My husband and I recently bought our first home. It has a pool, which we wanted to install a fence…read morearound to protect our daughter and other kids. We opted for a metal fence rather than a temporary one so the space would be secure for years. It was a big expense but worth it, we decided. After reading reviews and getting some estimates, we hired Rockstar. The owner came out to measure the space, said it would take a couple weeks to fabricate the fence, and then they would install it. All good.
I didn't notice anything wrong during the installation. The workers were kind of gruff and non-communicative, but oh well. When they were done, I asked them the amount of my remaining balance, and they kind of scoffed, like, "why would we know that?" Not super professional, but okay... I found the invoice in my email and wrote a check. As they left, they told us the fence was muddy and we could use a rag to wipe it down. They also left a can of spray paint, saying we could use it to fix any spots they missed. I noticed there were still piles of dirt around the yard where they had dug. It seemed weird that we were left with so much cleanup, but since the fence seemed fine, I shrugged it off.
After the workers left, I took a closer look. I immediately noticed that the way the pickets were welded onto the crossbars was sloppy and inconsistent. I was so disappointed! Hardly any pickets were welded on with a solid solder all the way around. Instead, there would be one or two little globs of metal holding the picket on so that the hollow interior was exposed to rainwater. Not only that, but the welding was messy. I am not a welder, obviously, but I can tell good workmanship from bad. This looked so bad that I wondered if there had been a mistake. Had someone welded the pickets on quickly to hold them in place and forgotten to finish them off?
I was sure if I called the owner, he would want to make things right. I left a voicemail then followed up with an email. I kept things really polite, hoping for a quick resolution. I was happy when my call was returned within an hour, and the man who called offered to look at the fence that day. When he came over and saw it, he didn't say much. He told us he was the owner's father and was watching things while his son was out of town. He would tell his son to call us when he got back. Okie dokie, I thought. We'll wait.
The next week, I got a fishy email from the son/owner explaining that the gaps were a "technique" Rockstar uses to let water that collects in the pickets evaporate. It seemed like keeping the water out in the first place would be a better plan, not to mention that many of our pickets seemed almost designed to collect water, as they were welded better on the bottom than on the top. And, again, they looked reaaallly sloppy.
About an hour after we got that email, the workers suddenly showed up again, saying they were there to fix the fence. They were clearly mad about having to come and were pretty rude. My husband let them into the back yard. When we looked outside a few minutes later, we saw that they were caulking the fence. One guy would squeeze a little caulk into one of the gaps and the other would spray paint the wet caulk black to match the fence. They went around filling in gaps here and there but leaving most of them untouched. Of course, the owner had just finished telling me the gaps were left intentionally and made no mention of sending workers. Nothing was adding up. The owner's explanation of his "technique" just seemed like a lie to save face.
At that point, my husband remembered that Rockstar's shop had the same kind of fence around it as ours, and he had the idea to go look at the welding on it. Surprise, surprise: their pickets were all fully welded on.
We sent another email. The owner responded, insisting that our fence was "showroom quality" and that none of his other customers complained about their fences. He then said he could come back to fully weld the pickets for $700, which we were not willing to pay on top of the thousands we had already spent. We asked the owner to come and see the fence himself, which he had not offered to do. He agreed to that.
When the owner showed up, he started explaining his "technique" again. My husband told him he didn't buy it. The owner got pretty riled up at that point. However, he finally agreed to come and fix the fence in four weeks, which he said was his next availability. He told my husband that we better not ever call his company again after that and stormed out. I followed up by email to confirm (and to create a paper trail), and the owner gave me the date they would be back.
We waited. We weren't expecting much and weren't even sure we wanted these guys doing more work for us. But we figured they deserved one more chance to fix things. What choice did we really have?
The day scheduled for the repair came and went. No fence guys. We are currently looking for someone to finish the job for us.
