Install-it-direct

Buyer beware! This company defrauded our HOA! We solicited proposals from 3 companies for installation of synthetic turf in a front landscape. Steve Brown, Install-it-Direct representative, visited the property and met with our Board Member for at least an hour and a half, viewing the property and location of the installation prior to providing a proposal. His proposal came in the lowest and they were hired for the job.

Install-it-Direct requested a deposit of 10% of the contract price, but refused to provide an invoice for the deposit prior to payment. They informed us that they would send the invoice AFTER payment was made.
The invoice is required to maintain proper corporate books. They informed us that they could not schedule our project until deposit was paid. We reluctantly paid the deposit and did not receive an invoice or receipt afterward until specifically requested multiple times.

Scheduling was a whole other nightmare. We were informed that someone else would reach out to us to schedule the job. It took over 2 weeks to get the job scheduled. From there, it was a 2 month wait to have the job actually done. On installation day, materials were delivered curbside and all was ready, when I received a call from Steve letting me know that his installation crew was unable to perform the job for the contracted price due to the landscape being on a slope.

Steve informed us that the crew would need to hand-compact the base rather than use machinery, and this would increase the labor cost by $3,000...on a job that was bid at $7,800 total! This suddenly brought the price above all other quotes we received. Steve mentioned that we needed to make a decision very quickly since the materials were at the curb and if anything were to be stolen, we would be responsible for the cost! Unbelievable! Decisions like this for an HOA cannot be made on a whim, as we are bound by law to have a public meeting for the Board.

I explained to Steve that we had a contracted agreement for the work to be done and that they should honor the price they quoted. Since he had clearly seen the property before bidding, I asked him how the slope of the property suddenly increased the cost so dramatically. He informed me that he did not have the installer view the property prior to creating the bid, but instead created the bid based off a similar job with similar topography. This whole experience has felt like a "bait and switch", not to mention a huge waste of months of our time waiting for the job that never happened!

The Board opted not to move forward with the job and we requested return of our deposit funds. Steve let us know that accounting would be returning our deposit within a couple of weeks. He was deeply concerned that we would leave a bad review for the company based on our experience. I informed him that we would part ways without prejudice if the deposit was returned by November 30, 2020. Today is December 12, 2020. It has been 45 days since we requested return of our deposit and we still have not received our $765. The company unilaterally cancelled our contract, and is holding our deposit hostage. Attempts to call the company for deposit return have been futile.

Again...buyer beware! I see a large number of satisfied customers on here, but our experience has been far from satisfactory.

I wish I could give Install It Direct a better review but there were too many things that went wrong and promises made that were not kept. Emily gave a a reasonable bid on an oversized putting green (diagram attached). The project was supposed to take 3-4 days and would be completed before moving the crew onto the next job (this was a promise from Emily). They started on a Wednesday and it started raining late Friday. Emily had already collected a deposit and the 2 progress payments since she said they would finish by end of day Saturday. The rain created a delay, although Wilber and his crew continued to work in the rain on Sunday. Two weeks later the job was still not completed and rain was no longer the culprit. The company moved Wilber and his crew to the next scheduled project! It took 2 more weeks and lots of headaches to get them to finally finish. Does the putting green look nice from afar? Absolutely. Here are our major beefs:
1) There are 3 large seams that you can see that they have tried to fix with no success. We paid over $20,000 for this large putting green so we should not be seeing seams. (See pictures attached)
2)I had 6 bids for the putting green and every one of them; including IID included gopher mess as we have a very obvious gopher and ground squirrel problem. Emily stated after the fact when she showed up with 4 ultrasonic gopher deterrents that her bid did not include the mesh as it doesn’t work anyway and HER preference was using the stakes instead (roughly $20/each. We already have a buckle under the green that feels like a gopher hole. They will come out to fix it but it could be the beginning of several repair visits.
3) The contact states that all design changes need to be approved by us before being implemented. The holes were not placed where they were supposed to go according to our contract and the design for the whole green was changed. It still looks nice but they had to add another hole after it was completed to match the original design and that is the only hole that does not light up and match the others.
4) The crew left our hose running during the day with a shut off spout at the end. The problem was that we had to attach 2 hoses to make it reach and water sprayed out of the connection all day long - for 4 weeks! At one point they forgot to turn the hose off when they left and 3 days later we noticed water shooting into the air (we live on 5 acres so the hose was far from our house). The area was completely flooded and after reporting it to Emily, her only response was that it couldn’t have been her crew who left it on. Wilber admitted they must have forgotten about it. Our water bill is going to be through the roof!
5) Other little things included trying to get them to complete the finishes like repairing sprinklers that were disconnected, covering electrical lighting cords with dirt, filling soil along the pavers to hide the chunked cement, etc.... We didn’t blame Wilber for this as he had been moved to another project 2 weeks prior, but in order for him to get paid Emily had to collect our final check.
So all in all, the putting green looks nice as long as you ignore the seams. Do we feel that we got our money’s worth? No. We anticipate many visits down the road to fix gopher holes because they cut corners and didn’t install the mesh barrier. Not sure what we can do about the seams other than paying $5000+ to have another company come out and re-do it.
My recommendation - for a project of this magnitude, go with a company who specializes only in putting green installations as they will know all the tricks and best practices. As for the lack of integrity, that seems to be the nature of the beast when it comes to contractors. This has been our experience and very unfortunate.