Concrete steps and some walkway replaced
Greetings All!
Just wanted to post that yesterday, Wednesday the 15th, was a day that I had personally long been waiting for: we had a concrete contractor tear out the slowly-crumbling steps out in front, bordering the street. Plus, I had him replace about 16 feet of concrete walkway “above” those steps, as that concrete was starting to show signs of erosion.
We basically have a drainage issue that we have to deal with. Water comes off the roof, down the south-side down-spouts, and into a nice little concrete drainage trench that borders the sidewalk that wraps around the south and east sides of our house. However, the drainage trench seems to end up going nowhere. And the concrete where it ends has tilted somewhat over time, leading water north, parallel to our front porch. And then the water makes a right turn and heads straight down our front walk and steps.
So, when the weather cools down a bit, I’ll need to address this drainage issue in order to protect our new steps.
As for the new steps and walkway, we hired “Always Quick Quality Concrete” run by Mr. Robert Bland to do the work.
I originally asked three companies to give me bids. One said $2350 and they went with my original request to do 8 feet of concrete past the steps. Robert said $1650 and for an extra $75, he’d go an extra 8 feet, to where the natural break in the slab was on that concrete walkway. The third contractor asked me to call back and leave a message for him on his voicemail and said he’d get back to me. But he never did.
So, we went with Robert.
Robert arrived with another gentleman as his crew at about 10:00-10:30 AM in the morning. And Robert left at about 6:30 PM that night, with the project fully completed. They had a guy come in with a bobcat and help tear out the concrete. And of course, they had a concrete truck stop by and do the pour. So, that’s how many people were involved on this.
Now, when Robert originally came out to do the estimate, he had a photo book showing shots of a large number of the jobs he had done. But it was obvious that these pictures were taken immediately following the completion of each job. Robert talked a lot about how he does quality work and he doesn’t let people down. He also talked about how he had just done a job in Leawood and several neighbors had seen him working and had asked him for estimates. He ended up doing four other jobs as a result of that one.
But I kind of thought perhaps everybody may have “jumped on the bandwagon” because his pricing is so much lower than the competition.
And so, I asked Robert about this. I told him my main concern is that, 3 years down the road, I’m going to have to do this job again because either his work or his materials are shoddy. He didn’t seem to “get it”. He kept on talking about how he treats people right. What he didn’t understand is, for all I know, he could have been lying up a storm to me.
So I called him back a few days later and asked for references. He gave me, again, two people who’d had pours done in the last month. Later on, he called with a third person. I tried calling that person, but didn’t get an answer. So I went back and called person #2.
This was a gentleman who was obviously in his 50′s or early 60′s. He was older and seemed somewhat savvy. He says he watched Robert work on a concrete crew, not where his company was doing it, but where Robert worked under another contractor, working with three other guys. Note that the job was not being done for this guy giving me this testimonial. He was observing take place elsewhere. And he said he wouldn’t have “given a lick” for the three other guys, but he was very impressed with how hard Robert worked. And so, he talked with him, found out he had his own concrete business, and hired him to do part of his driveway.
That part of the testimonial convinced me. Hard work being done where he was the employee and not the business owner… is quite a testimony in itself.
I still wonder how well the actual material would hold up… but I was at the limits of my budget even by hiring Robert, so I couldn’t afford to have, say, granite mixed in instead of limestone.
Time will tell, which is why I’m making this log entry. I should be able to look back in three years, and, if the steps and walk are still in fine shape, make a follow-up entry praising his work further. (Of course, by then, no doubt his prices will have gone up. (grin!))
However, I will say that Robert did what he said he was going to do. And, for the most part, he did it when he said he was going to do it. (He originally said he’d be on-site at 8:30 AM… and like I said, he arrived at 10:00-10:30 AM-ish.) And he was VERY GOOD at keeping me updated by phone as to making arrangements for the work-day. He was also very quick to respond by phone if I called him and left a message.
His website is at: http://www.aqqconcrete.com/
Thanks for stopping by!
-= Dave =-