JL Concrete

A disappointing waste of time

TLDR; Justin, the owner from JL wasted my time from September 2019 until June of 2020, left me with a less useful driveway than before, a huge mess of concrete and gravel which damaged my yard, didn't complete the work, and was not honest with me. Horrible communication (delayed responses, ignored phone calls and text messages) and an utter lack of respect for the customer.

The long story:
Justin from JL is a cousin of my neighbour, his quote came in around the mid-range of the others I got, and I couldn't find any bad reviews about his company online, so we hired him to replace our gravel driveway with concrete.

The locates were done September 18th 2019, work could have started shortly thereafter. There were lots of non-answers given to my request for a pouring date, it required repeated attempts to contact him to set a date.

The actual work began October 5th 2019 when the old gravel driveway was dug out. Then a bunch of delays, non-answers, and straight-up ignoring me up until November 9th of 2019. At that point it was too late to pour. I paid him $1500 for the excavation cost (I consider that my penalty for being too nice and trusting) with a written contract that he would complete the job the proceeding spring for $1000+ the cost of concrete.

I started talking to him again in March of 2020, and then multiple times in April. By late April, the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted to allow the continuation of construction work that had been in progress before April 4th (which this was; since it started in October the year before - and we had written proof of that). He told me he had issues with the Lafarge concrete plant, with the city etc. When I contacted the relevant people within those entities, I found out these issues were untrue.

One of the more insulting things was when April 24th when he was pouring concrete for his cousin's place two doors down from me. What an utter smack in the face.

May 19th 2020 was the last time spoke with Justin when I pretty much pleaded with him to PLEASE finish the driveway, he gave a non-answer and promised he'd have it done by mid-June. That didn't happen.

I had enough of being screwed around; so I went and hired another company who got the job done within 30 days of contact. JL didn't want the money and referrals for this and future projects, that's fine - another company is glad to get paid instead.

It should be noted that Justin himself is a good guy to talk to and on the single occasion he actually showed up to work he did a great job, but I wish he would have just told me right at the start that he was unable or not interested in the work, that would have been fine...

Instead, I was given dishonesty, a total run-around, was insulted, and left with a bigger mess than if he hadn't show up at all!

Overall this is the single worst purchasing experience I've ever had. This negative review has been fully earned, and is intended to provide a warning to prospective clients about the issues I faced trying to work with JL concrete.