The Irrigation Doctor and Outdoor Lighting Reviews (%countItem)
The Irrigation Doctor and Outdoor Lighting Rating
Address: 5027 Farmland Rd, Charlotte, North Carolina, United States, 28226-5844
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Hired Irrigation Doctor to fix irrigation & install drainage. Irrigation is fine/paid but drainage does not remove water from yard-muddy with puddles
We trusted Irrigation Doctor as their irrigation work came recommended by a stonework company we trust. We contracted them to fix our irrigation system and to create a drainage system which would efficiently remove water from our yard.
Our contact, Ron P, stated via text he had over 30 years of drainage experience and that he knew what he was doing.
We are not satisfied with the outcome. The yard is swampy - water pools in low places which don't drain. There are several significant puddles of standing water without even a heavy or prolonged rain. Furthermore, the far side of our BBQ area is an absolute mud pit. See attached photos as evidence of the issues. In particular, the photos with uplifted sod show the tremendous amount of water that remains just below the sod.
In an effort to fairly judge their work, we recently received two independent assessments of the yard's condition by local drainage experts. BOTH companies, separately, concluded the following:
1. Slotted PVC pipe is not the proper pipe to drain surface water or water from downspout gutters. Both companies were adamant that this pipe should be a solid PVC pipe. The result is that surface water is not effectively removed and instead moves water to other parts of an already over-saturated yard.
2. Drainage pipes on the far side of the BBQ area do not remove water. Water stops at the catch basin and backs up causing a very muddy area. The pipe needs to extend further towards daylight/front yard slope in order to use gravity to remove the water.
3. The catch basins should have been, and were not, placed in the low points of the yard.
4. Pipes from the sump basin are too small and are at risk of being inadequate to handle heavy rains. Further, the sump pump area should be gravel-filled in accordance with best practices.
We were clear that we needed a solution to drain water from both the patio and the yard. The yard drainage simply does not work. There is clear evidence of standing water and extremely muddy soil for several days after it has stopped raining.
Further, using slotted pipes exacerbates the problem by moving more water from the patio area and downspouts into the yard which does not drain and becomes oversaturated. Ron P's crew came to my house when I was not home and removed our laid turf and replaced one of the slotted pipes with a solid one. I emailed Irrigation Doctor to cease and desist since we had no notice they were doing work. Ron later admitted in writing that slotted pipes should not have been used for the downspouts - clear evidence of installation issues and lack of quality control.
Our independent drainage companies' assessments confirm that the work was not done in accordance to standard drainage practices or principles.
We are now left with substantial remediation expenses that are higher than the entire drainage cost from Irrigation Doctor. We no longer have confidence in Irrigation Doctor to do this work. Ron keeps saying the drainage "works great" but the puddles and constant muddiness says otherwise.
We believe a fair solution to be one in which we pay fair market price for the materials (sump pump & drains) only since we will need to pay for remediation by a different company who can effectively remove the water from our yard which will cost us more than what the original estimated cost from Irrigation Doctor. We have paid 50% down which covers the irrigation work which was fine and we will pay the outstanding $55 for that portion of the work. We do not want to pay for a drainage solution which does not work and actually leaves the yard with worse drainage issues than what Irrigation Doctor was hired to fix.
