LUIS RUVALCABA LANDSCAPING

This is a tough review for me to leave..and will require quite a bit of explanation. Get comfortable. Let me start by saying...I really like Luis. He's friendly, knowledgeable, and I truly believe he deserved all of the good reviews he's received. Unfortunately In this case, and I'm sure he would agree, there were LOTS of problems. I chose Luis for two reasons...his past record on Angie's List and an incredibly low estimate...far lower than any other estimate I got (about 6 others). His price was even less than it would have cost me to get pre-fab aluminum panels from Home Depot and install them myself. The job was simple, install a roughly 80-foot, simple, non-ornamented wrought iron fence on top of a stuccoed retaining wall surround our front yard, and put in a gate where the walkway is. The estimate...$1,200. Problem 1 -- This is less of a problem and more of a fact of life if you want to use Luis. He is very popular and very busy. And it took one month from when I got my estimate for him to start the job. He told me it would be a few weeks, so I wasn't too surprised or upset. Still...don't plan on getting instant gratification with Luis. Problem 2 -- He chose to subcontract the job of making the fence panels to another company...one that he didn't have much previous experience with. It turned out...they did a horrible job. Problem 3 -- He accepted the panels from this company without really inspecting the quality of the work. He admits that this was a gross oversight on his part...one which led to all the other issues. Let me add something here. One of the things that I respected about Luis was that at least he accepted blame when he knew he had done wrong. He didn't make excuses. Problem 4 -- He chose the WRONG man to install the fence. He used his cousin, who, if everything had gone right, might have been a satisfactory option...but when things started going wrong, was clearly in over his head. This guy DID work his a** off...no question. What should have been a 1-2 day job ended up being a 4-5 day job...and this guy tried his best. But failed...miserably. Problem 5 -- Luis did not supervise the job closely enough to spot all the problems that were cropping up...and by the time he realized how bad things had gotten, the fence was already up, and the only options at that point were to tear it all down and refund my money (after a month and a half of waiting and a considerable amount of damage already done to the retaining wall) or try and fix it. His cousin tried to fix it...and made it so much worse. About the fence itself. A wrought iron fence should be welded in such a way that absolutely no water can get inside...or it will rust out in no time. This fence had dozens...perhaps hundreds f little opening where water could get in. the square bars of the fence needed to be welded on all four sides, and it most cases, they were only welded on two sides, leaving hole on the other two sides that the paint could not fill. And the parts that were welded were done in very poor fashion...rough, with little pieces of weld scattered all round. And the paint job...wow..so bad -- ripples and runs everywhere. Let me take part of the blame here...I should have inspected the panels myself before letting them install them...but I didn't. Lesson learned. Luis, to his credit, admitted his fault...agreed with my assessment of the fence, and agreed to finish all the welds and re-paint it....or at least, he would have his cousin do it. And this is where THAT decision turned out to be a bad idea. The guy may have been able to install a fence, but he was definitely NOT the right guy for welding and painting it. His welds were messy...his grinder work left lot of little gouges in the iron, and he used Bondo...lots of it..to fill in many of those aforementioned holes. I'm still not sure if Bondo was a good or bad idea, but it sure seemed odd to me, as I had only ever heard of Bondo in terms of auto body work. And then there was the paint job...as bad or worse that what was there before. You need to be skilled in using a sprayer if you are going use one, especially on something like this with so many sides, angles nooks and crannies. He was not skilled...and it showed...there were runs everywhere. Once again...Luis admitted...it was poor quality, and at this point, he really just wanted to be done with it. I cant blame him....7 or 8 days of labor plus the cost of the materials...for $1200?? He was losing money hand over fist on this one. I proposed a compromise...one that I wish now, I had not proposed. I said I had a friend who was proficient in welding and painting that would take over and fix the fence properly for $300. Luis agreed to knock $300 off the price and walk away from this. Little did we know just how much work would need to be done. In summary, my buddy and I worked on the fence for five straight days (far more time than it would have taken me to install my own fence from Home Depot.) We ground down every single weld...re-welded it all...sanded down the multiple layers of paint...and re-painted it...twice. And, while it looks better now, it's far from the quality I would have expected right from the start. And if I had known it would be that much work for us...I never would have agreed to the discount. But I did...and I am a man of my word. Strange thing is...he never invoiced me and I never saw him again (well, at least for two more months.) After a few weeks, I assumed that he was ashamed or embarrassed at the quality of the work and perhaps, didn't want to risk a negative review on Angies List. And in my mind I figured...as bad as everything went, if he is not going to charge me anything...I won't leave a review at all. It only seemed fair. But, as mentioned, he came back two months later to collect the $900. I reluctantly paid it and proceeded to sit down and write this review. Last thing....you'll note that where it asks me if I would use Luis again, I marked "yes." Hard to believe right? But the way I see it...he must do good work most of time. How else would he get so many glowing reviews on here. But I would make sure Luis himself was doing the work...and I would stick to what I think he knows best, landscaping. And as bad as my experience was, I never felt like Luis was being dishonest or trying to shaft me. Essentially....we both got screwed by this fence.

