Double Horn Construction

Ben Horn of Double Horn met with us and our designer. He prepared a bid for all of the areas and stayed in contact with us during our planning stage. Because of our budget, we decided to hire the project work separately rather than as a whole project. Ben has an excellent reputation for his work and we would consider him again for any of our home projects.

Both the concrete jobs Ben did were done very well at a fair price but the third job was so bad and his attitude so "I'll blow her off" that I will never use him again. I hired him to put in a turn around on a very steep driveway that was hard to maneuver on. So I wanted a turn around. He brought his machine operator, Troy, out to walk the land with me and discuss what I wanted so he could make a bid. We walked on the rocky soil and I explained where I wanted to put the turn around, what rocks I wanted in the "island" along with shrubbery, and which rocks needed to be moved to make the turn around. It required grading a section of the hill that had a wash for runoff. We discussed diverting the run off so it would not runover the driveway. Ben explained that if they hit bedrock (some rock protruded in the path of the suggested turnaround and we didn't know if it was a moveable rock or bed rock) that he may have to just create a back up area for me to use. I agreed that worst case scenario, he could make a back up area. I trusted him and his machine operator agreed that he would try to move the rock so I could have a turnaround. Ben told me several times that the bedrock probably would not be a problem becasue he would use fill dirt to rise above it. In his defense--he used the word "fill dirt" and I kept using the words "road base" (I have built several homes myself) and I assumed we were talking about the same thing. We were not. I left for the summer and told Ben to take his time. Big mistake on my part. And unfortuantely I paid him before I saw his work. When I returned, in August of 2013--I came back to a wholly inadequate driveway. (he had done a concrete job too--separate bid--and it was great). the driveway was totally unusable. It was "built up" with some type of gravelly sand which spun the tires as one tried to drive up the hill. We had had rains and huge rivets were washed out of the "filldirt." there was no crown on the road or slope for water to drain. In fact, the wash we talked about had not been diverted as discussed. There was no turnaround and my rocks and shrubbery for the island had been moved off to the side--No one could get up the driveway. I called Ben and he told me it was the fault of the rains and he knew that would be a problem and he "told me so." I said I was unhappy about a few other things and that the driveway was unusable. He said he would have his guy out in a couple days to grade it again. The guy never showed up. I called Ben back and he said he wanted the three of us to go over the problems together--the bobcat had broken down and he would get out there soon. Four weeks went by and I had six appointments with Ben--he called and cancelled 4 and simply did not show up for two. When I asked why he didn't call on the no-shows, he answered, "Well, it wasn't a firm appointment." He came to the house once and told me, "I don't want you unhappy, I don't want you saying to potential customers that I wasn't fair with you--I want happy customers so we'll talk about it when Troy's here." Troy never came and on week five I had to hire a professional to fix the driveway so it was usable. This man put in a turnaround--there was no bedrock at all and he widened the driveway, curved the slope and made it less steep, put in drainage all around the drive way and put the rocks back for the island. He had to mix dirt with the sandy gravel put in by Ben so that it would stick together and not spin tires. And then he put AB (crushed rock) over so it would compact and hold together. He did this marvelous job in only 1 day and only charged me $900--its the best work ever. Ben charged me $1,325 to do a terrible job. It's rained quite a few times since the driveway was fixed and the drainage is working and the driveway is perfect. Ben came over again, and said that he lost money on the driveway, that he put in a step on the retaining wall even though he was going to leave a gap there. (in other words, I should be grateful for him not leaving a hole in the retaining wall and not make a big deal out of the driveway becaue he didn't make a profit on it). He asked me what I wanted--I said I wasn't going to ask for money back, but I wanted some consideration--like to put in a small patch of concrete (bottom of drive way) for the cost of materials--or grade a small area to park my trailer--something to compensate me for having to pay $900 to get the job that I paid Ben to do. The man was so full of excuses--he said the bobcat broke, he was out of town, Troy was out of town, I was out of town, He had to go to flagstaff--one excuse after another. Finally in December I called and he yelled at me saying that he did "exactly" everything we had discussed. This is a blatant misstatement of fact. He again made an appointment with me on December 13 for lunchtime. I waited at home and then had to leave for the airport at 3pm--at 3:55 he texted me. Enough is enough. I'm sick of it--this man doesn't "make things right", he makes excuses. He says he has a one year warranty on all his work--well, I never used the drive once and he never did a thing about it in 4 months of me begging him. He said "Well you hired someone else"--AFTER 5 weeks! He was full of one excuse after another and then after 4 months of excuses actually had the nerve to say "I did exactly what we talked about." So the man cost me $1300 for nothing and claims its what I wanted and that he wants to keep me happy. I'm not happy and I don't suggest anyone use this man. I spent over $10,000 with Ben and he won't even admit he didn't do the driveway correctly--which any professional knows he did not. Sad.