I've had trouble from the beginning trying to get paid from this client. It took me telling the customer that I would not be able to start their project unless I received their deposit before I finally got payment. Before it was excuse after excuse of why they were not able able to make payment online. " He didn't see the email." or he didn't understand how to make a payment online. I even went as far as to make him a video of how to make a payment online. He then asked if I could take a credit card for the deposit payment and could he also pay the balance with the credit card again after completion. I said that was fine. I'd now like to start by addressing each item line by line. Customer states "yard is swampy and pools in low places." My response to the is after we installed the drainage in the locations that were discussed and agreed upon. I even painted the locations on the ground with white paint so the client could see exactly what he was getting and where drain lines and catch basins were to be installed. Client stated that he did not have a lot to spend so we agreed to address the area along the back of his walk in the swell that was holding water. Client then requested that we include the area around the patio. This was an additional 60-75' of trench.I agreed to this at no extra charge and even installed 3 additional catch basins as well at no additional charge from original estimate.I went way over and above for this client. The "low spots" which the client speaks of are areas that are outside of the agreed upon areas included in the estimate. Even worse is the fact that these are areas where the customer bought and installed sod himself after we installed the drainage. It was not installed by professionals because he wanted to save money or didn't have the money. The client did not grade or level the yard before installing the sod himself and then blames the Irrigation Doctor for the low spots not draining. 2nd of all we installed this job right before Christmas 2019. We have had record amounts of rain in December it is now Jan 13,2020 at the time of this complaint and it has still not stopped raining. There is not a dry yard anywhere in NC that doesn't have pooling water. The client keeps talking about what other drainage companies said about the job. I have not seen any paper work from either company. This is irrelevant. Anybody can say anything. We used slotted PVC piping not corrugated because PVC is better and will never break down like corrugated. The slotted PVC piping was wrapped in a filter sock and then backfilled with gravel for wicking up below grade water in the swell. It's called a french drain. We have catch basins for above grade water in the areas we discussed pre installation. No we did not install catch basins all over his yard. We installed them in the swell and around patio where we both agreed upon at which the client agreed to pay for. The photos the client posted are areas not included in the scope of this project but areas where the customer sodded and did not grade. 2. Client states "that water stops in catch basin and backs up. What the client is calling a catch basin is an outlet at the side of the house where again we agreed upon pre installation to release water from basin. Water does leave the basin by the way and runs down hill in front yard as intended. Client for some reason decided to go out and dig up the line at the side of his house causing water to sit around the end of the pipe. We have photos of this. The client told me after project was completed that he wanted me to trench the line down another 50' before he would pay. This was not part of the agreement. BUT, I did tell the client that I would be glad to trench the line for him and install PVC at no additional cost after he payed for what we have already agreed upon first. And he still did not pay. 3. Has already been addressed but again the catch basins were installed in the agreed upon locations.4. Customer states "That sump pump outlet pipe MAY be too small to keep up with flow of water from drain lines . This is not the case. Catch basin will never out pace and has not out paced the outlet line from the pump. This Pump by the way is something else that was not in the original agreement. I extended the line another 15' and installed this pump and basin for the client at no additional charge because he did not think the water left the end of the original outlet fast enough and that he was not going to pay for the project. This was before complaining about the catch basin addressed earlier that he wanted extended 50'. And NO gravel does not do inside of the catch basin as the client says it should. This gravel would get in the pump and then burn the pump up. We'd fix an issue and he'd come up with another reason for not paying. This has led me to believe the client never intended on paying from the beginning. If I hadn't gotten our deposit up front we'd be out of that money too. We did this job right before Christmas. We actually finished up on Christmas Eve. I was told by the client that they were embarrassed when their parents came over and talked about how bad their yard looked so they wanted them to see them fixing it up. I fell for it and bent over backwards to help them accomplish this just to not get paid. Before I wrap up I need to address the slotted pipe off the downspout. This was a 12 foot section of pipe that should have been solid according to the plan I had drawn. My guys misread it and installed slotted pipe off the downspout. When this was brought to my attention I had my guys go out the next day and remove and replace it with solid PVC. At this time my employees told me the customer's wife came out and said that she didn't wont them fixing it. I'm not sure why other than not wanting to pay. But they had it dug up so they finished installing the solid piping and replaced the 3 linear foot section of sod they removed and the problem was fixed. In my 30 years of Irrigation and drainage work I have never had a client like this. Our clients have always been happy with our work. We have always gone above and beyond for our clients and maintain great relationships with them long into the future. I have clients to the right of this client in which they wanted me to pump their water onto their property. I also have multiple other clients on their street. These are clients I've worked with for 20 years and still work with and never have had any issues from. I have photos and videos as well as arial shots of the work that we did for this client in which we have not been paid for. The client threatened me with complaining to the Revdex.com and landscape licensing board if I filed a lien. They filed this complaint with the Revdex.com when I told them that I will be placing a lien on their property for the work we have not been paid for and I'll be doing that tomorrow. All evidence points to this client never intending to pay for the work they hired us for. I wish I could post this clients name so that their integrity can be brought to question as they have done mine but Revdex.com rules states I can not do so. This client was audacious enough to write up their own "settlement agreement" and sent it to me which they have placed in the "desired outcome" section of this page.. I wasn't requesting a settlement I was requesting payment for the work we agreed to do and the client agreed to pay for. These people should be ashamed of themselves but obviously they are not.
