs to be replaced where they hole sawed the entire way through. The front gate has the same issue. They need to have stile replaced and re-drilled with a proper 2 1/8″ hole.
Also noticed the gates are seemingly braced backwards. Braces should start at the upper corner away from the hinge and then end at the bottom corner by the hinge pushing the weight of the opposite corner into the hinge…. I am guessing this is why we have seen so much sag. What can we do here?
* Level pavers on NW corner of house by the irrigation controller. (July 4)
* Triple check and relay all pavers. Spidey senses are not good in a lot of places and a 4 foot level tells me I am not imagining it.
* Fill in mortar in SE side of patio joints. (July 4) – See above. Done, but poorly. Needs to be redone and properly tooled.
* Irrigation map. (July 4)
* Clean up gravel where the new pool plumbing went in. – Mostly done.
* Cover/trench irrigation where it has surfaced. – I understand no trench, but still need mulch to cover in places.
* Replace plants and remove masonry crud between upper patio (SE corner) and fence. – Plants not in the ground?
* The brick and sand still needs a lot of work and I am not seeing any real progress. If anything, it seems to be degrading.

What is the specific plan around this and how each item will be addressed?

Thanks,

BubbaDuck

I had to endlessly chase Landfare on these sorts of things. I’ll post a few more of them in time. As I am digging through my old emails, I sent A LOT of message like this. Also, there are things I am reading above that never happened. Properly counter bored 2 1/8″ holes in my gates? Never happened. You can push the locks right through the gate to this day. I literally rebuilt an entire gate myself with new wood as Landfare couldn’t comprehend the concept of a counterbored hole. The other gate I’ll get to in the spring when I have time. Oh, and I directly told Zach that I rebuilt the gate myself. No apologies. No concerns. I got maybe half of a shrug.

Also, this was a doozy, their guys would literally not put plants in the ground. They would lay the plants out and then subsequently leave never putting them in the actual ground. Incredible.

I have no idea what Landfare was doing with my money and general contractor mark up, but they certainly weren’t spending it or their time on proactive quality or managing my project. They should have been paying me to manage them.

I was contacted today by an anonymous reader. They stated this blog was not surprising and have information they would like to share in time. I don’t know who you are, but I am soooo curious. Sounds like Landfare has won some other less than satisfied customers.

To make this post worthwhile, here is a nice article that echoes my experience with Landfare. 10 Things Your Contractor Won’t Tell You Landfare, not surprisingly, has a striking resemblance to many of the issues outline in this article.

This particular section hit very close to home.

10) If you pay me too much up front, I’ll leave before the job’s done — or rob you blind.

This was exactly my issue. I wasn’t following my draw requests well and paid too much too soon. John considered me paid in full and had no reason to want to deal with me any further. Heed my advice I talk about here. Keep careful watch on what you are paying and what you are paying for. DO NOT in any circumstance pay the contractor if the work is not 100% complete to your satisfaction. I paid too much too fast with Landfare as they would pull surprise draw requests. They would talk a good game on warranty and we’ll be back to fix it in a month and all sorts of things. Guess what? As soon as that check cashed, they made their finest Heisman impersonation.

I ain’t gonna fumble… best to not have ever let me have the ball.

This also hit home especially in relation to Gerald.

2) I know you’re the one paying, but my loyalties lie with that grungy guy I just let into your house.

I am still working on my post about the patio. It was a complete and utter debacle. Landfare laid my patio 3 times using Gerald. 3 TIMES!!!! After the second time I had a very pointed discussion with Zach and John concerning “can Gerald get the result”? I can’t have the Bad News Bears out to waste another 3-4 months in my yard. John swore up and down that Gerald was the man. He’s a fourth generation mason after all and can really lay a great BBQ.

So what happens, they send Gerald out a third time and they screw up the work.

Attempt number 3. Straight lines are hard.

John played like he was done with Gerald, Gerald has a bad back, his sons actually did the work, [insert additional excuses] and Gerald really screwed Landfare over. Fast forward a few weeks and I hear from someone (Zach I think) that Gerald is still on other Landfare jobs. Apparently Gerald didn’t screw over Landfare that badly. They still have him on the job and could well be making a mess in your yard soon!

The last of the 10 I’ll talk about is…

5) Let’ talk trash. […] If contractor A goes through all the details of the work and then says “OK, let’s talk about trash and dust and working hours,” but contractor B doesn’t, it’s easy to say, “Maybe I’d better go with B … he wasn’t as negative. He left me with a better feeling,” Hovde said. “But maybe it would be better to go with A … instead of B,” who was just saying what you wanted to hear to get the job, he explained.

Landfare is contractor B. The contractor I have gutting and remodeling my house is contractor A. A Landfare quote and project as presented to the customer is similar to  “Go make a pool”. My current contractor itemizes EVERYTHING, tells me exactly what his mark up is so I know there is no padding, accounts for every nail and screw, sets up and manages meetings as necessary, draw requests are highly detailed and are scheduled so there are no surprises. A great contractor like the one I am currently using has a process, communicates the process clearly, and makes it easy for the client to participate in the process and achieve the result the client desires.

In any event, the Landfare detractors are coming out of the woodwork. Thanks for reaching out. Your anonymity is assured assuming you want to remain anonymous. I just want to get the truth out there and save other people from the pain an agony I went through.

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.