[gfmucci]

Here is my promised review of the work done on my property by Artisticrete.

First, the surfaces I wanted to be coated included the driveway, garage, entry/walkway, and patio areas in the rear of our courtyard villa.

I had about 6 estimates. The biggest price variation between them was whether grinding the original paint off was included or not. Four of the six companies said that grinding was recommended. Three would not do the job unless grinding was done. Two agreed to do a "melt" - a processes of softening the original paint so that the new base coat would be sure to stick. A couple of companies didn't do grinding at all.

Given that most firms would not guarantee base coat adhesion without grinding, I went with a middle price of the firm that recommended grinding: Artisticrete.

A word of advice and warning for homeowners who have their concrete surfaces ground down: It is messy. One of my two concerns with Artisticrete is that they did not communicate with me about the extent of concrete dust and splatter that would be created by their work. Ideally, they would have put up a "splat barrier" along their work areas so that my mulch, rocks, shrubs, fountain, and lawn furniture located 2' to 8' from the work area would not get coated with a film of concrete/old paint splatter from the grinding. The next best thing would have been if they informed me of the extent of splatter they would create so that I could have covered or totally removed the items from the area. No, the splatter cannot be merely hosed off. It needs to be scrubbed off with either a bristle brush or a sponge.

While Artisticrete did absolutely everything I asked them to do, and ultimately did a very nice job that my wife and I are happy with, the problem was I had to remind or ask them at various steps along the way.

Two examples: There were a number of holes and chips in various areas of the patio. Filling those were specifically included in the estimate. Instead of filling them before the base coat was down, I had to remind them to fill the holes before they proceeded with the finishing steps of the job. And then the workers used the wrong material to fill them with. They used a soft pliable caulk that never hardens. After I called an off-site supervisor about what I observed, they finally replaced the soft material with the proper filler. This error delayed the project by a day.

My overall concern with this company is their lack of supervisory involvement and communications with the customer. I don't necessarily expect nor require the actual workers to effectively communicate, although it would be nice if they did. However, in the absence of workers communicating, it would be nice if the supervisors or owners were more accessible and involved with the work being done at least a few minutes each day. This job took 2 days longer than it should have - during a period of excellent weather (except one afternoon where the threat of rain took 3 hours off the work day) - primarily because of the lack of oversight by those in the firm who knew what needed to be done.

Oh, in my previous post I said I was promised by Shannon, the owner, that he would call me in the morning with a definitive estimated time of arrival. He did not call as promised. However, his crew did arrive when initially speculated.

So, my experience with Artisticrete has been a mixed bag. They will do what you ask and ultimately do a good job but you need to ask and watch their work. You need to stay on top of the job at every stage. They will not communicate with you except to occasionally ask you about border locations or speckle intensity. There are some instances where you as a homeowner may know more about what needs to be done than the on-site workers as my experience with the wrong filler illustrated.

My opinion of the BBB rating is that it is unwarranted and may be more a result of a urinating match between the strong-headed owner and the BBB.

I delayed posting this review for several days because I was hoping that Artisticrete management would perform a "final inspection" to assure customer satisfaction where I could have conveyed some of my concerns about the shortcomings I observed. But that was wishful hoping.

If given that opportunity, I would have told them that the process was like watching sausage being made; the process is really ugly, but the result is tasty, with a lot of residue to clean up.

I cannot evaluate this firm compared to others because this is the only experience I have had with a company doing this type of work. Perhaps the nature of the job and the people available to do this kind of work is such that a higher level of performance is not very likely from anyone. I don't know. I hate to believe that is the case.