Spinieo, Inc

Everything turned out great. I have an existing flagstone walkway that they were able to match perfectly; you can't tell where the old walkway ended and new one began. The edging and the paver patio turned out great also. Emails and calls were always returned promptly; I would definitely use them again.

Terrible! They were paid. Contracts were signed. They came and did some of the work. They damaged some of our property and promised to repair it right away. They never returned despite the messages to me that they would. They kept giving excuses as to why they weren't returning, and also eventually said that since they could not come out and do the job (yet) I should make the repairs for the damages they caused (unrelated to the work they did) and they would then reimburse me. They did not. Finally, they stopped returning my messages and I had to hire another landscaping company to repair the damage they caused, and finish the job they started. Not only did I not get my landscaping done, My house was damaged and I lost money dealing with this company.

We never heard back so after a couple of weeks we called and left a message for him to call. No contact. We called again, left another message and again no response to our request for an estimate. Finally we spoke with the office manager, Nancy, explained the lack of response and she said she would speak to him and get back to us. She called back and said that the job was too small for them and that Frank claimed he called and told us that. I told her he did not speak to us and that there was no message on our phone. I told her that he was not telling the truth and that we were very disappointed with them especially since we were existing customers. Nancy said that she would get back to me after getting additional information. They called yesterday, June 17th and left a message that the job was too small but if we want them to do it it would be $1000.00. They wanted 10% down before scheduling the work and perhaps a RotaRooter company would do it cheaper. From May 9th to June 18th to get a response. We initiated all the phone calls and have never received a written proposal from them. Very unprofessional.
We would never use them again and we do not recommend them.

The project ended up being more complicated and involved than expected but Spineo was wonderful.  They had to do a lot of additional work and did so without hesitation or charge.  They were thorough and attentive.  Frank Litchfield was very helpful in planning the project and walking us through it and the foreman, Jorge, went out of his way to explain what he was doing and professional, responsive and very helpful.

Working with this company is my biggest regret as a consumer.  I do not recommend this company.  We had the new asphalt paved in the fall 2010.  By spring 2011, the asphalt was already cracking.  When I had a company other than Spinieo Inc come out to inspect the asphalt, I was informed the asphalt was coming apart and needed to be completely replaced.  When I attempted to contact Spinieo Inc, I was continuosly informed someone from the company would inspect the driveway but no one came.  After seeking legal advice, I sent them notice I would be filing legal action against Spinieo Inc.  This prompted Spinieo Inc's lawyer to come to my home and investigate the asphalt.  Spinieo Inc's lawyer agreed the agreed asphalt driveway was inferior but I never heard from this lawyer or anyone at Spinieo Inc again after this visit.  I took this matter to small claims court but Spinieo Inc completely ignored the summons.  I learned this is what these companies do to see if I would push the matter to the next level. I haven't taken further action because it would require additional expense on my end.

The guys at Spinieo Inc. did a great job building me an outdoor grill / concrete patio.
The grill came out awesome!!!
They have a large selection of pictures on their website which made it easy to pick out the look I was going for. The company overall was very professional, easy to work with and provided me with great communication when I had questions or concerns.
Kevin Samples oversaw the project and was on site everyday to manage the men.  I would definately recommend and use Spinieo Inc. again.

We met with Chris and Matt to discuss options for removing our existing deck and replacing it. We discussed with them a budget that we had for this project. They were able to design us a spectacular deck using the best materials available and still fit it into our budget. They lived up to everything that they promised the job in the time frame that they estimated. We were very pleased with our deck and wish we would've done it sooner.