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
At the initial meeting, our project goal of obtaining a more dry/usable yard via a drainage system was communicated to Irrigation Doctor. We stated early on that we did not know how best to achieve this and Irrigation Doctor stated they were drainage experts and would recommend a solution that would resolve our issues.
We paid Irrigation Doctor the deposit before they started the work. The initial email never arrived and was not in spam/junk so we requested it be re-sent. We paid the first invoice we received less than 24 hours after receiving it - and BEFORE work started.
Before we agreed with the initial estimate, the additional drainage was agreed upon by both parties. It is not accurate to categorize as "at no extra cost" since it was in the original scope of work. We relied upon the "expertise" of Ron to tell us where catch basins/drains would be needed in order for our yard to drain successfully.
From day one we communicated that the drainage would need to resolve the issue of puddles above ground. Those puddles have not only NOT been fixed, they are now worse than before the drainage was installed. We went with Irrigation Doctor's drainage solution recommendation and it simply is not installed in a way that it can work. We waited 4 sunny days for the soil to dry - which never happened. Furthermore, if the yard needed to be regraded to drain properly, we were not informed of this, nor was it recommended by Ron. Regardless there was no option to grade the yard due to the fact that it was inundated with deep mud due to the unresolved/worsened drainage issues.
There have been multiple dry days in between rains and the puddles remain. Post drainage install, after the first watering (15 minutes) of the sod, the yard was already flooded. I can direct you to several neighbors who do not currently have a single puddle in their yard because THEIR drainage WORKS.
The issue is not using PVC vs. corrugated - it's solid pipe vs. slotted pipe to remove surface water. We were told that the slotted PVC pipe installed should have been solid. This is a big contributor to water not leaving the yard.
We agreed with Irrigation Doctor's proposal because Ron represented himself to be knowledgeable about drainage and said this was the best solution at our budget. The solution was meant to handle the entire backyard since it is sloped towards where the catch basins were to be placed, and was to be included in the discussed scope of this project. Also discussed were the specific problem areas of exactly where the puddles remain today.
Regardless of terminology, the outlet on the side of the house does not work. An "outlet" implies water would drain out of it. This water does NOT drain, nor does it get moved to a point where it can flow down the front yard hill as promised. Water does NOT get removed and backs up. We dug up the area to prove that there was a lot of standing water above the pipe - if it were functioning as an outlet, the water would not be standing there, it would be draining down to daylight/the front yard hill as promised. Photo provided as evidence.
The sump pump was only installed after we complained and Irrigation Doctor agreed the water was not draining properly. We did NOT want a solution with an unsightly sump pump but Irrigation Doctor said it was the best way to fix the issue so we agreed. Unfortunately, due to the use of slotted pipe, the majority of the water leeches out into the already-saturated soil and pools in the yard and doesn't actually ever make it to the sump pump.
"We'd fix an issue and he'd come up with another reason for not paying".
Very little has actually been fixed. Only installing an ugly sump pump because the main pipe wasn't draining properly, and replacing the slotted pipe on the downspout which should not have been installed in the first place.
