ComplaintsforInvoGreen, LLC

• Initial Complaint

  11/13/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Order Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Contract with Invogreen 7/2019 included grading/sod, tree line berm to provide privacy and maintain water flow down fence line to existing french drain. For 30 plus years the water has flowed down the hill between my house and neighbors house. Past 10 plus yrs french drain installed on my and neighbor property for water, with overflow to sewer. ****** indicated that she had a drainage expert staff that would be in charge of this project. After initial install, It was noted thru out the season that the flow of water is now directed to the middle of yard resulting in flooding. Berm formation was in the shape of a pyramid resulting in tree balls roots being exposed. 1/2020 Invogreen agreed for the trees to replanted, berm shortened and grading. Covid occurred 3/2020 resulting in delay. Contact made with Invogreen 4/2020 to arrange completion when everything was bac on trac. Emails sent with no response. Monthly contact attempts made with Invogreen. 7/2020 videos of before/after landscape were forwarded to ******. 10/2020 berm was shortened and three trees replanted other trees removed. french drain was installed at top of hill.Flooding of the yard was still an issue. Two landscaping companies identified that this was a grading issue. The grading along the fence line now directs the water towards the middle of the yard. Their recommendations were to address the current issue since you can not regrade the area to ensure correct water flow to basin. This information was relayed to ******. She indicated to obtain bids. It was difficult to get the bids completed due to covid and planting season. Three bids emailed to ****** on 8/21, she responded on 9/21 that she will review them. other emails sent with no response. The flooding of my back yard is a result of improper grading that was completed with this landscape project. Recommendations from landscape co were to install a french drain or swell. Price $3200-5400 range. Requesting cost to correct this issue.

  

  Business response

  11/28/2021

  We have tried very hard to make this customer happy over a period of 2 years and it has been very frustrating. We repeatedly came out to make changes according to her directions. She did not want to take our suggestions but, instead, wanted to dictate the solutions that were implemented. After implementing her solutions – and after she still didn’t want to take our suggestions – she indicated that she wanted a refund or wanted us to pay another landscaping company to do the work. She got bids and they included what we had already suggested but she wasn’t willing to pay for.
  
  On April 3, 2019, the customer contacted us. She was having a drainage problem, more specifically, she needed us to help her keep the water running along the left side of her house. She had previously had a berm with pine trees that were in this general vicinity of her yard, and she liked the idea of having another berm with different plantings in the right place to absorb the water. The problem with the past berm was that the pine trees were now gone, and the berm did not absorb the water. At the time she was using bags of dirt to help divert water away from running into the middle of her yard and toward her patio. When we first met with the customer on April 13, 2019, we shared with her that we could install a French drain to help with the drainage issues she was having but this was not something she was interested in doing. She really wanted to solve her problem by building a berm.
  
  Based on our signed contract with the customer, signed on May 13, 2019, we agreed to do the following for her at a total cost of $2,850: (a). Create a J-shaped berm that was about 60ft long, with multiple plantings: 6 green giant arborvitaes that were about 5’ tall, 1 upright holly tree about 4ft tall, 1 Bloodgood Japanese Maple tree about 5ft tall. (b). Fill low spots with about 1 cubic yard of topsoil and then grade and sod an area that was 46ftx7ft. (c). Spread .5 cubic yards of decorative gravel, 2 yards of Meramec gravel, and 1.5 yards of topsoil along the back bay of her house. (d). Transplant one viburnum.
  
  The crew came out on June 3, 2019, to begin this project and finished on June 10, 2019. The crew completed all aspects of the project except for one component: they did not bring in 1.5 yards of topsoil along the back bay of the customer’s house because when the rock was brought in, it was clear this was going to build up this area enough. Based on the customer’s email on June 11, 2019, she seemed happy with the work. She stated in her email, “I think it looks pretty good. ***** is an amazing person.” The only thing she was unsure about was whether the sod was going to last because “it received a lot of traffic on it when putting the rock down.”
  