WE had paid Spinieo to in May 2010, in full to add 2 clay chimney caps to the top of our chimney. After they looked at the top and realized they needed three chimney caps, and that the job was MUCH harder than they thought....they increased the project price considerably..of course after we had already had alot of money already invested. Our project manager, sat on the job for 4 months. He cancelled several times. The job didnt end up being completed until October. The lift that they needed to complete my job, arrived to my house on a day they were supposed to finally complete the job. I had to tell the lift company that Spinieo wouldnt be coming that day.My husband and I ALWAYS make sure that we are home when contractors work, but we wasted too many vacation days on their no shows. When all was said and done they cemented 3 different color chimney caps to the top of my chimney. The owner drove by and agreed with us, it looked horrible(my words not his). The project managers response was " of course they are three different colors, they were ordered from two different batches. My response was that"why would you even install them when they looked so obviously diifferent, they are cemented in!" Spinieo was going to put some brown paint on it, at the advise of the manufacturer, "it should even out out the color". When I suggested that I pay to have it professioinally done and they pay for the lift. It was agreed. Now it was winter, and we had to wait until spring. In the spring I sent Spinieo e-mails and called, and the owner never responded. I went to the BBB to file a complaint. They agreed to pay for the lift, and the complaint was closed. The check NEVER came. I had the complaint re-opened, finally I got a check. Now the chimney caps are painted, they look nice. I was charged $1000 for the cost of the lift, but only re-imbursed $400(the cost it would have cost Spinieo for the lift). This is now going to need to be maintained for life. I can not recommend this company to anyone. 

In response to Spinieo's claims that he paid the court judgement. We have not received any money from him since our court case in 2007 & you can verify through Bucks County Court that the judgement has not been paid. Just call the prothonotary's office at 215-348-6191 & reference the docket number.

During the job they never used the tackifier & told us not to worry about it at the time. They never cut back the 2 feet from our garage doors, walkways or road. Matter of fact they only cut back about 6 inches. The kicker was that the extension pad they put in did not even measure 14 feet X 19 feet when we measured it. It was only 11 foot by 16 foot & started to sink shortly after it was installed do to pour compacting of the gravel. I ENDED UP GETTING A LAWYER & SUING THEM IN BUCKS COUNTY COURT FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT. WE OBVIOUSLY WON OUR CASE & TO THIS DAY HAVE A JUDGEMENT AGAINST THEM. CHECK THE COURT RECORDS @ COURT OF COMMON PLEAS BUCKS COUNTY, DOYLESTOWN, PA. THE DOCKET NUMBER IS 0710866-32-1. THIS IS STILL OPEN IN 2012 AS THEY HAVE NOT YET PAID THE COURT.

P.S We also only joined Angie's list this month so we could post our experience with Spinieo, Inc.

