We contacted John in May and we had to wait till August for our deck. Well, we weren't too happy when he told us about the long waitlist but we are very glad we hired him. We thought that he is busy for a reason and indeed the wait was definitely worth it for us. John and his crew just finished building a gorgeous deck. And we are equally happy with the process. So in May we contacted four companies, quotes ranged a little bit but not that much actually. John was not the highest but up there. Definitely not the lowest. The differences weren't that great and we liked the reviews for him here on Homestars. My wife and I also just liked him as a person. He comes across honest, straight-forward and definitely competent. We had a good feeling about him and these things turned out to be all true. He and his crew really build a great deck. The payment process was transparent throughout, there was excellent workmanship, attention to detail, and, very importantly, when John ran into problems with us (for example, we used that new PT wood called MicroPro Sienna which looks nice but because of variance among the boards needed to be hand-picked by John to avoid a blotchy looking deck!) such as having to drive to three or four stores to hand pick the wood and exchange boards already put down, he did not charge extra. We added and changed a few smaller things here and there that made his life difficult at times and he never charged extra except for material. No "nickel and diming" which I like a lot. He always stayed positive and nice throughout the whole process, he communicated a lot to make sure things get done the way we wanted. In sum, his ratings on here are absolutely true. We are very glad we waited for him and that means something because we lost out on almost the whole summer. I absolutely recommend him. Just make sure you get in line early enough.