Gobble paving
Paving is classified as an improvement to any house or structure. In our case, that is certainly true. We’ve paved more than 500 square meters of driveway to get out of the dust and mud and into zone clean. If you want supervised workmanship, you’d expect to pay for it. But, you’d certainly not be willing to pay an agreed price for lack of supervision and a team that is obviously incapable of handling standard paving duties. With an immense effort, we’ve come out with a decent job, but only because we were willing to put in hard work ourselves and pester those bodies on site to at least put some effort into their livelihood.
In the end, bargaining down the price was a rather harrowing affair but we came down to an acceptable price per square meter. One tiny consolation: the paving contractor acknowledges himself to be an absolute turkey on his invoice to me:
So, we ended up with gobble paving. If you have the pleasure of having to seek out a paving contractor in the western half of Gauteng, I strongly recommend that you avoid Advanced Paving or any of its subcontractors.
Unless, of course, you’re willing to do their job for them!
Sadly, I am afraid that I have to concur with the state of the building industry (in particular), and the service industry in general. Having been forced out of academia in the current socio-political climate, my wife and I now have our own business (hospitality, she is hotelier by training). As with any growing business, you call in the professionals when you need work done that it outside one’s own field of expertise…throwing down bricks and mortar and building alterations is unfortunately one of my lacking skills. To cut a (very) long story short, we are now in the process of suing our contractor after being informed that we needed to pay up-front for the as yet unfinished job(!) because he doesn’t have the money to come and (a) finish and (b) repair the current position (read bad workmanship) to our satisfaction. And the man drives a Mercedes (admittedly not a latest model, but a Merc nonetheless).
Service, what service?? I have heard far too many times from international visitors that SA needs a serious wake up & shake up in the service department.
P.S. Should anyone be relocating to the Natal Midlands anytime soon, do contact me for my (steadily growing) list of “Never-To-Deal-With-Again” contractors…
We went the route of owner building and have had our fair share of dealing with everything that makes a house – I never realized how many nuts and bolts went into one of those
This has been the worst experience so far and is a reflection, in my opinion, of the fat years construction and service sectors have enjoyed. With lean times fast approaching, only the few ethical ones may remain.
I’d prefer not to know of other rotten contractors. I’ve had my fill of the few bad ones I’ve dealt with so far
Good luck with getting things sorted out.
Hi There
Trust that you are well
Would you be able to come to eldorado park(the south) to give me a quotation on the paving.
Please contact me on 072 264 4384
Thank you
It’s hard to seek out educated people on this subject, however you sound like you recognize what you’re talking about! Thanks