We had In Harmony come take a look at our yard to add drainage and level our grass areas since our new patio distinctly showed the backyard as not level. Nice enough people, the estimate process was fine and they were going to do what we wanted. Drainage along the edges, paid extra to have them bring in rolls of sod to give us instant lawn, dig out beside our driveway to add drainage, and gravel to replace the wed patch.
They start the work, all good except they only add the sod to about 4 feet around the patio. We called them to find out what is up. They said we only paid the extra dough for about 600 sq feet of new turf, not the whole yard. Keep in mind our estimate for all the work was over $10k. Not cheap by any means. OK fine, we re-review the second estimate sheet they say when we wanted turf; it was just for a small area despite the bump in price.
By the second day they are nearly done and ready to go. The drainage pipes were laid all along the edges of our yard, but they didn't level out our yard. So my yard will have nice big puddles in the but working drainage on the outside. I call them again and tell them the problem. The project manager was reviewing our estimates and said that it didn't include that work. I told him he was nuts. Why would I be shelling out $10k plus to have drains added and NOT have them level the yard? It was ridiculous. I couldn't believe it. He finally agreed to come out and take a look. I showed him what the problem was and he reluctantly agreed to add soil/peat mix and level off the yard so that it would actually DRAIN to the lovely drainage pipes they added.
They spent another 3 days taking care of this and they did over seed the lawn which was nice. There was never an apology and I definitely think they were a little ticked at us, but I don't care. What decent company would put in drainage and not grade the area to be drained when you are being paid a solid 5 figures for the work? I guess their profit on our yard work wasn't as much as they normally see. Too bad!
The work on the side of the house along the driveway was done well, but it was only digging dirt, adding drainage (which I know they CAN do!) and putting down about 8-12 inches of gravel.
The other problem we noticed a couple months out was that where they put in the drainage and the big gravel, they put a mesh tarp down with only about 2 inches of soil above it. Between wind and rain the mesh tarp has started to come up in a couple of places. Next spring I will have to work on that. Too late to make a stink over it now.
The whole reason we went with In Harmony was because they are a local company and looked to be doing right by the environment. They try to use natural methods and use biodiesel in their trucks (we use biodiesel almost exclusively ourselves). I was really disappointed in the whole thing and cannot recommend them.
more