The Duff
1/5
I highly recommend that you avoid this amateur hobbyist. Following are the reasons why.
This has been a terrible experience for my wife and I. This company cares more about their 5-star reviews than any type of customer service or anything more than a 1-star execution. They contacted us about making sure they got a 5-star rating despite all of the following.
When this project started with a sales pitch by Alex in late June, I had high hopes based on my interactions with Alex, who is certainly a master salesman. I happily signed up with high expectations for a board on board privacy fence with the specific request to have the fence without any gaps on the bottom. Alex told me that would be no problem and explained to me that the board on board meant that there would be full overlap so there were no gaps between any of the vertical planks.
A few weeks later, when the first team arrived, they slapped the fence up in a day, left 3” gaps under the fence, did not set the fence posts vertically into the ground, left the fence twisted end to end, and left gaps between the planks. They also spent the entire time smoking and left their cigarette butts on my lawn.
After this, I received a text message apology and a guarantee that this would be fixed. Several days later, the first team came back, spent about 10 minutes total, in which time they pushed posts around to try to even it out vertically and pulled a few vertical boards out around the street side of the fence to reposition them for coverage between the planks. They didn’t re-anchor the posts after moving them and did not address 90% of the gaps in the boards. So shortly after they left, the posts were crooked again. They also managed to leave more cigarette waste on the ground in that timeframe.
We notified Fencing Unlimited once again but this time requested that the owner come out to discuss. He declined and sent the first team once again and we explained to them what the issues were. They just looked at it and left.
A few days later, a different team showed up and assessed the situation. We explained the problems to them, which they seemed to understand. That team dug out the posts and aligned the fence properly vertically, and did the first 1/3 of the fence planks closest to the road so they overlapped. They left the middle section of the fence undone so there were still gaps left, and they left several planks unsecured in the middle of the fence, some with nails protruding all the way out of the wood.
Both of these teams that showed up told me that they didn’t have time to dedicate to this because they were being worked long hours 7 days a week and that if I wanted it fixed they would probably have to come back and fix it without the company knowing, because the company didn’t really care. They even gave me their phone numbers and names. I feel bad for them.
We took more pictures and sent them to fencing unlimited and requested once again that the owner come out to speak with us. Once again, he declined.
A few days later, there was a 3rd visit from a single person. The problems were explained to him, and he spent about 10 minutes securing the loosened nails in the middle of the fence, but did nothing to address the lack of overlap in the vertical planks that remained without any overlap. He requested immediate payment from us at our house. My wife said that I had the information to pay and would be in contact. He then texted her to demand payment that day. When I arrived home and saw that the fence is once again twisted end to end and the vertical plank gaps are still not fixed, I texted and requested that the owner, Alex, come out and approve the quality of his company’s fence installation and I would then make the payment. Unsurprisingly, he didn’t show up again.
They use inferior wood, they don’t throw away warped pieces, they don’t assemble correctly and they don’t correct mistakes. They are all smiles and guarantees in the beginning with terrible craftsmanship, workmanship and follow up service.
If you don’t have high expectations, you won’t be disappointed.