Luis was by far the lowest of the 4 bids I got for the job. He and his crew showed up on time and did a very thorough and professional job. The back yard looks fantastic. He followed through very well, coming back one and two weeks after the installation to make sure that everything was beginning to grow well. He was so thorough and helpful that I hired him and his crew to provide weekly gardening services. In that capacity he has been very impressive, showing up personally most weeks to surpervise and make sure that the job is done. They even get the yard fixed up in the rain. I have recommended him to 3 other friends and they have all had similarly good experiences with Luis and his crew.

Luis was great! He was responsible, on time and worked hard. He is very easy to comunicate with. Our job turned out to be much more difficult to deal with than we both thought, but he dealt with it cheerfully, spent more time and did a great job.

Very well. Prompt and a person of his word

Fantastic! I will make an effort to get some pictures of the fence and house work on here... Pablo, who works for Luis, did FANTASTIC work on the fence (built it himself in about 4,11 hour, days) that we decided to have him help us with some exterior carpentry on our 1885 colonial revival home. He is a real craftsman. Luis and his landscape team are also true professionals. They had the 3 trees trimmed and a section of weeds 15 feet deep and 50 feet long cleared in under 2 days. Luis runs a great business and delivers what he promises, on time and on budget. I look forward to using them on many many projects in the future and already recommend them to friends and neighbors all the time. So you know, I had met with 4 different contractors from Angies List for the fence project and on the landscaping -- I'm so thrilled that I chose Luis for both. He was the best value for sure. I have no doubt you'll be impressed! I'm happy to provide additional details if you need them. And thanks, Luis!

First, the autmoatic sprinkler control stopped working. I called the company that had installed it (a different company, not Luis Rubalcava) and asked them about the settings, to find out if i had it set right. We determined that it was set right, and that it was probably the wiring. The quoted me a price to come out. I had used Luis for sprinkler issues twice before and was very happy with his work and his prices, so i called him and made an appointment for him to come out two days later. The next day, i used a screw driver to manually turn the sprinklers on because the lawn and plants were very dry. Doing that caused one of the valves to become defective so that i had a really hard time turning it off. I called Luis and told him about this other problem. He came the next day and fixed both problems quickly. He charged me a very fair price. The whole thing was a pleasure. I will continue to use Luis for any sprinkler work i need and would recommend him to anyone. Whenever I have needed his help, he has been easy to reach, he has always answered his phone. Very responsive, professional, skilled, knowledgeable and competitively priced. by the way, the reason the automatic sprinkler control system stopped working was because apparently my gardener had cut the wires when trimming the ferns that were next to the wires.

We had a 12:00 noon appointment scheduled that he completely forgot about. When I called to confirm 45 minutes prior to the appointment time, he told me that he forgot we had an appointment because he hadn't looked at his schedule that day. He then asked if he could come back later, and I told him to forget it. I scheduled my day around this, and it ended up being a complete waste of my time.

Communicative and creative Entire yard done in one day on weekend Experience was great. Would use again!!

It turned out very good. He did a great job. He was very prompt in his appointments. He was very professional. He is honest.

One of the workers unfortunately broke one of our French door panels. Luis immediately let us know and said he would of course pay for the replacement. When the job was finished he told us to hold back $1000 to cover the window even though we didn't think it would cost that much. I gave him a check for $2000. We've just had the panel work completed so we sent Luis a check for the difference in cost, approx. $250. A very professional man who cares about the work he does. I would definitely recommend and use him again.

Everything went well. He kept us informed throughout the project, and he completed the job quickly for a very good price. The yard looks nice to this day.

Puncutual, professional, responsive. Knowledgeable.

I really like Luis. I trust him and he took care of my leaking and ill working sprinklers easily, with fuss, and at reasonable cost. I have retained him as my regular garden maintenance crew and will definitely use him when I am ready to replace my sprinkler system.

