Exterior Design Landscaping

Review: I hired Exterior Design Landscaping to help install/update French drainage in my yard to help the area drain water more easily. I asked [redacted], the owner who came to do the original estimate, for his opinion on how to connect the house gutter to the new drainage line, something landscaping businesses do all the time, and he advised he would connect it to the main drainage line to be installed.

The day of work, [redacted] operated the backhoe and quickly dug the trench. I went out to begin checking his and his team's progress in the interim, only to realize unbelievably, he had dug the trench on my neighbor's property. I had previously told him about the property line, but he didn't recall, even though on top of that, we had a property line marker in place as a reminder -- he had neglected that too. So he restarted the process and filled in the incorrect trench and dug one on my side of the property. Unfortunately, my neighbor was in the midst of selling their home, so this type of property disruption was a problem for them but nothing further was done about that (fortunately).

During the day of work, at the point when his team was to connect the gutter drain to the main French drainage, I had to tell them to stop because I noticed they were installing the wrong PVC pipe style, and the reason they were using the wrong one (with holes), they said, was because they had run out of the correct one (no holes). I brought this up to [redacted] who was always on his cell phone, and he admitted as an excuse that they must have misunderstood his instructions. At this point, I felt the need to keep a close check on their work.

In the end, I assessed their work, noted to [redacted] that they did not do the full length of drainage as originally estimated they would, so I would pay them a discounted amount to compensate -- we agreed on an amount, and I paid him in full on 8/1/14.

After the 1st rain, I noticed no water was coming out of the end of the main drain pipe (an opening near the rear of my house that was to drain into a natural dry brook). At this point, water coming from the gutter should have at least been coming out regardless, but it was not. I verified this concern with my neighbor's regular landscaper, and he had advised the drainage was not done properly as the water from the gutter should have been draining out immediately.

I called the office and [redacted] several times afterward, with no return call. The office said they kept leaving messages for [redacted] to call, but no calls were returned. I had to go to the office physically one day to try to reach [redacted], but he wasn't there, and so in addition, I left a written message to please call.

Not until I pushed the issue and called incessantly, did I finally get through to [redacted] to be able to ask him to come check out the issue, and he did (reluctantly). After missing two committed times and my calling again and again, he finally came on 9/4/14. The visit was not without a struggle, as he first would not do any test to run water to see what was happening with the drainage. Then, after debating with me that my water hose would not reach the front where the gutter piping began (to help do a test) when in fact I told him it would, he finally agreed.

We started the water running, and he went to the back of the yard where the end of the pipe drains, thinking the water would come right out since it was hose water coming out full force. He began counting minutes from the time the water started and realized that water was not draining out. He counted one minute -- no water came out yet. At two minutes, no water was flowing out. At three minutes, he started to realize something was wrong. And when he got to four minutes on his watch, he saw some water starting to trickle out. It was apparent the water from the gutter line was just going into the ground and not draining out properly. The purpose of the gutter drain was to ensure we remove water -- not have it flow into the already saturated grounds near my foundation.

After additional discussion after the test and my mentioning I thought he was trying to take advantage of me as a female home owner, he agreed to have someone come back within two weeks to detach the gutter line and dig a separate trench (which I knew would not be anything nearly as involved as the main trench, since it is only a solid pipe that needs to be installed).

However, no one ever came in two weeks. I waited a few more days, but no one ever came or called to give me an alternative date. At that point, I left a message on 9/26 and over a period of a few weeks again tried miscellaneous attempts to reach him and leaving messages both on the office phone# and his cell. On 10/16, I called the office using my house phone, and [redacted] actually picked up the call, only to tell me very abruptly (after I told him who I was) that he was in the middle of something and had to call me back -- he hung up before I could say 'ok sure'. I received no call back, and I tried calling again through to the end of October.

At this point, it is obvious he is unwilling to fix this drainage problem, and I cannot risk having water issues as a result of increased water flowing underground near my foundation.Desired Settlement: Want the gutter drainage corrected.