We chose this company before becoming a member of Angie?s list and they are the reason I became a member. ( 04.21.2011 UPDATE: Just received another invoice from a subcontractor who still has not been paid nearly 2 yrs later.)  I do not want anyone to go through what we went through. I would have written this sooner but we were tied up in legal wranglings to settle the contract. We learned a hard lesson about checking references and the trappings of not doing so. In the beginning we thought they were a perfect fit. They were the 4th company we interviewed and the 1st to really understand what my wife had in mind. It?s a shame we did not put 1/10th of the time into checking into them as we did planning and designing a multi tiered 4 room patio and living area. Our initial design challenge was figuring out how to tie the different roof lines together and ensure both external doors would be covered by a roof. They were the only one who told us it could easily be done. We were showed a conceptual drawing and to make things better told us the job would be done in 4 weeks because they are a big company and have work crews to devote to our project. So we bit? hard. The field workers were hard working and sincere and took pride in their work. The problems started because only 2 workers were designated for a job of this size and NOBODY was left in charge to run the job. We were told the guy who signed the contract would run the job AND we would have the added benefit of having Chris Spinieo, the owner and President himself on the jobsite. Fortunately my wife was home most days and was able to catch or prevent many costly mistakes. An example was almost installing appliances in the wrong locations and building the grill too high. The amazing thing was how many mistakes were still happening after detailed discussions and conversations with one of the two guys that were supposedly running the job. So it would entail having at least 2 conversations every time a question was raised. We ended up having multiple meetings throughout the project to try to get everyone on the same page but those meetings generally meant wasting even more of our time to get them organized since a day or two later we would be back to explaining to the workers what we were told would be communicated. In the end we probably ran ¾ of the job on the site despite thinking we could avoid such a situation by paying up for a bigger company. They forgot to get permits then tried to double charge us for the resultant late fees. The inspector was unable to inspect the finished roof because it had already been sealed up and closed in. My wife designed a bar height counter space with seating for 6. Spinieo suggested one large flat surface as opposed to a 2 tier design. My wife stressed the height of the countertop to be standard bar stool height to ensure the arms of the bar stools would fit underneath. The final result is the chairs do not fit under the counter and the design was adjusted on site to include a 2nd tier because if it was left at one level the counter would have been between mid chest and near a person?s chin level while seated in a bar stool. Measurements may have never been taken, or at least were not verified. A mistake of this magnitude suggests either a breakdown in communication among the contractor contacts or it merely highlights how little understanding there was of how the floor heights from the step down levels would impact the entire design. We agreed to permit this change to move forward since the project was already 10+ weeks behind schedule and the only alternative seemed to be for them to start anew by ripping up all of the brick and blue stone flooring from the three lower levels and build them up about 8? - 10? . To my dismay Spinieo tried for months to bill us $1,200 for their mismeasurement and then he even suggested ?splitting the difference? with us. These were basic mistakes which we thought we would avoid by going with a larger company and paying up for better service. We knew for less money we could get a guy with a truck and some tools but were willing to spend up for a company with specialists and work crews. The ?full? work crews (more than 2 guys) only showed up when there were major problems and when things got to a breaking point on our end. Within a day or two, however, we would be back down to a crew of two. We also contracted with them to widen our driveway. It was still very early in the project and although they were not moving quickly we still allowed them to bid on the job since the two workers we did have took such pride in their work and we were being promised by the owner things would be wrapped up soon. I had 3 competing bids for this work. Spinieo dropped their price low enough to meet the lowest bid and reassured us they could do extra?s if needed since they were doing more work on our site which was the synergy I expected. After signing the contract, cashing the initial payment and completing about 1/3rd of the job, all work CEASED for weeks with my driveway ripped up. When I asked what the holdup was I was told they under bid the job and they could not do it for that low of a price!!!!! At this point we were only about half way through the nightmare with the patio and things became a bit clearer as to what was going on. I actually had to argue with them about the fact they were reneging on the contract and was worried they would walk away from the entire job now. We agreed to upgrade the material from pavers to real cobblestone and pay a little extra for the improved material. At the time it felt like a winning scenario despite paying substantially more that the original contract. That project finally was completed after enough complaining and yelling to get additional workers out to show up and work simultaneously when the patio work was dragging on. After a few months with the original project only partially completed, I raised enough h*** to get the appliances installed so we could use them for a special birthday party for my dad. Fortunately, I was able to leave work early enough and meet up with the owner (Chris Spinieo) who was sharing responsibility of running and overseeing our job to review what is hooked up and working and what is not as well as review what is targeted to get completed over the next week or two. Despite being assured everything would be in working order for our cookout, he discovered the gas was never hooked up to the grill so he had to try to figure out how to do it but not before suggesting it was something I could probably do on my own. I told him to sit tight while I brought out whatever tools he wanted from my garage and watch him connect and test the burners. We noticed the stainless steel grill cover was permanently scratched when someone from his crew drew a phone # in the dust. The combination of oils from the skin and the abrasives in the brick and stone dust were enough to slightly etch large #?s across the cover. They attempted to clean it off by having someone lightly polish the cover and as we had become accustomed to walk away instead of checking to see if it worked. The final result was using a mild abrasive to scuff up the rest of the lid to cover up the #?s Amazingly, despite all of the mistakes, delays and problems, we were asked repeatedly throughout the job if we could pay them more of the contract - at least some of the final 15% payment - because none of the subcontractors ?had been paid and it was the only way they could ensure the workers would come back to the site since things were starting to drag out a bit.? As amazing as it seems, this was neither the worst nor the end of the unprofessional manner in which Art Gelembiuk and Chris Spinieo conducted themselves on this job. Chris personally asked me on 5 separate other occasions despite the fact that the work wasn?t even 90% complete. This speaks volumes to me about his lack of integrity. Once our 4 week project eclipsed the 3 month mark we were having regular meetings to understand what would be completed and by when. Since the deadlines were rarely if ever

