When we hired Mark Dalton and his firm in June, 2021, the company's reviews were great. We got two other bids and went with Technique because the bid was competitive and he had an idea how to work our new deck around our existing wisteria and lilac. The job required tearing out the entire old deck (not attached to the house). This was not a big job, so we assumed we were not a high priority, but we still coughed up close to $5000 up front, then had to pay a little more when he realized he had mismeasured and we needed a few more feet of railing and Trex. The construction team showed up late in the summer to tear out the old deck, and we assumed that the new deck would be installed shortly after. Well, it's almost 14 months later and what we have is an infrastructure that's been sitting there so long the paint they used on the wood is now peeling in places and Trex that's been laid on half the infrastructure, leaving a hole we can't step across safely to enjoy what deck we have. The stairs were framed but not finished, so we can't even walk our deck furniture up onto the deck. We kept thinking "they can't take any longer" so left the furniture out, and it suffered damage over the winter. We're getting treated the same as many other people are pointing out (look on Home Advisor, who connected us with these guys). Pretty much the last insult was that (bear in mind the contract asked for half up front, then partial pay of the balance as the work progressed, which is pretty standard) was Mark asking for the entire balance a few months ago because "prices have gone up so much since I made the bid, I need you to pay now just so I can afford to buy the materials." It's not that we're not sympathetic (he and his wife have multiple life-changing medical problems, but he doesn't actually do the work) but if he'd ordered the materials 14 months ago when we signed the contract, this wouldn't have been a problem. We have no evidence at this point that he didn't just take our money and skip town, leaving us with half a deck and a failing infrastructure that sat out all winter. So many of these problems, bad feelings, and horrible reviews could have been prevented if he would just proactively communicate, or at least answer texts, emails, and phone messages (and we've tried all 3 lots of times). He's basically leaving us no option but to pursue legal action. Pictures of our deck as it has stood for the past few months are attached. Can we use it like this? Nope. This is how it was left the day we paid him the balance of what we owed to help him "cover costs" for the rest of the materials. read more