Worden Paving

I contacted Mr. Worden because of his great rating and many reviews on Angie's List. When I initially spoke with him he seemed very knowledgeable and professional. We made an appointment on 5/15/2014 at noon for him to come out and assess the area to provide an estimate. On the day we were suppposed to meet he was running late but called to imform us he would be about 15 mins late which was fine. My husband met with him and really liked him. We were given several estimates but my husband chose Mr. Worden because he gave him a great impression. I received the written estimate of $4800 to my email that evening and let him know the next day I wanted him to do the work. We were unable to meet in person to sign the contract because I work nights and was doing a significant amount of OT that week. I provided payment via email and he told me he would get started the week after Memorial Day. He told us he would either be at the house on Wed 5/28 or Thurs 5/29. We didn't hear from him Wednesday and it was raining Thursday and he called mid morning to tell us he wouldn't be out till Monday because the ground was too saturated which we understood. On Monday 6/2 I expected them at the house in the morning to get started and work a full day. No one showed up. My husband called around 11am and Mr. Worden stated his driver had the flu. I was irritated that we had to contact him to find out where he was. On Tuesday, once again we did not hear from him. I called that afternoon to find out where he was and when to expect him there. He called me back and told me he was behind because of the rain. For me to have to call him to receive updates is unprofessional in my opinion. He finally came out around 2 pm 6/4 and excavated the area. On Thurs 6/5 the workers didn't show up till the afternoon to get started, worked a few hours and left. I've been renovating my home for over a year now, and I've never known anyone to come out and get started in the afternoon and work a few hours and leave. This really prolonged the completion of the job. Mr. Worden contacted me Thursday afternoon to tell me that he was concerned about the slope of the yard but ulimately he thought he would be able to build up the area with the dirt he excavated. He mentioned the option of having to build a wall but said he didn't think he would have to do that he was just letting me know his concerns. I told him I wanted it to be functional and he understood. He told me then that he would take $300 off of the price of the job if it wasn't completed by Sat. because he felt bad about the delay, but that were problems with the delivery of the brick. He redeemed himself at that point for me. On Saturday 6/7 someone worked on the patio for most of the day. After he left, my husband and I went to look at what had been done so far and the slope was unacceptable. There was no way it would function with a table and chairs out there. We called him and told him our issue and he sounded frustrated and tried to tell us he told us about the issue. Yes, he did tell us his concerns but he also told us he thought he could build it up with dirt. We did not hear from him Saturday, and his employee and not called to tell him any issues regarding the slope. We made an appointment for him to come out Mon. and he spoke with my husband and said he would have to dig it down further in order for it to be level, but if he did a step needed to be built, or he could build a retaining wall of some sort which would cost another $1500. We explained to him that we thought the point of the estimate was to assess the area and determine the work that needed to be done and if he would have given us a quote of 6,300 then we would not have hired him because it wasn't in our budget. He understood our frustration and we agreed to pay an additional $500 to built a stone step. My husband pulled up all the pavers himself because he felt bad that his employee had worked all day Saturday and had to start over. The next week and a half was a nightmare. We had no idea when the workers were coming, when they did come one of them had such a bad attitude, was cursing and carrying on outside. On 6/18 Mr. Worden called to say they were almost done and wanted payment. I wrote a check and went to look at the patio. Part of the patio didn't go all the way up to the steps like planned. When my husband went out there to confront the guy about it he saw him cursing and yelling so instead called Mr. Worden. Mr. Worden sounded very irritated and said "maybe it's because of the heat". My husband works outside everyday as well so we understand the weather takes a toll but cursing and yelling isn't acceptable. Mr. Worden said the stone follows the same line as originally planned but because of the step is why it looks like that which is not true because we didn't plan for the stone to go straight out from the steps. It had a slight curve to the design which would have been within our plan. When I spoke with the employee that did it, he gave a contradictory explanation that he was going to install it further but the stone would have to be underneath the level of ground for it to have proper runoff. This made more sense, so I asked them if I could have the leftover stone so we could do it ourselves since we had other plans for that area of the yard to include a fire pit and I took what I needed off of the truck. The guys were respectful to me when I was outside. The guy apologized for his behavior and said one of the other guys took the cement glue so he couldn't glue down the stone steps but promised to come back the next morning to finish up which he did. I have never been more happy to have a job finally completed. The job was mediocre. There were issues we found after they left that we weren't about to call them back about. My husband will fix it himself. They ran into our bay window with the bobcat apparenlty, because the siding is damaged. The stone step has stone installed properly to the railing one one side but a few inch gap on the other.  Mr. Worden did call to apologize to me for his employees behavior but it didn't seem sincere. We were made to feel that these issues were our fault and we were difficult clients.  We expected the job to be done right. I'm not sure what exactlty happened with this experience, because he seems to have a good reputation but our experience was awful. We planned to get him to do our driveway but we will be going with someone else.

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