Colla Construction Company, LLC

I contracted with Colla to excavate my old driveway and to replace it with new asphalt. This was a relatively large project involving an area of 5540 square feet and costing $14,700. The project went very poorly - not timely, poor quality job, poor clean-up, and poor responsiveness. Things started OK: Joe Colla was initially responsive, presented what seemed to be a reasonable bid, and worked alongside his crew. It is also a family business with their name on the door. Those were the positives. Here are the negatives: 1. Work not done according to promised schedule. Before making my final decision, I asked Joe about his timetable for completion, which for various reasons was very important to us. On April 15, he emailed me "worst case scenario you would be done and paved 3rd week in May." After I decided to go ahead and provided Joe with the required $3,625 deposit, Joe became less forthcoming, and the actual stripping and grading didn't happen until May 16, the start of the third week in May. On that day, he emailed me "we will call you to schedule a paving date in 1-2 weeks." This actually didn't happen until about a month later on June 14. That's when things got worse... 2. Poor quality work: puddles, puddles, puddles! After finishing the work on 6/14, I asked Joe if he would like to walk us around and show us how he had handled various issues (drainage, allowance for the gates, clean up, etc.), he responded loudly (and to my ears rudely,) "What for?" My wife mentioned that we were concerned about puddles, and Joe responded in the same loud manner, "No puddles! We're experts." I thought that this was strange, especially since I had just handed him a check for over $11,000, the 75% final payment. Shortly thereafter, I emailed Joe to alert him that puddles were forming even after our daily light lawn watering. One of these puddles was only a foot or so from a drain that had been put into the border of the driveway years ago to allow for the slight slope, a pretty obvious clue as to handling this problem. I sent Joe pictures of the puddles on several occasions. Some of the puddles last all day until they finally evaporate. See pictures. Joe did come out to look at it (unannounced.) He told me that he would come back and solve the problem by "putting some heat on it." He has not kept his word and has not even bothered to respond to my emails since late June. The clean-up was not stellar. I had to pick up paper scraps left by his workers and to ask him to take some boards he had left lying around. I have also noticed that some large hunks of the old blacktop were not carted away, but were just pushed into the ground cover near the driveway. See pictures in my review on Angie's List. I tried to use Angie’s List complaint resolution service to find a solution, but Colla did not respond and is now in Angie’s “penalty box.” I have also filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. This is just one person’s experience, but a word to the wise…