Complaint Review: Carolina Carports

We ordered a 12' x 21' x 8 ft' carport with upgrades from Carolina Carports, Inc. through their local agent, Scott's Carports. We have no problem with Scott's Carports. In fact, Scott was extremely helpful and courteous. The issues came during installation. We were told that the carport would be installed on a Friday. We had already spent lost of time, money and sweat making a steep-grade driveway "almost" level. CCI requires that your location be level within 4-6 inches for installation. We built a retaining wall and filled it with dirt and gravel, adding drainage, to comply with the 4-6 inch level requirement.

On the Friday that the unit was to be installed, we were called and told it would not be until the following Monday. We agreed. Upon arrival, the installation crew began assembling the metal roof supports, standing them up in position. They then went to level the legs and told us we were 9 inches off. We knew this could not be right. The crew checked again and found we were about 4 inches off. We wanted to dig-out the high spot and get it as level as we could, but the crew chief insisted that he did not have the time for that. He had two more jobs to do and could not wait for us to dig (which we eventuall did and it took about 10 minutes). Instead, he wanted to lift one end with blocks. He did not even have blocks with him. We called the CCI office to see if we could get the crew to allow us to dig out the small area so that we would not need to block-up the one end of the carport support. Actually, while the crew chief was on his cell phone raving to someone about the delay (all in Spanish by the way and yes, I did understand much of it), we started digging. The crew chief wanted to take down what had already been constructed as we were taking too much of his time. I had to remind him that we had been waiting three additional days for them so they could wait a few minutes for us.

Speaking to CCI HQ ourselves, after we dug the little trench that was needed to "level" the unit "perfectly", CCI told us it would cost us an additional $100 for the extra crew work. The crew did NOTHING. They just sat around while a couple of 60-yr-olds were literally on our hands and knees scraping the trench. CCI changed their tune when I told them I was not paying another $100 and they could take the thing down. The project already cost us over $2000 not including the cost of the retaining wall and fill materials. The crew chief was told by CCI to finish the job. Needless to say, he was very unhappy and man did it show. We want to be clear that we have no problem with the entire three-man crew being hispanic. Two of the three were very fluent in English so we did not have a communication issue. The problem was that the crew chief was under pressure by CCI to get three jobs done that day which typically take 3-4 hours each. I certainly do not want to be last on that day's install list.

If you order a carport or garage from this company, beware. You will be told that the build area must be withing 4-6 inches of level, but the installer requires that it be "perfectly level". The crew chief told me that this happens all the time and that CCI does not tell their customers what really must be done to prep the area. If we had known that the driveway had to be 100 per-cent flat and level, we would have seen to it before installation day. The installer was totally inflexible, discourteous and rude.