Conkerslandscapers Reviews 4

I had a pair of five barred gates installed in July last year. At my request, they were painted white. They did not paint the new posts they installed, but I decided I could live with that.
In February, I decided to wash the gates, I live on a main road and the pigeons like to use the gates as a toilet from time to time. I noticed that some of the white paint had come off. A little had come off a few months ago, which I had informed them about, but as I had family problems at the time, I did not pursue it. Since February I have phoned and left messages at least three times, and sent emails, with photographs, but I have been studiously ignored. These gates are not cheap. I used a local company, as I like to support locals. I will definitely not use them again and would recommend others not to.

I hired this company to do landscape work in my garden. They took nearly £5000 from me laid a few slabs and that was about a month ago! No replies to my messages, they won't answer my calls. I am registered disabled and im left with a dangerous mess. Its horrendous. Do not use this company!

AVOID AT ALL COST! Don't trust mybuilder rating!

They were given three jobs - build a raised patio, water harvest set up and re-membrane front garden as well as move plants to better location.

Pros:
They are charming and super friendly. I mostly dealt with Andrew and his son Harry. Harry went above and beyond to try help find the best options for the patio. Andrew assured me they have a 3 week turn around time and honour the quoted price so there are no surprises. The patio work once it properly started it "finished" within a week roughly.

Cons:
They didn't finish paid jobs! Abandoned the site with incomplete work for 5 weeks. Didn't respond to any calls, voicemails, texts or emails till I let them know I have to consider you don't wish to continue anymore and leave an honest review online. The response was an apology for not being contactable as Andrew was seriously ill and that they will contact me the following working day. They have not been in touch, I emailed again few days later and no response. Also, don't be fooled by them leaving their equipment to make you think they'll return. They have left their stuff here and don't care - they'd much prefer to spare themselves the embarrassment! Upon comparing to other gardeners and landscapers I've realised they overcharge!

Front garden:
They re-membraned and killed all the plants they moved because they cut the roots too much. A 7ft laurel was left with a bowl sized root bulb! They kept lying to me that the plants were in shock and they will revive. They didn't and the gardeners we've since had over were horrified by what they'd done. They only did one side of the front and never returned to finish the other side. The loss of 3yr old well established plants has cost me more than the cost of the job itself.

Water harvest:
They moved part of the drain pipe to other side of wall where we wanted to have two IBC tanks (sourced by them). They said the tanks would arrive and then they would finish the job. It never did arrive and now I get to see all the water from the roof splash out of a mini drain bit left at the top which is soaking the wall. This job they haven't charged me for and they left their ladder here as well.

Patio:
I can't talk much of the build quality as am not an expert and i think only time will tell. But I was really pleased with them working flexibly and accommodating changes as well taking time to understand what I wanted. However, they were meant to return to touch up the grout on the tiles, pressure wash as well as cut up the excess concrete they left around the patio due to an error they said they made. Obviously, they've not been back to do this but they invoiced me and I paid them early - silly me! Aside from this, I have observed that the tiles have an uneven lip on the edges and the grout on the side wall of one edge tapers to the point that at the back the width of the grout is 3inches. Andrew said all of this was ok. But am told by others that it is not a perfect job but nothing that can be done about it without a full overhaul! I'm nervous about the patio as it is supposed to hold up large aluminium pergola and I don't know what I'll find when they try to install it.

Given some of the other reviews where they seem to repeat this pattern(obviously didn't have sight of this before we hired them) I'm seriously considering taking them to the small claims courts so that they don't cheat people of their hard earned money and sanity going forwards.

They turned up quickly enough when I first posted the job and I was impressed with the promises made. But as you can see from the website, they are good at doing the work and taking the money and TERRIBLE at fixing the shoddy work. In my case they put in place a long and expensive fence but with inadequate footings (I've had three reputable local fencing companies examine the work) so though it looked good at first the posts quickly started to work loose and then to lean. I asked the boss to come and make good the work and he promised he would. Then I had five months of no-shows with no warnings (always after I had taken a full day off work to be at home), broken promises, elaborate excuses, failures to apologise, and then increasingly aggressive behaviour. If you look at the reviews on their Facebook page you can see that this is the experience of a good proportion of their customers. I have worked with tradespeople over thirty years, completing several full house renovations, and know that you have to be flexible and patient, but this was by far one of the worst experiences I have ever had. It puts the reputation of Norfolk tradespeople, most of whom are amazing, to shame.