JL Concrete

Do not use Justin and his team. We were getting a pool installed this summer and have had nothing but issues dealing with JL concrete. We relied on the pool company for booking a good reliable Concrete company and we were very wrong. It started bad and ended up worse. From the first visit the guys showed up without notice. They worked for a few hours and would leave. When they finally poured our concrete they left all the extra pour in my ditch and around my yard. They said they would be back the next day to clean it up. Never showed. They also left the pool coping which wasn’t cheap on for three weeks and now looks awful. We were told 8 different times from Justin that he was coming to finish our pour and never showed. Please do yourself a favour and do not use these guys.

We reached out to Justin end of March 2021

After meeting him and getting a quote from him, we hired him to pour our pad.

They began the job approximately 2 weeks later. They would come for 1-2 hours a day of work and leave. The pad initially was supposed to take a week max,

and here we are on August 13th 2021 and we still have an “ incomplete pad “

We were always left with cleaning up the workers energy drink cans, coffee cups, etc.

The pad was finished and poured within 2 weeks. This is when the bullshit of back and forth began.

He had his full pay for the job, and has ghosted us on multiple occasions.

Our stairs are a completely different colour then the pad itself, which was not what we asked for. The concrete is blotchy due to no acid washing, and they put the second coat of sealer on within 20 minutes of the first coat.

The concrete looks as if it has no sealer on it, and we weren’t the only ones who have noticed that

Due to improper sealing, we are loosing stones now out of the concrete.

Here is the timeline of events leading up to where we are now:

May 9th 2021 he messaged us saying he was sending his guys over to take care of any loose ends. No one showed

May 18th 2021 we informed him about the blotchiness of the pad. He told his guys that if they needed sealer he would bring some to them, this did not happen.

June 24 2021 we messaged him to find out an update because we had not heard from him and he was supposed to call the previous Friday.

August 3rd 2021 his guys were supposed to come to take a look at the pad and no one showed up.

He messaged us saying he will try and get his guys here with sealer August 4th or August 5th and we politely asked him if he could update us if they couldn’t make it. Unfortunately, no one showed nor did we get any communication from Justin.

We have been EXTREMELY patient with Justin and his team, but have come to a point where we don’t believe the job will ever get finished. We are sad to have to write this review, but we wanted to inform others to either

A) steer clear of JL concrete

Or

B) do not give full payment until job is fully complete

The owner from JL Concrete was a friend of mine. I asked him to come over to price out 2 steps and a small sidewalk at the front of my house. We agree on a price and I said I am good whenever you are. The delays started right from the beginning. It was the start of spring so we did have a fair bit of rain which I know can push jobs back. Ok, no problem... so weeks later his crew comes by and takes out the old existing step and sideway.

Now this is when the real delays started. For weeks and weeks Justin gave me the run around... He's sick, working on a big job, its raining or not answering at all... so on and so forth. Mean while as he is telling me these excuses I see on Facebook he's at the beach or camping up north or basically anything but working.

A couple months go by, I'm pissed off that I have a gaping hole in the front of my house and by now Justin stopped messaging me all together. So I started to get other quotes. The new quotes I got was triple the price Justin gave me. The other companies told me the price Justin gave me wouldn't even pay for the concrete. THEN one day out of the blue 2 guys that dont even work for JL showed up and framed my step and sideway. Justin pays these guys to frame for him because he or anyone that works for JL does not know how too.

In Conclusion: The job that started in April was never finished until September, I never spoke to Justin again, I never gave him a single dollar and I found a friend of a friend to come pour the concrete in the already framed step/side walk.

A disappointing waste of time

TLDR; Justin, the owner from JL wasted my time from September 2019 until June of 2020, left me with a less useful driveway than before, a huge mess of concrete and gravel which damaged my yard, didn't complete the work, and lied to me. Horrible communication (delayed responses, ignored phone calls and text messages) and an utter lack of respect for the customer.

The long story:

Justin from JL is a cousin of my neighbour, his quote came in around the mid-range of the others I got, and I couldn't find any bad reviews about his company online, so we hired him to replace our gravel driveway with concrete.

The locates were done September 18th 2019, work could have started shortly thereafter. There were lots of non-answers given to my request for a pouring date, it required repeated attempts to contact him to set a date.

The actual work began October 5th 2019 when the old gravel driveway was dug out. Then a bunch of delays, non-answers, and straight-up ignoring me up until November 9th of 2019. At that point it was too late to pour. I paid him $1500 for the excavation cost (I consider that my idiot tax for being too nice and trusting) with a written contract that he would complete the job the proceeding spring for $1000+ the cost of concrete.

I started talking to him again in March of 2020, and then multiple times in April. By late April, the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted to allow the continuation of construction work that had been in progress before April 4th (which this was; since it started in October the year before - and we had written proof of that). He told me he had issues with the Lafarge concrete plant, with the city etc. When I contacted the relevant people within those entities, I found out these issues were untrue.

One of the more insulting things was when April 24th when he was pouring concrete for his cousin's place two doors down from me. What an utter smack in the face.

May 19th 2020 was the last time spoke with Justin when I pretty much pleaded with him to PLEASE finish the driveway, he gave a non-answer and promised he'd have it done by mid-June. That didn't happen.

I had enough of being screwed around; so I went and hired another company who got the job done within 30 days of contact. JL didn't want the money and referrals for this and future projects, that's fine - another company is glad to get paid instead.

It should be noted that Justin himself is a good guy to talk to and on the single occasion he actually showed up to work he did a great job, but I wish he would have just told me right at the start that he was unable or not interested in the work, that would have been fine...

Instead, I was given the run around; lied to, insulted, and left with a bigger mess than if he just wouldn't have shown up at all.

Overall this is the single worst purchasing experience I've ever had. This negative review has been fully earned, and is intended to provide a warning to prospective clients about the issues I faced trying to work with JL concrete.