Impact Builders LLc

I am 100% satisfied with the landscaping job Eli and Impact Builders did for me over the summer, and, being the author of the Farmer Tice non p.c. children's book series, I can be fastidious and a perfectionist who is not easy to please.
When I purchased my home last December, it had the worst looking job of landscaping on the block, front and back. The pavers were old, uneven, and worn out. The grass was dead and weeds were growing everywhere. There were plants that look like they didn't belong; one of them, a bush, looked more like a big tumbleweed. The south side of the yard totally contradicted the north side with rocks and gravel; i.e., a barren landscape. And to add to all this misery, the irrigation system wasn't functional. The place was an eyesore, and that was just the front yard. The back yard was even worse.
A huge ficus tree stands in the center of the back yard, which is great for shade but not without its problems. Because of the tree, there was no grass. Instead, the ground was covered with rocks such as the rocks that were along the south side of the front yard. The leaves and seeds from the tree created a big mess that took hours clean up. There were also very ugly oleander plants along the side of the pool that served no aesthetic purpose and just got in the way. But worse of all, when it rained, the water wouldn't drain properly. Instead of draining properly, water would back up to the house creating a swamp on the back patio.
Finding the right company to fix these problems was an arduous task; especially because of what I wanted done. In the front yard I wanted the old pavers replaced with new ones that matched the roof. I also wanted the old, dead grass and rocks on the south side replaced with artificial turf. In addition, I wanted a wide walkway along the north side and decorative plants in the center of the yard.
The back yard was a major project that only other landscaping company wanted part of. I needed the ground to be leveled so that water would flow away from the house and drained properly. I also wanted approximately 95% of that part of the yard to be covered by pavers. For several reasons, including the ficus tree and a sump, that part of the job was quite a challenge.
None of the contractors I dealt with could adequately explain how they would do all of this work, nor were they willing to assist me in creating a proposal for the HOA. Some of the them left me with an overpriced estimate, and I never heard from them again. One of them offered to do the job for a reasonable price, but he couldn't provide me with a written estimate or references.
I found Eli and Impact Builders almost by accident. It just so happened that I became friends with a man who had recently hired Impact Builders do the landscaping for his house. The job they did was equivalent to what you'd expect to see in a landscaping magazine, or, perhaps from pictures of one of the gardens at a place like Buckingham Palace! You won't think I'm exaggerating once you've seen it.
Eli as a man who will always come through for his customers, and in a very big way. He kept all of his promises and went out of his way to make sure I was completely satisfied. He told me that my place would be a showplace and the envy of the neighborhood. It now is. Thanks to him my home is now a showplace, and, as an added windfall, the value of my property has increased substantially. When people drive by, they slow down to marvel at it.
Of a scale from 1 to 10 with 10 being best, I give Eli and Impact Builders a 10+.

I had high hopes due to the other positive reviews I read here, but I ended up very disappointed in their work and how I was treated. Eli was professional in the beginning, but once I had paid and then saw that their actual work fell far short of the contract, he showed his true colors. He told me that I didn’t make any sense and insulted me with condescending analogies that completely missed the point - that they had not done the job properly and had not fulfilled their contractual obligations, leaving me with a shoddy looking lawn that I had to fix myself. I’m not the type of person to complain frequently; I am very reasonable and forgiving and if you look at all my other reviews, you will see I have only left positive reviews in the past, but this was too much to ignore and I felt the need to caution others. Here is a list of all the problems on my simple landscaping job, with pictures so you can see the actual results yourself:

1) The sod was not kept damp on the pallet and it was left out in the sun for 14 hours after delivery before being laid and watered, resulting in the edges and several patches getting too dry.

2) The soil was not well prepared before laying the sod - it was not rototilled as written in the contract, there were no soil amendments used and it was not leveled, resulting in a lumpy lawn

3) The sod was not rolled down as written in the contract and there were gaps left between the rolls

4) The sprinkler timer was not set correctly for new sod - they set it to run only 10 minutes once per day. I increased the watering myself after the first day, otherwise it would have had even more dead spots.

5) The 4 above issues caused several dead brown patches that were still present two weeks later (see pictures). I asked Eli if they could patch the dead spots but he just told me I needed to wait 4-5 weeks and then they would take a look at it. I didn’t want to look at ugly dead patches for another month, or have to keep my dogs fenced off of it for that long so I reached out to the sod company myself and they were generous enough to give me an extra roll. I had to patch 7 dead spots myself and add topsoil to fill in the gaps in order to get the lawn looking nice.

6) I specifically requested smaller river rocks only up to 1” so that they would lay flatter and be more comfortable to walk on. This was even written in our contract, but the rock that was spread in my yard is up to 4”, making it very uneven, difficult & painful to walk on.

7) The rock was not laid two inches deep as it was written in the contract so there were numerous thin spots and even bare spots where the underlying dirt and plastic was visible (they did come back out and add more rock but they should have done it correctly to begin with)

8) The ground was not graded properly before laying the rock and sod, so now those areas sit up 2 inches higher than my patio and rocks are constantly spilling over onto the patio.

9) They changed my dripper timer to run too frequently and too short for my already established desert plants (5 minutes a day); I changed it back myself, otherwise it would have damaged & eventually killed my plants

10) The new sprinklers they installed are pop-ups that are supposed to be even with the ground, but they stick up 1-2” causing a tripping hazard and they were not adjusted properly so they sprayed over 6ft into the rocks, wasting a lot of water and encouraging weed growth

11) I was told on installation day that the red pavers we had agreed on and contracted for as the border between the rock and sod were not available so I had to settle for an ugly brown color in order to avoid a multi-week delay

Eli was a pleasure to work with. They were efficient and thorough. Very pleasant and got the work done quickly. I would recommend them to anyone.