Precision Earthworks

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• By Seth M.

  August 31, 2020

  mitigate water flow around house, large yard project with walls, concrete, etc.

  $30,000

  This project was ~$30k to mitigate water flow. The project went over the original estimate by 29%. The total time for the main job completion was many months, vs. a few weeks, due to a very rainy season and an injury Ryan sustained.

  Overall Ryan's work was acceptable, and the bulk of the work was completed in what I would consider a professional manner, but there are a few major exceptions to this that lead me to be unable to recommend Ryan's services, or to at least warn potential customers of what they might encounter. Examples:

  The stone caps to a large wall he constructed were not glued down well, and have been failing, creating a real hazard for anyone (like my 2 1/2 year old or our neighbor's 4 year old) to fall more than 3 feet onto concrete with a minor misstep. We repeatedly asked Ryan to fix these, and he did send out one of his guys early on... but whatever solution was used didn't work, and they just left a significant number of caps that are just sitting on top in a way that is dangerous. We contacted Ryan multiple times about this. Eventually (we are talking months after we had paid him), I told Ryan that if he would be unable to complete the job due to other commitments, that I would be happy to hire someone else to do it and send him the bill. Ryan called me back and aggressively accused me of threatening him, and was very verbally unprofessional and caustic. I was stunned, but was very clear that I my intention was simply to get the work completed satisfactorily, and that I wasn't trying in any way to threaten him. I am simply thinking about the safety of my family and friends, and wanting to get the work that I contracted Ryan for done well. Ryan indicated he'd come re-do the caps... But he hasn't, even though we gave him over a month to respond. I ended up re-gluing the caps myself, at my own expense.

  Another major issue: Ryan was supposed to seal off or raise up the existing sprinkler lines in the front yard as a part of the front yard re-grading (it's literally in the contract). However, when we tested the system recently (we should have done this before paying him the final payment -- a lesson learned!), I found one sprinkler line that was just cut off and buried about a foot deep and was spewing water underground. After fixing that myself and re-testing, I found an in-tact sprinkler head that was completely buried about 3" under the soil. Finally, and worst of all, there appears to be a final sprinkler line that has been cut and which is spewing water underground... but it's at the base of the wall at a corner, impossible to get to without serious work, such as dismantling part of the wall there.

  We called Ryan 6/26/17 to tell him about the sprinkler situation and get an update on when he would come out to re-glue the caps. His response was to abdicate responsibility. He told us to hire a landscape or sprinkler person to do the work, as he wasn't "a sprinkler guy" and was done with us and didn't want to come back out for any reason. He said the issue was not his problem and that maybe a sprinkler head was "already buried there" before he did any work. But the system was in perfect working order before he came, and moreover, there is an extra sprinkler head that was cut out of the system and left by the house, which must be the one that goes to the corner in question, as every other sprinkler head is accounted for. Ryan was unwilling to even listen to the description of the problem and instead took the opportunity to complain about us as clients and the job in general. He said that the "lines of communication have been open" from his side the whole time... which is a strange way of contextualizing his repeated refusal to contact us in a timely manner, let alone do the actual work he was contracted for.

  Conclusion: I think Ryan probably underestimated the amount of work this project would require, and the delays caused some of the work to be done in pretty poor weather conditions. I'm guessing this led him to want out of the project without completing it to our satisfaction, leaving two very serious problems unfixed. Over the course of the project, as Ryan got increasingly frustrated with the work, he lost his professional demeanor until eventually almost yelling at me out of the blue on the phone because I had suggested that if he couldn't complete the work we contracted him and paid him for, that I'd get someone else to do it and have the bill sent to him.

  I would be careful dealing with Ryan. He was pleasant for most of the project, but when things got difficult he showed a lack of professionalism and his conduct indicates that he doesn't actually care about doing a good job for his clients, or fulfilling the stated signed obligations of his contracts if it doesn't suit him. If I'm paying over $30k for a project like this, I want it to be done professionally and in a timely manner -- neither of those were the case with Precision Earthworks LLC.

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