When they moved the dirt around they got some on my neighbors property (he was not happy and complained to the company). They tore my old fence down and when they put up my new fence they moved it in about 2 to 3 feet, because my neighbor told them too. So now my neighbor has more of my property on his side. Whose paying them, me or my neighbor? They gave me some b******* excuse about the swale would rot out my fence if they put it back on the property line and that's why they had to move it in 2 to 3 feet. After 3 years the fence is now falling over and no one will call me back. The patio that they put in, they used E.P. Henry pavers. I got a bad batch of the pavers and I ended up with little rust marks all over my blocks. The patio looked horrible and Spineo would not replace it and I had to call E.P. Henry to do the job. They did it free of charge (Thank God). As of today, the blocks have settled and are now crooked. Like I said, no one will call you back.

Overall, their concrete crew did a fine job, but the asphalt paving and shed demolishing were done poorly. When demolishing the shed, they broke the power connection into it, although I had repeatedly reminded them to protect the connection. Not long after they paved the asphalt, it began to bend. More important, they did not pitch the asphalt right to prevent water from getting into my basement. I told their representative Adam about this in October, 2007. He said he would take a look. After many calls, he finally came to my house and saw the problem. Then after that I had to call him many more times. Sometimes he did not answer or return my cal. Other times he said he would send a crew at a certain date, but they did not come. Other times he was evasive; he did not give me any indication what and when he would do. I was angry; I called the company's owner (I guess the name is Dave Spinieo) and left a message. He did not bother to return my call. Finally, late in the winter, after numerous telephone calls, Adam told me that the weather was too cold for them to pour asphalt and that they could not find an asphalt maker in the winter anyway. Then he promised that he would fix it in March. I waited. He sent a crew, finally in April 2008. Once again they did a poor job. The crew leader told me that he would come back to seal the edges of the asphalt. He never did. I called Adam and told him about this. I also told him that the concrete they poured (what he called a "lip") to prevent water getting into the basement through a door was not done right. He said he would see what he could do about it. I have never heard from him ever since. He did not even answer my call later.

Spinieo did a good job in the beginning. They sent a representative promptly and mailed a proposal that was professional looking (with details) and reasonably priced. The job they did was a bit complicated and took a long time. In general they did a good job, but communication was a problem at times. Different crews were dispatched to my house for different parts of the job (concrete, asphalt, cleaning up). That is why it was not always easy to find the responsible person and talk about the details. They did not inform me about the schedule of the job, unless I asked specifically. Also, the crews damaged a power line and a cable with their heavy equipment. You have to be vigilant if you are working with them, especially if your job is multi-faceted like mine. In the end, the work they did looks good, except for the minor damages they did.

Very poor experience, workers were very careless. They broke many branches of my mature trees located on the side of the driveway. They parked their 16 wheel tri-axel dump truck smack dab in the middle of my front lawn. For part of the job fill dirt was necessary and they used garbage (inner tubes, bottles, rugs, etc.) from a trash site which was loosely mixed with dirt. The driveway was layed with a coarser stone than normal. The edges of the driveway are not straight.

Thomas from this company scheduled an appointment we me for a landscaping and fence estimate. The appointment was at 10am on 6/15, but no one came out. I called the company twice, and both times the receptionist said Thomas was still coming. No one from the company ever called or came to do the estimate.