We recently contracted Siebert Landscaping for a ~$12,000 project consisting of a cedar pergola, bubbling boulder, and ~200 sq. ft irregular flagstone patio/walkway. The quality of the pergola was good, but unfortunately we were not satisfied with the end result of the patio.
The first issue we encountered was communication. These ranged from simply placing remaining stone and dirt in unwanted locations (which resulted in the destruction of existing lawn) to the actual design of the irregular flagstone patio itself. During the planning stages of the project, we were shown only a rough illustration of a flagstone patio. We thought we clearly communicated that we wanted the stones fitted very close together, but during the staging process we noticed they were spaced up to 4” with some gaps even being much larger. That night, we expressed our concerns to the foreman and thought we agreed that the pattern would be “tightened up”. However, the next day the patio was completed and sealed exactly as it had been staged. However, many of the stones popped loose. Additionally, we clearly asked for the bubbling boulder to flow toward the patio; however it did just the opposite. When we expressed our concern and dissatisfaction to the owner himself, to his credit he did come out to try to fix the issue, however he simply cut small pieces of stone to fill in the gaps, a process that did not improve the look of the patio. Since the patio was already laid, he was not able to get equipment in to turn the bubbling boulder. Instead he tilted it enough to manipulate the water to flow forward which unfortunately resulted in it running out of water after less than 1 day of use. Once again, we expressed our dissatisfaction and he agreed to come back and tighten the patio and fix the bubbling boulder. He did express however, that he did not in his opinion bid that type of patio and that he delivered a perfectly acceptable patio based on industrial standards. The point he missed however, was that he did not delivery a patio based off of our desire.
The second major issue we experienced was attention to detail. Once the project was done, the pergola and associated swing still exhibited noticeable pencil marks and stain runs. When he did come back to fix the boulder and patio, the boulder still was not turned in the direction we indicated (although it did flow forward and hold water at this point), and worse of all the stone in the finished patio exhibited numerous over cuts (saw marks) in up to 15 to 20% of the stones. When we asked about the marks, he indicated that it was necessary to use a saw to close the gaps between the stones and that the marks are normal and expected. He said it was the best they could do. We have not seen other similar patios with these types of marks and do not understand why the marks were not removed prior to laying the stone. This lack of attention to detail makes the patio appear unprofessionally installed.
Finally, we were honestly dissatisfied with some of the judgment that was exhibited. Before the project was started, we showed them the outlet port of the septic line from the house to the septic tank ~25 feet away. Although we were not able to mark the line and the exact path of the pipe was unknown, a clear visual from start to finish was obvious. However, instead of using the 811 guidance of hand digging within 2 feet of a known pipe, the crew used an auger and ruptured the septic line. He charged us an extra $450 to fix this mistake. Second, the dirt that was spread over the existing lawn (against our directions) contained a large amount of gravel. We were honestly surprised that no one noticed that such a poor quality of dirt should not go on an existing lawn. We spent hours removing the rocks just to get the ground in good enough condition to plant grass seed. All in all we regret our selection of Siebert Landscaping for this project and will have to redo much of the patio and replant our lawn.