Chris Thomas of Preferred Concrete is a rip off.
Chris Thomas of Preferred Concrete, Woodinville WA., sings a great story and shows some pics of previous work. We contracted P.C. to remove our old patio and pour a new patio.
Our first red flag was the start day which he was to be at our home prior to 12 noon. The rented excavator arrived at 11:30 and No Chris. We called him and he said he was on his way...well hour by hour went by and Chris a no-show. About 7:30 pm he arrived with his 3 year old in tow. He started the patio excavation and left the 3 year old for us to "Babysit". When the child was tired of us, Chris put him into the excavator with him and continued on. (wait till his insurance and bond company hear about that..And I have all the pics and video on hand. Chris stopped about 9:30pm. His estimate for start to finish of the job was a week (5 days)
The excavation wasn’t completed until the next day, so already behind schedule. Throughout the job, Chris made time commitments and was consistently a no show. At the end of the first week, Chris was still working the grade work for the new pour. Already the missed times and dates was causing us problems with missed work, missed appointments that were altered to accommodate Chris' changes in time frames. Finally a "Pour Day" was set. The night before pour day, Chris informed me he needed more cash to "pay for the labor crew, pay for the cement pumper" We already had given him 50% down of the $7k bid. (turns out he needed rent money)
Pour day arrives and Chris was to start the cement pour at 7:30 am. I called the cement company and left my credit card info as I was paying that bill direct. They informed me that the pour was changed to 9:30am. 9:30am comes and crew here, cement truck here but no Chris. The "Color" of the cement was to be premixed when the cement was poured, Per Chris but as usual it wasn’t, no color on site and the pour started without him. Cement pour was just wrapping up when Chris finally arrived. 5x5 stamps (for texture) and bags of color and release agent. (We never got the left over product even though I paid for it and there was a substantial amount left over. As the smoothing was taking place, I had to leave for a short appointment..
Oh, did I mention his 3 year old was there, on site unsupervised and creating problems to say the least. When I arrived home, the 3 year old had emptied my refrigerator, food and dishes all over the floor, front door open and 3 dogs out running around in the neighborhood. Chris was just finishing the stamping and the cement was covered in release agent. That prevented us from seeing what we ultimately saw. Again, the follow up was not done on time, which included pressure washing, which we know did not happen, and then sealing the entire surface. When we arrived home from our 4 day vacation we expected to see a beautiful “Roman Stamped” surface patio. What we saw was anything but nice. Foot prints in many areas of the cement pour..
Not one or two, many many footprints!! Tool marks (tamper for the stamp, missing the stamp, a foot long imprint), The stamp picked up and dragged in two places and now 5 foot long drag marks in 2 different locations approx 4 inches wide! Very Very visible!!!!! The entire surface of concrete has what looks like "Overspray" across the surface. Not the nice "Veined" look that a roman stamp leaves when done correctly. Chris called us the day we were arriving home to get his remaining balance. When we got home we called him and told him the job was totally unacceptable! His reply was he could fix the "few footprints" in 45 minutes. Well, we informed him there was much more than a few and we were curious as to "How" he was fixing the footprints since cement doesn’t adhere to cured cement.
Chris made appointment after appointment to come look at our concerns and no shows each time or cancellations..After a month of this dragging on we finally had enough. We will be working to file a claim on his bond to recoup our lost work time, paid contractor time and cost to fix everything P.C. screwed up. We were promised a finished patio by July 4th 2013, it is now Oct 22nd and we have finished our efforts to work with him. I personally have hundreds of pictures and many videos of the entire process of PC and Chris Thomas working our job. Anyone is free to contact me to make your own decision to throw away $7,000 dollars using Preferred Concrete of Woodinville Washington. Every Claim here is backed up with both video and photos of the unacceptable workmanship. Oh, Chris Thomas finally made an appearance to see what he never actually saw as far as finished product. In his own words "This is not up to industry standards"..
Thank you! We couldn’t agree more Chris!