One word 'Superb' My wife and I had been discussing for some time about expanding our existing deck and switching to composite materials. One weekend my wife visited a fund raising fair/carnival hosted at one of the Colchester schools where Sam was representing his business, Jacob's Ladder. She stopped by to get some info and gave Sam our number. I think it was the very next day that Sam called and we spoke on the phone about what we had in mind. He stopped over and we began tossing around ideas for the new deck. We agreed upon a design that would substantially expand the deck and present a couple of challenges. 1) Most of the deck would have to expand over a retaining wall and walk out basement. This meant having to block the entrance to the walk out with at least two support beams. I was reluctant to do this because it's handy to be able to drive my truck up to the basement doors to load/unload materials. Sam came up with an idea to use extra large joists (which in the end became three 2x12 bolted together) so that we could get away with pouring a single footing that would not block the walkout. 2) because the deck would span nearly 20' across Sam had to special order the decking in 20' lengths (this became the only issue as i'll explain later). We signed the agreement on May 21st and agreed to pay in three installments (1 upon agreement, 1 upon the start of work, 1 upon completion). The following week I met with the young man who worked for Sam and would be doing all of the work, Josh Laterra. As point of irony, Josh is the son of the contractor who built our home nearly 10 years earlier. That aside, i cannot say enough about how courteous, friendly, accommodating, professional and hard working Josh was throughout the project. The work progressed according to schedule (aside from rain delays and the extra time it took for the 20' lengths of meterial). After the old deck had been removed and the framing completed, the materials arrived for the decking and rails. Right away Josh noticed that some of the boards were marred and faded. The 20 footers were warped, so that when you looked at them from the end they appeared wavy. He called Sam who immediately came over to check it out. Sam showed me what was delivered and apologized. He said he was going to have the company, Gaf, (www.gaf.com) come back and pick up the materials and then have them re-fill the order, but this time using a higher grade material (CorrectDeckCX). Of course a few days were lost while Gaf filled the special order for the 20' boards. During this time Sam was in contact with us letting us know the status of the materials. When it arrived, I was pleased to see that it was substantially better quality than the previous material (CrossTimbers). From this point Josh worked like a madman getting the deck completed. The attention to detail was great and the finishing touches (wiping down the deck and railing, replacing the siding and gutter downspouts that had to be removed) were well worth any delays we encountered. After it was all done, Josh cleaned up all the materials, tools and equipment. He even swept the yard to cleanup the sawdust! I have to say that I'm writing this not only to sing the praises of Sam, Josh and Jacob's Ladder, but also to provide other home owners with a reference to a local business that is everything that we, as home owners, look for in a contractor. Someone who is honest, courteous, punctual and professional and delivers a fantastic end result. Doing business with Jacob's Ladder was a breath of fresh air. As matter of fact we are already discussing additional business with Sam. I highly recommend Jacob's Ladder to anyone. Although this review was all about decks, his business card reads "windows, siding, roofing & more"