The conversation we had with Ron about wanting the yard to look nice for Mike's parents included a casual conversational anecdote that Mike's Australian parents thought a "proper yard" needed a patio which we found amusing - it had nothing to do with our yard looking bad. Our yard LOOKED fine but definitely needed drainage - which is why we hired Irrigation Doctor.
"Before I wrap up I need to address the slotted pipe off the downspout. This was a 12 foot section of pipe that should have been solid according to the plan I had drawn. My guys misread it and installed slotted pipe off the downspout. When this was brought to my attention I had my guys go out the next day and remove and replace it with solid PVC. At this time my employees told me the customer's wife came out and said that she didn't wont them fixing it. I'm not sure why other than not wanting to pay. But they had it dug up so they finished installing the solid piping and replaced the 3 linear foot section of sod they removed and the problem was fixed."
This error was only identified after we sent a letter addressing our concerns. This was a basic mistake that should not happen with an experienced drainage company. We were never notified that the workers were coming back, what they were fixing or why. I merely returned home to find them in my back yard removing our newly-lain sod and pipe. When I asked what they were doing they explained that they were replacing slotted pipe with solid pipe. At that point I mentioned that my husband was no longer confident in Irrigation Doctor's ability to properly fix our drainage and to hang on so I could call him to make sure he was ok with it. I never said they shouldn't fix it - I merely asked them to stop until I could ensure my husband was ok with their proceeding. I told them it was fine to continue once I had spoken with him (less than two minutes later) and they remediated this one issue and replaced the sod to our satisfaction.
"I have clients to the right of this client in which they wanted me to pump their water onto their property."
This is an outright lie. We specifically told Irrigation Doctor on MORE than one occasion that it was imperative that no drainage run onto either of the neighboring properties.
"I have photos and videos as well as arial shots of the work that we did for this client in which we have not been paid for." We have several photos of the areas of pooling water post drainage install. We don't argue that work was done, we dispute that it was done correctly as the drainage is not functional.
"The client threatened me with complaining to the Revdex.com an lacendscape licensing board if I filed a lien."..."They filed this complaint with the Revdex.com when I told them that I will be placing a lien on their property for the work we have not been paid for and I'll be doing that tomorrow."
This was completely separate and we never "threatened" anything - I simply told Ron that we were going to file a complaint because the yard drainage didn't work, did not seem to be done in accordance with standard practices, and left a worse water situation than before they started working on it - it was unrelated to any threat of a lien. We were planning on filing it regardless of any threats made by *** unless they addressed the issues we had with the drainage not working.
This client was audacious enough to write up their own "settlement agreement" and sent it to me which they have placed in the "desired solution".
Had the drainage job been done correctly and function as it should, we would have no problem paying the balance. We have not been able to use our yard ONCE since Irrigation Doctor installed their drainage "solution" and we fear we would be left with this quagmire if we were to finalize payment before the drainage is functional. Not that it is anyone's business, but the funds had been set aside prior to starting the project and remain set aside. Irrigation Doctor implied they could successfully complete the drainage project within our budget, but that has not yet happened.
This settlement proposal merely demonstrates our desire to resolve this situation and move on. Irrigation Doctor has not provided a functional drainage solution. Once the drainage functions as it should, and actually moves water out of our yard, we will be happy to pay the remainder. We agreed to pay for a recommended drainage solution which would remove water from our yard - so far we have not received that. We are willing to arrange a payment schedule in which we pay a $500 "good faith" amount to have Irrigation Doctor begin correcting the issues, and pay the remainder when the drainage functions as it should and removes water from the yard.
Irrigation Doctor has worked on numerous projects for me. Lighting install, irrigation repair, drainage modification. Prices are very fair, quality of work is excellent, responsiveness is exceptional. Owner and crews are easy to work with. Very satisfied customer.