Custom Paving

Good crew.  Steamroller operator a little careless, but overall work was done with quality materials to a professional standard.  Six months later I am still very pleased with the work and the price.

It still looks great and we're pleased with it and that's why the neighbors keep asking.  He's one of the big companys because when I went through my ads he was easy to find.  He did such a  fantastic job that 4-5 of my neighbors hired him. Another person just called me to ask who did the work and I saw the Gorman truck in his driveway so they must have contracted with him.  I was pleased that he worked with me for the timing of the job, he offered a sizable discount and I appreciated that.  I talked to 3-4 companies.  When his crew came out they did more than just pave it.  I had a bad portion of the driveway that had to be chisled out and rebuilt and they did a very good job there.  You can't see where it ever was.  They did very nice edging along the driveway, it looks very good.  Mr. Gorman himself came out overseeing the crew part of the day and I liked that, a lot of times with companies you never see the owner or manager.  I did see him, meet him and talk with him myself and I liked that. His price was in the ballpark with everyone else and he honored his discount so that was nice

This is the worst experience we have had with a contractor, and we have worked with many contractors while renovating four houses during the past ten years. I would not agree to work with Pat Gorman again, even if he offered to pay me for the opportunity. This review is intended to convey only the facts about our experiences with Pat Gorman/Gorman Paving. You, as the reader, must draw your own conclusions and determine for yourself whether you should hire this company. We make no attempt to advise or persuade you regarding that decision, which should be made pursuant to your own judgment based on a totality of the circumstances. We'll start with a brief summary of the main issues, for those who do not want to read a lengthy tail, then relate the whole story in detail. Here are the primary points: 1) Pat Gorman talked a good game, saying things to us like, ?Don?t worry, I?ll do whatever it takes to make you happy?, and ?I stand behind my work?, but as soon as we had a problem with the work, he became irate and refused to correct the problem. 2) He represented himself as expert in areas where he appears to have little, if any, expertise. 3) He took on work that he and his crew could not perform, and then, when his efforts were unacceptable, he claimed that he does not do that sort of work. 4) He personally observed that his crew?s work was sub-standard and tried to get us to accept it anyway. 5) When we pointed out an obvious and serious problem with his work, he became personally insulting and then lost control of himself to the extent that his own crew physically removed him from the premises. 6) He ignored known industry standards for performing work. We did not know to ask specifically for every step that should be performed, and he did not advise us of those steps so that we could elect to follow them. Thus, they were not performed. 7) He stated that he would perform specific tasks that he did not, in fact, perform. 8) He used irrelevant clauses in his contract to threaten us when we did not accept the poor quality of his work. 9) He severed our electric dog fence, even after being advised of its existence, location, and importance and has not compensated us for the loss. Now the full story. We hired Pat Gorman based on the fact that he re-paved an asphalt driveway for a neighbor. Unfortunately, we did not check the Better Business Bureau, where he already has four complaints on record (about to get a fifth)--our first mistake. Also, if we had been members of Angie?s List at that time, we would have seen that he has no positive reviews from previous customers. During the initial meeting with Mr. Gorman, he talked a good game, claiming to be an expert in all the things we needed, which included resurfacing the driveway, laying concrete paving stones between our house and garage with a path leading to the back patio, and expanding our front porch and covering it in paving stones. However, at that same meeting, he displayed his lack of flexibility when he didn?t want to use the same stones that we had used on our back patio because they are approximately ? inch thicker than a smaller version he preferred. We should have dismissed him at that point--our second mistake. During that first meeting, we walked the entire area with Mr. Gorman and discussed, in particular, our concerns about drainage. We specifically focused on the need to control the flow of water between the house and garage and where the driveway meets the garage to avoid damage to either of the two structures. He casually dismissed all our concerns, stating that he would take care of the drainage, no problem at all, this work is what he does, etc. We did not require that Mr. Gorman state in writing the particulars of how the drainage would be handled, other than that the area would be ?graded?--our third mistake. Work eventually commenced, starting with raising some sunken patio stones on our preexisting back patio and laying new stones in a path leading to the front porch. Leveling the sunken areas on the back porch turned out to be problematic, because Mr. Gorman only wanted to raise and re-level two or three stones, thinking that doing so would level out a sunken area that was at least 10 feet in circumference. His approach to that problem revealed immediately that he and his crew did not intend to perform the work we had hired them to do. Moreover, he accused me of increasing the scope of the job by telling them to level more and more stones. That accusation was ridiculous; the sunken areas did not change in size, rather he simply did not want to lift all the stones required to level out the entire dip, and I would not approve the incomplete fix. Mr. Gorman ultimately did not fix the sunken areas completely, and many of the stones in those areas are still recessed. At the same time that work was being performed, other members of his crew were laying stones on the path. From time to time, Mr. Gorman would call me over to see if I would accept stones or collections of stones that were obviously unlevel. When I asked him if he would accept such workmanship at his own home, he admitted that he would not. Yet, he asked me to accept it at mine. Also, on several occasions, I pointed out a problem, and he replied, ?I was afraid you were going to notice that.? This approach to the work turned out to be typical, i.e., he would deliberately ignore a problem with the hope that we would not notice it or would accept it anyway. He routinely failed to correct his mistakes voluntarily. After the stones were laid between the house and detached garage, it was apparent that the drainage concern that we had discussed with him had not been successfully addressed. We pointed out to Mr. Gorman that, due to the angle and height at which the stones had been installed, water would run away from the house and pool against the garage. Also, the stones had been placed at virtually the same height as the foundation of the garage, which made it likely that water would go into the garage under the garage wall. When we pointed out the problem to Mr. Gorman, he quite glibly stated that there was no problem at all, and he would prove it to us. He then used the garden hose to spray water in the area. The water immediately created a large pool right up against the garage wall where the wall meets the foundation. The water took about 20 minutes to disperse, and the area was still damp over an hour later. And that was on a hot, dry, sunny summer day. When Mr. Gorman saw what had happened and that he had, in fact, created a drainage problem, he became extremely angry. He immediately threatened us and our neighbors?who had signed a contract with him for driveway paving earlier that morning?that he would put a lien on our houses if anyone refused to pay him or tried to cancel a contract. He then started screaming that we were a ?nightmare to work with? and ?the worst customers he had ever had?. He accused us of having made all kinds of changes to the scope of the work. (We had, in fact, made only one slight adjustment to the width of a step, a change which was so minor that the subcontractor hired to do that portion of the job implemented the change at no additional cost to us.) Mr. Gorman stated flat out that he would not take up the stones and re-grade the area to allow for proper drainage. His only offer was to charge us $2,000.00 more to put in a drain against the garage wall. Mr. Gorman also denied that he had ever discussed any drainage issues with us, and further stated that he does not ?guarantee drainage.? Of course, this was quite a surprise to us, since we hired him to address those very issues, and the contract even specified that the areas would be properly graded. At no time previous had he explained that he does not deal with drainage?on the contrary, he had assured us that he could, and would, properly handle all drainage issues. After his initial outburst, Mr. Gorman continued, for several more hours that day, to be extremely insulting to both me and my husband, calling me a mental case, among other things. At

