Advanced Landscaping Services

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Advanced Landscaping Services sub contracted out the excavation of the perimeter and dirt moving to EC Long who did a respectable job and I would use him in the future. My main complaint is that Victor Tobaugh got caught up with trying to expedite and complete the job in one day with a great sacrifice in quality. Victor's actions resulted in actual damage to the property (left side facing the house) by allowing a 20 yard dump truck to drive on the property in order to reduce tractor time in hauling the dirt from the street. I still have the indentations in the ground. Another bad decision he made was to start the aeration and seeding before the excavation began which resulted in the heavy John Deer CT ( a bigger, heavier Bob Cat looking excavation machine ) grader with a large loader blade damaging the work done by the aeration and seeding crew. I suspect LC Long was late in arriving. Victor also objected to excavation of one side of the property because it was not owned by me and was an empty lot although in his estimate it was included. The fact that the excavation was not done on side (right side facing the house) of the property the big John Deer CT had to run up the side and damaging the existing aeration and seeding and left indentation in the ground. 
Victor said he would double seed the excavated areas and in my opinion he did not. The excavated areas should have been raked and the protruding roots, loose rocks  and mounds of dirt near the edge removed or smoothed out so the area could be mowed without blade damage to the mower. The poor surface preparation was masked by the erosion mats.
Another area of contention was in my opinion a over estimation of material used. I was suppose to get 6 loads of dirt and only received 5. The estimate was for 11 erosion mats and they only used 9. Also on the estimate was 400 pounds of grass seed yet there were areas that at best were sparely seeded.
Victor also understated the ease of the erosion mat removal which was our responsibility.

Our own experience, however, was not good.  The fountain, once finished, was not what we had expected.  Some parts of it had to be redone.  The workmanship was sloppy and the crew unprofessional.  They newly laid cement around the fountain area was damaged during the fountain installation and had to be repaired.  The fountain never has worked properly and has been basically unusable for the past year and a half.  We were hesitant to call this company again to repair it, especially since we had to call them to make initial repairs and redo's and after making a couple of trips to the location they seemed reluctant to come again.
The sprinkler system they installed was also problematic and not properly installed.  We had to hire another company to come repair it; bury the sprinkler lines the way they should have been in a number of places, and replace defective parts.
All-in-all, even though the owner is very nice, we would not use this company again

I was very pleased with them. They came in and did the work and it looks good. Their price and quality was good. I would use them in the future.

It was pretty extensive. You need to be out there and stay on top of them. The barrier they used, I wouldn't recommend to anybody. It is supposed to be a 20-year barrier, but it doesn't let water through. It is plastic coated with a felt back and does not let water through very easily to the plants. It was more like shredded along the edges instead of cut because they used a box knife. I know I will have weeds along the border and they left a lot of lava work underneath and it is protruding up through it and breaking the barrier. It is not a very thick barrier and I am disappointed in that. They covered my pop up downspout for drainage. They also destroyed one of the pop ups and had to replace it. They would have just covered it up if I weren?t out there. The dirt was more clay, than dirt. I am rather disappointed. The price was competitive. They failed on service and I had to get after them. They showed up on time and answered all my questions.