Watkins Nurseries

We received a numerous amount of complaints from this customer regarding this purchase. The first being that he had paid his contractor to be on site at 9am but we gave him a time window of 9am-10am. Unfortunately our driver was 30 minutes late but the customer received a $20 credit for that. We advised that he should not have paid his contractor to show up until the material was actually on site, and that is no fault of ours. In regards to the quality of the material, our employee said she did not tell this customer that our fill dirt would be sifted/screened. All employees here have a very clear understanding of what fill dirt is compared to a screened product. (Example, our blended topsoil costs approximately $22/yard while fill dirt costs around $9.45/yard) The information on each type of soil we carry is also listed on our website and it clearly states for Un-screened/Fill Dirt, “This soil is un-screened and should be used for projects where planting and landscaping is not a priority.” We saw pictures of the product and for 16 yards, the fill dirt only had minimal “large” clumps for the quantity ordered. The complaint primarily seemed to be about the time spent by their contractor to spread the dirt and the unexpected increased costs for that. To address the time taken for the contractor to install the material, one must understand the amount of material this included. 16 yards of fill dirt equals approximately 21.6 tons, the 5 yards of topsoil he purchased in addition being 6.75 tons and that is a considerable amount (even more if wet). By industry standard, it would be too exhausting, inefficient and expensive to spread this much heavy dirt by hand and majority of licensed contractors would sub-contract it out if they aren’t adequately equipped or unable to rent the proper equipment. It would need to be either dumped directly on the install location or completed with equipment, such as a loader. The complaint stated “It took an additional 6 ½ hours to break up and spread one pile of fill dirt and one pile of topsoil.” For this particular job, one pile of fill dirt would be approximately 8 yards (10.8 tons) and one pile of topsoil being approximately 2.5 yards (3.3 tons). On average, one very efficient man can install and spread fill dirt and topsoil by hand at the rate of 1.5 hour per cubic yard, meaning 15.75 hours for the above. Assuming there was only one worker (based on the description we were given in the original complaint, it states “one individual”), and assuming they are working back and forth from the dump site (we dumped on a tarp there) to the actual project with a wheelbarrow and tools, which requires additional time, the lack of labor and equipment would better reflect why the job required the additional hours, not the material. The customer requested from us a full refund but he did not refuse or dispute the product upon delivery and signed the delivery ticket. The full 16 yards was not affected and while he has made it clear that it was a frustrating and expensive project that did not go as he expected, he still used all the dirt. While we would love to satisfy each of our unhappy customers with refunds, if we allowed everyone to do so based on a hearsay circumstance, we’d go out of business. We look at the facts of every situation in detail and try to come up with the best possible solution. The customer has been given $95 in credits and we think that is more than fair. While we understand that he may not desire to use our services in the future, we hope that this provides a clear, concise understanding of the situation for others that may consider us in the future.