replaced 4 downspouts, installed rain barrel
My wife and I contacted several companies to quote on replacing 4 downspouts on our home. George from All Round Construction was the only person to make a visit in a timely manner, which was impressive. He was very friendly, and seemed very "pro" at first. Without going into every detail, we initially etransferred 400.00 successfully to him for a deposit. George performed the work and from what I could see, it was satisfactory. I did have to show him how to assemble the rain barrel. However, while on our roof he pointed out and photograhed loose cap shingles that he said needed replacing, and quoted us 2300.00 for the extra work. My wife managed to find the original receipt saved by the previous homeowners, and we saw that the roof should be under warranty, so we reached the original roofers and asked them to inspect the roof. I sent an etransfer for the balance of our bill with George, but although the money was removed from our account it wasn't received by George. He started badgering us to complete the payment so I sent another etransfer- this one was again taken from our account but again seemingly couldn't be received by George. By that point we were out 2,000.00 from our account and George was contacting me multiple times a day to now pay cash for the balance remaining...but it felt so much like something was wrong because etransfers to others we sent at that time worked fine. Our bank recommended waiting until we saw what would happen to the etransfers to George before paying cash for the balance, and the bank sent an inquiry and request to stop to Interac. At any rate, it took a week for the bank to straighten things away, during which George put a lot of pressure on us. While the time passed, a total of 5 of the wall anchors from George's work suspending the downspouts failed. As well, he left the downspout bottoms as straight pipe, venting right next to our foundation onto old splash pads from our previous pipes, but the old pipes had extensions to get the water away from the foundation. Lastly, the roofers checked the caps and claimed- using George's own pictures as proof- that the shingles couldn't have been loose as George claimed and they suspected someone pulled them up manually, before they easily repairing the damage. They also pointed out poor work on George's part where the downspouts departed from the gutters. As well, I had to replace the failed wall anchors myself, except for one that was too high for me that I got George to do when we paid cash for the balance of payment. I also installed extensions on the downspouts myself to direct the water from the foundation, which George incorrectly insisted was not necessary. George took almost 2 weeks to finally pick up most- but not all- of the garbage created from his work. I told him of our dis-satisfaction with his work, and he apologized, saying he had had a bad day. In the end, he seemed a nice enough fellow but we were very undwerwhelmed by his work, his knowledge of this job, and his abilities, and will not recommend his company to anyone else.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $1,100.00