First off the two stars is for Shane. I have to say; as much as I wanted to lay into him when I was calling his crew back to fix mistakes he always took my calls and made sure I was taken care of. His crew was good about finishing as well as coming back to fix things. Now, I am no carpenter and I have a better understanding about Pressure treated wood, especially when it expands and contracts. I have Trex deck materials and PT wood for hand rails and guard rails. As far as expanding and contracting goes, does that include really bad cuts? Cuts so bad that you can obviously see that some pieces were cut so short that there is a gap on some of the baluster connections. I was told that the PT would was carefully selected, so why is there a post that looked like a dog chewed on it? It looks like that one was at the end of the pallet and was ruined by the banding strap. I had another piece that looked like it was dinged and dented by loading and it was still used and answered with caulk. Some of the balusters look like someone ran a cheese grater along it and had a nice garnish for a meal. I have had the crew back several times to address gaps, Gaps that were filled in with caulk. I had a post that met a hand rail on one side that was cut differently than the other. So one was at a 45 degree angle and another had a flat top with an edge cut to meet the handrail. So i was left with a triangular hole on one side. Their answer? To fill the hole with caulk. My stairs have Trex steps which were done well but where the risers met the skirtboard was acute V shaped gaps that were addressed with caulk. I am not master at any of this, but when I spend 16k on a new deck I better get the quality for that price. I could have bought a brand new car for that and one SCHEDULED oil change. Here, I am constantly finding problems. The deck is usable and has its moments. I admitted to Shane I was anal about things and he understood. So am I being a dick? I don't think 16k should be taken lightly. The Trex part of the deck looks great. But I noticed that there were scrapes and drag marks all over the deck. I know that my children’s PLASTIC wheels could not have done it. It was the crew’s equipment. I told the project manager when he was here about the marks and he agreed that they needed to be addressed. He did some research for me to see if Trex had anything that cleared scuff marks he did but I never heard back from him. Dan’s other recommendation was to redo the interior Trex decking since it should not have made marks like that and I never heard back from him. If you want good customer service and a crew that will bend over backwards to fix their mistakes then here is where you want to shop. All the work has a lifetime guarantee; i just hope that is not in place because of the workmanship. I have tried not to post this review for a long time since the installation, but after really looking at the deck and seeing the problems and having to call the crew back, I just can't do that anymore. Just find a pro that concentrates on one trade, otherwise you get a contractor who bites off more than he can chew, spreads his workforce thin and you get spotty work. And a lifetime guarantee just gets you an annoyed contractor who hopes if he doesn’t address it, YOU’LL forget it.
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