In December of 2017 I requested a quote from Tiller Fence Company. They came out and I showed them where our property line markers were located, showed them 3 trees on the property line and asked if we could replace an existing chain link fence on the property line with a cedar fence. I had the yard surveyed within the past two years because we were wanting a new fence but we wanted to make sure we neither lost the trees to the neighbor’s side of the fence nor had to cut the trees down. We told them we didn’t mind if the pickets had to be trimmed to accommodate the trees because they blocked the new apartments that had gone up behind us. We explained it was very important that we not lose the trees and we were assured there was plenty of room to put the fence in and keep them. The quote was a little more than we expected however so we put off getting the fence put in. In early March 2018 I touched base with Luke and told him we were ready to move forward with a modification to the quote. We had already installed one of the gates included in the first quote and we needed a new quote which he provided. We went over the importance of keeping the trees again and after being assured what we requested was doable, we agreed to the quote. When I got home the afternoon they started work, they had removed all of the chain link fence on the east side of our yard. They had also decided that replacing the fence on the west side of the yard would require cutting down the three trees we had specifically asked to save. There was some discussion about maybe giving the neighbors the smooth side of the fence to see if that would buy us the space needed but they said even doing that wouldn’t help. Because ½ of the existing fence was already down, the neighbors were having to garage their dogs and we were having to take ours out on leashes, we didn’t see any other alternative but to go ahead and have the trees cut down and the stumps ground. We used a contractor Luke recommended and that added $2,400 to the existing quote plus a couple of days delay while the tree removal guy came out. There were two men who worked on our fence, one was Matt and I don’t remember the name of the other person. Matt was very personable and a nice guy and the other guy was nice as well. The only real issues I had were their lack of communication and when they started putting the fence up on the east side of the yard they forgot the gate. Matt said he had forgotten it but he assured us it could be done at the end of the job. The gate was put in but we had to call and remind them after they finished the fence and they came out to do it a couple of days later. Also, when they were starting the job they asked how high off of the ground we wanted the fence or if we wanted it on the ground. We told them we didn’t want it touching the ground because we didn’t want the wood to rot. They said they would leave it about an inch off the ground. The first day I came home that they had started putting the actual pickets up, the bottom of the fence was touching in some spots but then 15 or so inches off the ground in other spots (high enough for three landscaping timbers to be stacked). Our yard slopes and I understand the need to accommodate that slope, but not being a professional fence installer, it’s not something I had considered so it was never discussed. When I expressed that my dog could easily get under the fence, Luke said he would have Matt stack landscaping timbers under the high parts (which he did except for one spot) for the cost of the landscaping timbers. The fence was finally “finished” around March 24th or 25th, I don’t know exactly when they came back to cut the gate because as was their habit, they just showed up, did it and left without letting us know and it’s not in an obvious spot that we see every day. Luke texted me on March 27th wanting final payment, he came by on March 30th to pick up the check. On April 15th we had a somewhat windy day and I noticed the fence on the west side (the side where they cut the trees down) was swaying. We watched closely because we were pretty sure the fence was going to come down. Thankfully it didn’t. I texted Luke that day and he never responded. So I had my husband call him from his work phone the following day and Luke answered. He said he would have Matt check it out. I texted Luke on April 24th (9 days later) and reminded him that someone was supposed to come out and asked him to let me know when he could get someone to come to the house. He responded “ok”. So, on April 25 I had my husband call him from a different number and he answered and again said Matt would come out to check it. Matt finally came out and said a couple of the steel posts were bent. We were told the steel poles used were too small and that Matt would come back to replace them. We had to call multiple times, text and even tell Luke in one voicemail that when the fence came down on our shed we were going to be discussing a whole new set of issues for him to deal with. On May 21st, Matt showed up about 6PM to replace the poles. He said he was going to try to dig holes to set new poles but he might hit where the trees we had to have cut and ground down were so he would have to talk to Luke to see what to do. Matt ended up just adding 3 much shorter poles, it looks kind of stupid and not at all professional but it’s not visible from our yard so at this point I’m not going to complain. What I AM going to complain about is that it took until June 6th to get the poles attached to the fence! It’s took over 50 days from when I first reported the problem to get the issue “kind of” resolved. That is a very long section of fence and I’m concerned that the other poles will bend the next time we get any wind. There are more issues that I won’t detail because they were more of a nuisance than anything else. I know there’s going to be an excuse for every failure I mentioned above but being a project manager, I have every email, text, phone call log and timeline of the project to prove what I’ve said. I also have pictures of the progress and what the fence looked like (leaning and swaying in the wind) on my side and what it looks like on my neighbors side (with tall bent posts and shorter unattached posts). We also have cameras monitoring our front and back yard so I have video footage of the progress as it happened. One of the things I learned is that no matter what, you MUST get any specifics (like the trees) in writing and on the quote. Had I done that, we would have stopped work the minute they said they had to take the trees down and they would have put the chain link fence they took out back up. I’m frustrated more than anything at the lack of communication and the refusal to return texts or phone calls. At first Luke answered the phone every time we called. After we identified problems we had to use phones Luke wasn’t familiar with (like work phones) to get him to answer our calls. We were also frustrated that even after providing all of the necessary information and explaining how important it was to keep the trees, we were assured they wouldn’t have to come down. We honestly would have just kept the existing chain link fence to keep the trees. The poles on the west side (the side that was leaning and swaying) are not evenly spaced like the rest of the fence because that’s where the trees were (even though we had the stumps ground) and because there was concrete under the chain link fence. The quote included tearing out and removal of the existing fence, which should have included doing whatever had to be done to get rid of the concrete that was part of the fence as well. Or at the very least, it should have been identified (it was clearly visible) when they were gathering information for the quote. We certainly would have paid for it. I would honestly think a professional fence installer who told me I had to cut the trees down and have the stumps ground down would know what else needed to be done in order to put poles where the trees used to be. It’s also frustrating that they didn’t use the correct size po