Raul impressed me with his professional and intelligent approach. His handling of my bid request made me add on more work because I knew I didn't want another contractor handling my yard (and I am myself a contractor). He clearly understood what I wanted and made it clear how he could assist me. His crew were friendly, polite and considerate and very hard working. There was an unpredicted situation that required Raul return another day to complete some work. I attempted to give Raul some money to cover his materials and labor so far. He wouldn't hear of it and insisted that he gets paid when everything is done regardless. I find this kind of integrity refreshing and rare, as do my own clients when I say similar (my company is A-rated on Angie's List and note: Raul's line of work and mine do NOT cross, this report is unbiased because my lawn is done and this job is all I know of him and his company). Working with him has encouraged me to work out further plans to develop my landscaping, and if I need help, he is the only one I will call.

Overall, we are extremely satisfied with the work done by Luis. We did due diligence and got several bids before choosing to go with Luis. He was right in the middle and seemed to get what we were trying to achieve. We were looking to reduce our wasted water consumption with our sprinklers and move to all drip irrigation. He gave us a solid plan for that which did not break the bank. We also wanted to get rid of a lot of our grass and replace it with a sustainable garden, which he has laid out for us nicely. He even reused some of the old concrete from our driveway to line the garden. We are happy because he understood our vision and didn't get carried away with offering us the latest and the greatest. The only negative was the amount of time to complete the work. It was understandable because the tasks were so different, so he had to bring in different crews. They only worked on Sundays as his operation is small and they do maintenance landscaping throughout the week. They totally clean up when they are done and set all the timers to go according to LADWP's restrictions. We also enlisted ongoing maintenance with him. Luis is very easy to work with and is capable of doing what you need if you give him specific directions. With all the work done, we saved a lot of money against other companies and did not compromise quality. Luis stands by his work and said he will replace anything that needs to be fixed and will readjust the irrigation system to match our requirements once we determine what our final layout will be. We added work along the way and he was extremely fair about repricing. I will definitely use him again for other big projects and fully recommend him.

I am very happy and fully satisfied with the work done by Luis. He gave a very reasonable estimate for the amount of work involved. I was really impressed when he suggested to use drought resistant plants (to save water in the longer run) instead of having a bigger lawn. He used organic manure for the lawn and other plant areas (I have to admit that the yard smelled nicely for a couple of days :)). His crew were very professional and worked from dawn to dusk for 2 full days to completely finish the work. They cleaned up the place and washed the drive way clean after the work. He followed up by visiting regularly to check and adjust the sprinkler settings for the lawn. I'll highly recommend him if you are looking for an honest, reasonable and professional landscaper. I'll use him in the near future for my backyard.

It was a good experience, straightforward and simple. Luis communicated well and took care of the problem quickly. I appreciated that he was able to come out the same day i called him, which i didn't expect. He is professional and skilled. He seems honest and fair.

Luis returned our initial call right away. We made an appointment for the following day for an estimate. When he was running a bit late, we got a phone call to let us know. When he arrived, he was clear about our options and very professional. He wrote up an estimate that day, and came on the date that we agreed to with his crew. They worked very efficiently on our yard. We needed to leave the house earlier than we had thought that day, so Luis was then obligated to come back the following day to wrap up with us. He did this without complaint, and was very gracious. We will absolutely hire Luis and his team again!

project was not done. no callback

He was very polite. Explained what was included and not included. I explained my concerns and he listened carefully. Luis has been my weekly gardener for two months and I am very pleased.

Decent for the money

After 10 gardening services in about 6 years, I went to Angie's list and found Luis. That was 2 years ago. His service is excellent. He is personally here to supervise his team, he is prompt and always responsive. I highly recommend Luis' services.

Highly recommended. Honest, knowledgeable, polite and professional.

I hired Louis to maintain my yard for 18 months while I was out of state and had rented out my house. He agreed to keep the yard in its current condition while I was gone. All the bushes were well trimmed, the lawn was green and free from weeds as were all the flowerbeds. When I returned (in Sep 08), the bushes were overgrown as were all the ice plants, the flowerbeds had weeds in them and the lawn was filled with crab grass and there were several brown spots. Whoever mowed the lawn and run over sprinkler heads didn?t replace them with something similar (they stuck out above the lawn by 2?) or adjust them. I expressed my complete dissatisfaction to Louis and asked him to rectify the situation. He trimmed the bushes and used weed killer on the lawn and flowerbeds. Louis had his workers continue to mow the lawn (they still ran over sprinkler heads) for approximately the next 6 weeks (free of charge) until all the crabgrass was dead and the weather was cool enough for him to reseed the large patches of lawn that had been affected. The yard looked much better when he was finished, but I can honestly say it was not in as good of condition as the way I had originally left it. I wouldn?t recommend Louis unless you can periodically check his work. I would rate the condition of the yard a D upon my return, but gave him a C as he did try to rectify the situation without charge.

He is always very responsive and keeps our yard neat. We have a big yard; when he comes he is always very punctual and courteous. He is great, and we really like him.