Thursday, August 23, 2007

It's Not Americas Home Place Without Concrete Issues

With Americas Home Place, putting in the driveway was the homeowner responsibility and we had to choices: blacktop or concrete. One blacktop company was highly recommended, but after we examined several driveways in our community, we noticed the asphalt would shift with the movement of a tire for weeks after paving, maybe because it was 'cut' with diesel fuel, so we opted for concrete. We called Americas Home Place and the office admin recommended "Kenny" who also did the garage pour. Kenny came out to the house, took measurements and gave a price of $9000 for 150+ feet of driveway and sidewalks. Coming from the Northeast, anything concrete (driveways, sidewalks, etc) always has steel mesh embedded inside the 4" pour to counter cracking for, hopefully, the life of the concrete. Additionally, expansion and contraction joints are always placed in the concrete at certain places for the same reason. I told Kenny that I had two pieces of rebar left over from the garage, so he could use that steel to reinforce the 150-foot driveway. The day of the pour, I came up to take pictures of the driveway and asked him when he was going to lay the embedded steel mesh. He said that he added 'fiber' to the concrete so it didn't need any steel reinforcements and everything would be fine. And, when he was pouring the continuous slab of over 150 feet, I asked him where the expansion and contraction joints were going to be placed to which Kenny replied, "not necessary as I (the concrete company) come back the next day to 'cut' the joints into the concrete. The next morning, I arrived at 8AM and found a 20-foot crack completely across the driveway and immediately called the Kenny, the concrete man. He came out and told me, "That's what concrete does, it cracks." In the subsequent weeks, I called many times to determine how he intented to repair it. Several weeks later, Kenny mailed a letter stating that fixing the crack would cost an additional $1650. In retrospect, if any concrete person from Asheville says to you, "I don't need any reinforcement, expansion and contraction joints", stop the concrete trucks and tell him to get off the property immediately. So much for taking a sub-contractor recommendation from Americas Home Place when the office admin is recommending her boyfriend to do the work. Don't know what you would call this one except for stupidity on my part for allowing the job to continue that morning and for this, have to call myself a blithering idiot. So if you see a 6'3" guy from Asheville named Kenny that does concrete work with a few possible illegal aliens in tow, well, after reading this, walk away…

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