Ground Works Land Design

Update - 27 May 2021:
A day after my Google review, I received a phone call and a $300 refund was offered, HOWEVER, under the condition to improve or remove my review, which I declined. As a consequence, the refund was never made.
A few more e-mails back and forth, where I explained that this review is not about a loss of $300, but about the overall experience to not try and ‘make it happen’ and instead leaving me with a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude to accept a quote which exceeded my requested budget by 100%. Thus wasting several weeks of my time that I could have used with a different contractor to get started.

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Original Review:
We were looking for a contractor to remove our old cracked concrete patio and replace it with something nice. Any additional improvements were bonus and we felt that our budget of $8-14k should get us there.

The first impression was very positive. Fast response and a visit only a few days later, where we learned what all is wrong with our front- & backyard (we don’t think it’s THAT horrible, but the advice / ideas are generally good).
During the visit we asked for a rough order of magnitude price to realize some of Tony‘s visions for the backyard (patio, pergola, landscaping…) and were a little shocked about the $30k estimate.
I reminded him about our budget and that we might be OK to spend $30k over a period of 2-3 years, but not in year 1.

He seemed confident that this wasn’t necessary and promised to get back to us to get the design survey / study started (which is a fee that is NOT reimbursed even if you realize the project with Ground Works Land Design).
It all took a while after I paid the $300, but eventually somebody showed up to take measurements and after another few reminders, we finally received a first quote.

It came in at well over $20k.
The contract reads that something is designed within the client‘s desired budget (which we clearly stated as described above and again in writing for the survey) and they would iterate if necessary to make it a fit.
Reality was different:
The project leaves no room for improvement and cannot be realized in stages.

Given that the stairs (3 steps!!) alone came in at almost $8k, I wondered why we even started any design survey.
Even with zero additional re-grading (which seemed one cause for the unexpected high quote), the concrete work and stairs exceeded our budget maximum.

Unfortunately, the interest seemed to expire after we made clear that our initial budget of $8-14k (depending on project scope) for the FIRST year is non-negotiable.

Tony brought up the idea, to get the stairs done by a different contractor after I told him that we got a price for stairs for less than $3k.
We sent some additional pictures to revise the quote and add more regrading work while removing the stairs.

Two weeks later, I’ve still not heard back and since the whole communication slowed down more and more, we abandoned this quote and got somebody else in place who clarified measurements, quotes, negotiation and details with us in less than 10 days.
We look forward to getting the same result for less than half the price now.

For larger projects, Ground Works is probably a good fit and I still think they’ll do a great quality job.
In our case, however, we could have all saved time (and money) by letting us know that they are not interested in a $10-12k project, or are too busy or whatever else may have caused this underwhelming experience.

This company has over promised and failed to deliver from Day 1. Submitted a web form for a quote that was never responded to. Gave them the benefit of the doubt, so called to follow up. The company apologized and sent Dave out. We walked through the yard and I pointed out everything we wanted done (a significant amount of work, so in their interest to deliver). Was told I’d receive proposed design in 2 weeks. That was on September 24. Since then, nothing, despite two calls/conversations with employees promising better service, and one voicemail from Dave on on 10/22 telling me I’d have design by the end of that week. We’ve now lost our chance to have work done this year. Extremely unhappy!

Ground Works recently completed a big job at our house and we are very pleased with it. Around our existing patio they installed 4 stone columns, fencing, 2 gates, lighting, and an outdoor cooking station with a built-in gas grill and granite top. We had landscaping on the sides or back of our house. They dug it all out by hand and planted hostas, hydrangeas, and other plants in either river rocks or dirt and mulch. They also added steps and boulders in the back. The workers were all dependable, friendly, efficient, hardworking, and very competent. We highly recommend Ground Works.

Jack & Lori Sammon