The job went well. They arrived within 15 minutes of their start time (9am on a Saturday), the crew leader explained the whole process and then went to work. They did the work with a minimal amount of disruption to my family (noise/inconvenience) and finished much sooner then expected. The crew leader would see me pop my head outside and see how it was going and he would explain what was going on at that point. They cleaned up the site very well and did a great job overall.

They did terrible work. He did not show up on time, and the asphalt seams were terrible. There are areas where stones are coming out of the asphalt, and I am going to have to redo several areas. This is the only negative report I have made on Angies List.

They didn't compress it enough. The asphalt was crumbling apart. When I called to complain he got agitated and wouldn't even come and look at it at first. He eventually did seal coat it at cost. The seal didn't work properly as well.

VERY GOOD JOB. ON TIME, ON PRICE, & VERY GOOD QUALITY. A VAST IMPROVEMENT OVER EXISTING DRIVEWAY. NEGATIVE: HARD TO CONTACT, BUT DID EVENTUALLY RESPOND & COMPLETE THE JOB ON TIME.

SENT THE GRANDSON, WHO IS 16, TO ASK FOR THE BUSINESS. THEN HAD TWO PEOPLE, WHO COULD NOT SPEAK ENGLISH, DO ALL OF THE WORK WHICH WAS HORRIBLE. THEY WERE NOT HONEST ABOUT THE PRODUCT OR THE GUARANTEE.