Down To Earth Landscaping

BEWARE!!! Pat, the owner, is more interested in asking for more money instead of doing a 'detailed' job as himself and his website proclaims. I had to pay $9,600.00 for an "$9,000.00 (maximum)" bid on a job for a driveway and landscaping!! Things are still not right nor completed a week later. He refuses to live up to his verbal promises as well as his website promises.
 
Pat came to the house twice before giving me a bid, he said "I am a man of my words, do not pay me unless you are 100% satisfied--as I promise I will make everything right, I pay attention to detail, the job will be $9.000.00 max ($8,000.00 + $1,000 for the small backyard area) and maybe even less". We did a gentleman's handshake based on these words. I then asked Pat for a written quote, but he refused. I now know why, he likes to ask for more money during the landscaping/driveway process. He was whiny and said over and over again "I under bid this job, this extra money does not include labor, can you please pay me more money, .....etc" I had to agree to the extra money or Pat acted like he might walk out in the middle of the job. Under quoting a customer is not the customers responsibility. You would think after "18yrs (website)? or as Pat says "25 yrs in the business" ? he could bid a job correctly. This extra money was for the landscaping portion of the job.
 
On the driveway portion of the job, Pat made the driveway many different widths ranging from 11 1/2 feet to over 16 1/2 feet. In addition, the driveway did not extend the complete width of the poles of gates as promised. He finally came back a week later (after I had sent him an email explaining the situation, with pictures) and fixed the main width (edges were still ragged and not detailed out when he finished the job---I corrected this myself) , of the driveway but did not fix the width between the gate poles--where there is ~ 1 1/2 feet of D1 that needs to be added. Furthermore, in the original bid, Pat stated I would get "2-3 inches" of D1 for the driveway, yet at least half of the driveway is 1" or below. 


The beginning of the second day I pointed to Pat where the driveway dips down toward the house instead of being flat. I wanted this corrected because of snowmelt in the spring, as my original driveway sloped toward the house (Pat understood this area needed correcting in the initial consultation before work). I approached Pat who was sitting atop a roller for the driveway rock to explain sloping driveway toward house but he would not get off the machinery to see where I was pointing. Instead he rolled his eyes, then backed up real fast, running over the yard that just had hydroseed sprayed on.  He stopped.  Looked at me. Then kept going. He never apologized nor came back and fixed that area of the lawn, that portion does not have seed growth now. 
 
Pat was to make a 'ditch' along the edge of the driveway. Pat described this ditch to me as "a scoop, like the letter U in the ground in the area between the driveway and the start of the woods". During day two, I went in the house to make a cup of coffee and came out to see the entire front edge of my woods ripped open with roots exposed! I asked the guys to stop working. I asked what they were doing and they said "making a ditch". I explained this is not what Pat described to me. I asked them to cut the roots down to ground level and fill in over the roots to make right what they destroyed. They did not do a good job---they cut some roots but never cut all of them and did not cover the roots with soil as requested to fix their mistake.  Again, this I had to fix myself after this company left.


Pat was asked to walk the yard/driveway when everything was completed to make sure all was fine, and he was also asked to go over the care of the lawn---Pat said he would.  However, he took off during the day and never came back. In addition, a week later, I asked Pat to walk the driveway with me to see the problems, he refused (even in front of his employees), and instead asked for more money to fix his work that he did not complete. I refused more money at this point. Pat dumped some rock and said to come to his next job site to pay him and took off.

Pat is not interested in satisfying the customer nor cares about any detail work. As a customer you have to keep an eye out for everything he does as he cuts corners and hopes you won't notice. His workers told me many times that "Pat never told us what you wanted" so they would just do what and how they wanted. Clearly very very poor customer service. I paid him the $9,600.00 as I am a person of my word, but am having to finish the driveway and 'ditch'  myself which cost more money. I would not use this company for any landscape or driveway work based on customer service and quality.

Down to Earth started to do as I requested, then trimmed the tree starts and dumped several truck loads of dirt over the top. I agreed, however went in the house and when I later saw what he was doing, I had to say NO to more dirt. The top of the septic vents were almost covered. He hit one of them with his plow and it was slightly tilted, and damaged a tree, which will die. He also completely covered by almost 2 feet the base of four trees (which will die unless all the dirt is removed). Also, the dirt was piled at an angle over the septic so that the vast majority of snow melt comes right to the house rather than off to one side, where there are all trees, or the north side or front of the septic, which is a big field. He would not admit his mistake, much less correct it. Said oh, the water will swing in front of the deck (which is on the front of the house). Originally he said it would cost no more than $1000, but it was $1800. It would have been more if I had agreed to even more dirt. Smooth talker. I would not recommend this company unless you know specifically what you want and do not let him talk you into something else. Watch as the work is being done to make sure it is what you requested and agreed upon.