GreenWorks Outdoor Living

The client contracted us to build a custom outdoor kitchen, paver patio and fire pit with natural stone counter tops and stone veneer for the siding which was started on April 5th and completed June 27th with 17 rain day delays and one holiday. Our estimate was that this job would take 8 - 10 weeks to complete and it took 9. We have been in business for a long time and have a system to catch mistakes that are made. We were just not aloud the time for our system to work. We had already caught the mistake and were taking steps to make corrections when we received a call from the homeowner. Small mistakes are a part of construction and we do what is necessary to correct those at our expense.

Here are the facts: The owners of a business do not need to be on the job if they have very competent Managers and Masons that have build projects all over middle TN for decades and know what they are doing. Every single complaint that the client had was already being addressed before he ever contacted us even though he thought he was revealing something new. It is our practice to review our work product on a regular basis and make adjustments as needed just like every other contractor in the world. This client seems not to understand that when you have a "natural" countertop that is not perfectly flat due to the nature of the product you will not have a perfectly level countertop. This was explained before it was installed with the agreement that a slight tilt for drainage and natural imperfections will give it its own position. He made us remove and re-mortar it 4 time with less then .01 degree change overall. The bricks on his home are more out of level than that, but still he was not pleased. The appliances on a stone veneer kitchen, if you understand the way they are typically installed, have slight seams around the edges as the stone are not flat but range from 1/2" to 1 1/2" in width which will leave some slight gaps around the edges. This is completely normal but no amount of re-cutting, grinding or mortaring would make him happy. We have been finished with his project for months and now all of the sudden he decides to liable our good name which should be a warning to any other contractors. Nothing we would did or re-did or re-did made him happy.

As for the "property damage" we cut a tv cable line while digging for the patio pathway which is not uncommon and was repaired for free by the cable company since they never mark their lines. Additionally there was small hole in a screen that was noticed and blamed on us for which we took the blame but don't think we had anything to do with. It may have already been there before we even arrived. No way to know.

As for making a special note in the contract for progress payments, that too is odd since it is already detailed in all our contracts. When we tried to collect those progress payments according to the contract he signed he instead wanted to make up his own progress schedule to which we even allowed. He then started holding payments from us. We did alot of "extra" work that he asked us to do and in the end he would not pay for and we even cut him a special price deal on a water feature that he wanted us to also build for him. The list goes on and on but since he has decided to be vengeful in public several months after the whole job has been finished and we've moved on this complaint arises out of nowhere. We did everything he asked and more but to no avail.

We are and always have been happy to provide multiple references upon request to anyone and we work hard to make all our customers happy but in this case it seems that nothing will satisfy. We do wish there was more we could have done to make him happy as that is always our goal but in this case we don't think there is anything else we could have possible done. We do wish Mr. Barette well.