Allegiant

The two guys in charge were all customer service - during the estimate phase. They said a few steps would look great and I thought so too!!  Keep in mind, they're the ones who originally  noticed I like yards with steps and said it would look good in my yard, and when I decided it would look nice and got excited about it, they included it in their estimate.  I said my house is fairly all right angles and lines, wouldn't it be nice if the corners between intersections of driveway and walkways had radii/curved corners instead of straight 90 deg corners, it would soften the house a little. They heartily agreed, it would look really nice, and after showing me pictures and us all agreeing, said yes, they could totally do that.  So I agreed for them to do the work. I said, the job needs to be done BEFORE the 16th, I'm having a party at my house that night, and if it can't be done by then, we need to wait til after. No problem, done before and your guests will rave about how nice it looks!  So they came out to have the contract signed, and immediately started the downsell. Now, the steps were a trip hazard, especially at night, and my lawn wasn't nearly steep enough, and where the lawn met up, that would look terrible, he just kept saying, you don't want those stairs, you don't want steps in this. After being very disappointed but finally agreeing I said how much less does that make the job? Oh, it's about the same, was the answer.  The workmen came out to pour the concrete. The bosses? Oh no, they weren't there. Just a young guy and the Hispanic workers.  They asked me to come home from work to check the framing was good before they poured it.  The concrete pad by the side gate, where my trash cans were supposed to fit, was much smaller than we had agreed on. I said this was supposed to be bigger. He said, oh more concrete means more money. I got the contract and showed them the measurements, and that it was too small.  They still didn't want to change it, started talking about tree roots.  I said, so if you leave it this small, how much less does that make it?  Oh, it's about the same. So if I add anything, more money. But if they took something away, same cost.  They said is ok like this? I said No!  They finally agreed to fix it.  The old narrower sidewalk continues into the back yard for like a foot, after the fence. They stopped the concrete RIGHT AT THE FENCE, so the sidewalk narrows for a foot, it looks terrible, but they'd be damned if they were going to smooth it out and make it nice and easy to move trash cans on.  But the bigger problem - all right angles, no curves in the corners. Curves would look terrible, again with "you don't want that."  I was getting mad by this point, and I argued with them for probably 20 minutes.  I said do you have pictures? He brought out the picture book and I showed him, like this!  The head workman said there will be lines/blocks in the concrete? I said yes, just like the pictures, patterns in the stamping. He finally looks me straight in the face and says, if we put curves in the corners, none of these lines are going to be straight. Maybe he didn't mean that as a threat, but it sure a h*** sounded like it to me. If I made them redo the work, they'd make sure it looked like crap.  I stood there, missing more and more work, mind you, and didn't know what to do.  finally said fine, whatever.  This was the week before the party. He said, don't drive on it, and we'll come next week and seal it. I said which day? He said, oh  Monday or Tuesday. I called Tuesday night after they didn't show.  He said, oh rain next two days, maybe on Friday. I said no, not on Friday, the party is Friday! It'll have to stay like it is if it's Friday. I said there's no rain forecast for Thursday can you come then? He said, yes, we'll be there. No rain Wednesday, just clouds. No rain Thursday. No workmen. Friday I went out to buy groceries for the party, came home about 2pm.  They were spraying this clear goo all over the sidewalk and the driveway, sealing it. I said, how am I going to carry all these groceries in, the concrete is wet?   No idea. I had to skip over it and take the chance of leaving marks. i said will this be dry by tonight?  Oh yeah, no problem. It wasn't. My guests came, didn't want to walk on the obviously wet sidewalk, so they walked in the dirt next to it. Why was there dirt? Because they ripped away all the grass right by the new concrete (and all the flowers that were planted there, which I asked them not to kill but which I never saw again, and which I asked them to replace, but which they never did) and rather than covering it with sod, they poured black dirt over it to cover the bare soil. Which my guests then tracked in and all over my house.  The lights, which are not spaced evenly and look stupid at night in the dark, worked that one night. And then not again. I did not want lights on a timer, that I had to reset throughout the year. I wanted a photo voltaic switch. I can buy a controller at walmart for $5 for Chistmas lights,i figured they could figure it out for the $1000 they charged me for six lights. He came twice to play with them, talked about ordering parts.  I finally played with it one night and told them, your lights are blowing the circuit breaker inside the light control box. This is also when I noticed that they permanently mounted an electrical box on the side of my house - and had run a plug-in out of it and into the outdoor outlet next to it on the wall, the kind with the clear plastic weather cover that I can now never close.  NOT a professional job by far. So plug in lights, and it keeps blowing the circuit breaker means the whole system wasn't designed right - I'm guessing the guy who installed this permanent electrical fixture on my house was not any kind of trained electrician. I told him, fix the lights!  He came one night, and suddenly, lights work, on a timer, he said he couldn't get the auto turn-on to work, so he was just going to leave it. How did he fix it?  i'm guessing he just put in a bigger circuit breaker.  I will have to hire an electrician and have him come out, get the photovoltaic to work and make sure the damned thing isn't going to eventually burn my house down.  I argued with the young kid three times that the tiny, sickly plants they planted were supposed to have drip irrigation run to them, it was IN the contract because I didn't want to be watering the bark chunks around them. He said stuff about water pressure and it couldn't be done. But when I finally got the head boss to come out and do it, it worked just fine. By this time it's several weeks later, and the cement started turning colors, in different patches, some places lighter, some darker. I asked him to fix it. He said oh, it's curing, it will look different now and in a week and in a month and in a year - this is not reassuring. The black dirt they used to try to cover the bare uneven patches of ripped out lawn washed away in the first rain - and all over the sidewalk so I had to clean that up.  The plants they planted look like dead sticks two months later. He kept saying, tell me what to do, tell me how to make this right, I want you to be satisfied. I said come out and look at it, would you take pictures of this job and put it on your website as an after picture, of what customers can expect from your work?  Silence.  I said, you're a professional landscaper! Come out and look at it! I don't have the front yard tied to me, even if I'm not here, you can come anytime and fix it, fix the lawn edges, fix the plants, fix the lights! He just never answered and never came back.  They were nice guys, very friendly and all charm when you chat with them. But all of this isn't opinion, it's fact.  I absolutely would not recommend them.

Overall the experience was wonderful.  From the very beginning Bob and his team were responsive, prompt, and very understanding of our limited budget.  Bob worked with my husband and I to choose the color and texture of concrete we wanted - who knew there were so many choices :)  We decided to go with stamped concrete which looks more natural for our country home.  We even added a brownish tint so it matched the exterior of our home.  The crew finished on time and on budget.

Because of their quality of work and kind staff we decided to hire Allegiant to do our weekly lawn maintenance.  Each week the landscape crew comes to our home and mows, blows, edges, prunes, and picks weeds.

We have been very satisfied with all encounters with Allegiant.  Thank you!