Hemma Concrete Inc

Wanted to mention that Based on reputation and neighbor recommendations, I opted to let them proceed while I was out of town. Between my ring doorbell camera and the texts with pictures I was able to follow the project from removal to form installation, pouring and finishing. Got back in town to a professionally finished job. Well done!

The project was perfectly planned and was completed without a hitch.

They did a fine job - there were issues with setting up drainage which they did perfectly.

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The did a fabulous job including cleaning up! Very Professional! I just though they were wonderful

Great.  No problems.

Overall, it was a seamless and smooth situation.  I do feel that the project was dragged out a bit too long (not due to weather). But, we are happy with the quality and it was relatively painless.  We hope to not need their services again for many years! But, will recommend them to friends and neighbors. 
The only issues were with communication and the brick layers.  The people who poured the concrete for the walkway (leaving room for pavers) did not measure the bricks - causing the bricklayers to have to cut each brick individually by about a centimeter! It was a painstaking process for them that could have been easily remedied with a ruler.  They installed a few bad bricks initially, but with one phone call to Hemma, they sent out people to fix the issue without a problem.

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This is a contractor which is difficult to properly rate. There were some positive aspects to my experience, and some equally negative aspects. In addition, I do not have experience with other concrete contractors in the area so cannot do a comparison regarding some of the technical/engineering disappointments, in that I do not know if other contractors would have routinely done better.
First off, I would say that the concrete subcontractor the Hemma uses ? Thomas Concrete ? has a top notch product and is one of the reasons I decided to go with Hemma in spite of their less than sterling ratings here. (I also was swayed by their BBB rating of A+, they have been in business under the same name for a long time, and that some of their negative ratings here are by people who seemed to only do negative ratings.) Their pre-sales pitch and material is also very smooth and convincing in its detail. In our multiple pre-sales meetings, they were made fully aware of the fact that one of the main reasons we had decided to go ahead with a new driveway was drainage problems with the existing driveway, which they said was a common reason for replacement and that they could resolve the issues pointed out to them with no problem.
Those things said, my total experience was rather shy of completely positive. The key item here is that the new driveway they initially installed had a drainage problem that was much worse than the old driveway. Also of note: the complaints of others of poor responsiveness turned out to be valid for their Project Manager, Frank Diaz.  He stopped answering calls when the going got rough. However, my experience with their Operations Manager, Jeff Hardman, was rather better. He did reliably respond to my questions and concerns. See below for more detail on these. Obviously I cannot comment on their honoring their warranty at this point.
Their quote gave a price that was not the cheapest, but was in the ball park of others and we were not looking for the least expensive, but rather the best value that would solve our problems from a reliable contractor. Their pre-sales gave me the feeling of confidence that they would do this.
On the day they said they would arrive to start work, they said they would be there at 7:30AM; they did not arrive until after 9AM., which we were told was because of equipment problems (Bobcat broken oil line). These things happen. Where it started to go wrong was the dumptruck with the underlay material arrived at 10AM while they were just getting underway removing the old driveway. So they have to clear a place for the gravel to be dumped, which happened to be in the area of the drainage problem. I suspect this was the origin of the failure to correct the drainage. (I have photos of the issue.)
The workers also told me that they could not do the front door step and approach walkway as had been planned because the ground was too high. In reality, the issue was they had not prepared the area properly, and when I said that no pour would happen with the present setup, the Project Manager returned and with the workers corrected is, so that it would be as originally described and planned. I wonder why would I even need to engage them on this. On the positive side, the shape and location of the new front walkway were very well done. My takeaway is that I do not know if the Project Manager is just overstretched, or otherwise inattentive for some reason, but this and the too early gravel delivery are just poor project management. In addition, the project manager also gets low grades on engineering understanding and skill. I do not fault the original work crew at all.
The driveway was completed and we were in the concrete curing stage when a rainstorm came. Ouch! The water from the ?corrected? part of the driveway just flooded over the existing brick wall and into an area that would then seep into our
basement. This was what was precisely supposed to have been fixed!
So began the effort at resolution. We stopped payment on the check I had mailed in good faith since the appearance of the driveway was very good, even though the work was not finished. (Never again will I make this mistake.) You'll have to decide if they would have responded as they did if we had not done this or the check had already cleared. Their operations manager, Jeff,contacted of us and came out to go over the problem with us. He offered three solutions, two of which really would have been makeshift, so we opted for the third. While this solution did not make drainage flow on the complete driveway the way I feel a well engineered driveway would be, it did fully solve the immediate problem of where the water runoff went. That said, on this one item, I am satisfied with my dealings with Jeff in resolving this, and he continued to respond to and answer issues that came up.
The unfortunate final touch was just as I was starting to feel a little better about Hemma, we ended on this note. The removal of 4 panels of the newly made driveway, regrading and a second pour all went well enough. (Slight mismatch in color on the re-pour.) They said they would be back in a week to finish up. I Emailed Frank and said please do not come on the next Wednesday since we would not be here and would he please give us at least 12 hours notice on when they would show up. Yes, you guessed it:: Wednesday they showed up unannounced mid-day. We just happened to have gotten back here. Since then, no note of explanation or apology. Moreover, the workers (different team than installed the driveway) ran their concrete saws with the garage door open; what a mess the clouds of concrete dust made of the garage and car.
Would I recommend Hemma to someone? Probably not. Would I tell someone to avoid them at all costs? Also probably not. But I would get more detail written into the quote and I would supervise them very closely, which might be hard to do if you
are not retired as I am, especially given their reliability on dates and times. But whatever else is true, take pictures as the work progresses.
I will return to this to report their warranty performance should that be needed, but so far, so good.

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Everything went very well---exactly as proposed

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They were very professional, and they did what they said they would, they supervised the project, and got it done on time. They were a little expensive. The quality was very good except for one thing.

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