After reading so many good reviews, I was persuaded to hire Sun Valley to do a small hardscape in my backyard - stone stairway and flagstone at the top and bottom of stairs, and for shrub relocations in the yard. After calling in April, it took several weeks to get anyone to come out to give me an estimate. When I finally got an estimate, it was too hot to do the shrub relocation, but I had had a friend do the sod removal in the areas where the stairway was to be installed. I had asked for estimates based on two or three different substrates - limestone, preformed concrete, and one of their own choices. There was to be a flagstone area at the top of the stairs, extending across the width of an existing concrete pad, and a flagstone area at the base of the stairs. The stairs were to be flanked by a mulched garden bed on one side and river rock on the other, and there was to be a continuation of an adjacent downspout beneath the flagstone deck at at the top of the stairs. The estimate I got did not include any options for the materials I had asked for and no details as to how they would be constructed. Nevertheless, we agreed to a price, and the work was to be done in late June. Then I got notice that it would be done the first week in July. Then I got a notice that it would be done the second week in July. Then the third week in July. I was then told that they didn't have enough material to do the job on hand and would have to wait two more weeks. The day the workers were supposed to show up, they didn't. And I asked about the materials for the downspout extension under the flagstone and was treated VERY badly for even asking. It had been something I'd originally asked for and assumed it was in the rather vague estimate, but was told I was lying or misremembering and that it would cost an additional $400. I thought then I should cancel the job, but a nice fellow (who is no longer there now) convinced me to pay a $150 extra for the downspout/drainage PVC pipe, and I agreed. The crew did finally show up the next day. they were very nice and worked hard. However, the stairway they installed looked nothing like what I'd agreed to, and they neither finished the flagstone at the top and had no flagstone for the base of the stairway. I had to go buy that myself from a stone/rock place and install it myself. To top everything off, they ended up not using one of the stone stair pieces, which they charge $250 for, and I was basically expected to eat the cost of that. No one called to find out if the job had been done to my satisfaction, no one inquired whether it was done correctly. It was not. I was treated rudely and made to feel like I was lucky they even bothered with my job. I'm not wealthy. It wasn't a big job. It obviously was not a priority for Sun Valley. But I saved for months and months in order to do this, and was treated very badly throughout and overcharged, and I don't even have the stairway I had hoped for. I would not recommend hiring them.
17 Comments