  On July 8, 2019, the customer emailed us asking if we could come out to look at the landscaping. The owner responded with, “I'm actually out of the country right now but would you want to send me a few photographs and/or tell me what your concern(s) might be? I'd love to help be timely about this.” The customer emailed and texted a few photos and explained that the rock that was installed does not match the landscaping rock that was originally in the garden bed along the back bay of her house and the sod is not as thick as it should be. As seen in the contract, we were never expected to perfectly match the existing decorative gravel in this bed, but we explained that the crew did try to match the rock she wanted us to match but that the original rock was no longer available at any store in St. Louis or St. Charles. We told her we would come out and put more rock down and, despite no warranty on sod, we agreed to spread new sod in this area at no cost to her. The plan was to complete this in the fall when it was an ideal sodding time and possibly when this rock might be available again. On September 24, 2019, the customer texted us wanting to set up a time to install the rock and sod, and then on October 3, 2019 she texted again asking if she could go ahead and get a bid from us regarding a drain placement for part of the backyard. We came out on October 12, 2019 to meet with her about this. On October 14, 2019, we emailed the customer an estimate for installing a new French drain that would let water out right in front of the sewer drain for $1,035 and explained that “Based on our discussion, we would bring a top layer of gravel to put on top of the existing Alabama Sunset and replace the 15'x 2' sod at no cost to you.” The customer responded on October 17, 2019, that she might not be able to install the French drain because of the cost. On November 18, 2019, the customer explained that she wanted us to bring out a larger size decorative gravel. We asked her to verify exactly what type and size she wanted by visiting a supply company so that we could be sure we installed exactly what she wanted. The customer didn’t get out to a supply company, so she mentioned moving this work back to March or April 2020 so that when the sod was reinstalled it was an ideal time. Then on January 6, 2020, the customer mentioned that she was having a hard time keeping the soil around the tree roots. We responded on January 7, 2020, stating that we could come out to do the rock and sod install as soon as the following week if she wanted. We also offered to have someone meet her at the supplier if that helped and suggested installing a rock edging to function as a dry creek bed, which would absorb water that flows toward the berm. The customer responded that the issue was not at the base of the berm or in front of the berm, it was right around the root ball of the plants. She said the rain just washes the soil away. On January 19, 2020, we suggested that we replant the tree(s) deeper, and the customer agreed.
  
  The customer mentions that Covid occurred in March 2020 resulting in a delay, but InvoGreen didn’t hear from customer between January 19, 2020 until April 10, 2020. The customer also notes that emails were sent with no response during the months of May and June, but this is incorrect as seen below. On April 10 2020, she explained that she looked for the rock she wanted but could not locate it anywhere, so she chose a different type. She explained that she was concerned about the root ball now of multiple trees and wanted them replanted. We responded on April 11, 2020, that we were still working despite Covid and could come out the first week in May. The customer responded that this would work. On April 30, 2020, the customer indicated the rocks she wanted from Kirkwood along with the size she wanted. She also wanted to know if the replanting could include the berm getting wider and wanted to know if she could pay for the berm to be edged. Then on May 8, 2020, the customer emailed asking if we could come out again to look at the work that she wanted completed and now she wanted one more tree planted. We responded on May 9, 2020, telling her we could come out the week of May 24 2020, and she could let us know what tree she wanted. The customer thought this would be great. However, this date was pushed back because the customer had new concerns. We heard from the customer on June 19, 2020, at which point she wanted to discuss the changes she wanted to be made: she wanted to widen the berm, replant some of the trees deeper, have us regrade the area between the berm and her fence so that water would flow alongside of the fence like it used to, and have us come out to meet with her in person again to go over this plan in person. Prior to our project, there were bags of dirt that blocked the water from flowing into the middle of her yard and toward her patio.

  On July 18, 2020, we met with the customer to go over what she would like completed at this point. Since she didn’t like the way the berm was built originally, and she felt the plants were not planted deep enough, we agreed to have a different crew come out and rebuild the berm where she wanted and the way she wanted. We reiterated that it would help to have more plants put in to absorb water, she needed to open the catch basin box at the top of her hill because currently it was completely covered and unable to catch any water and run it out to the front yard, and she needed a French drain that drained the water toward the sewer on the other side of her yard. She did not want to do any of these things until after this work to see if this fixed the issue. Our crew came out to start this project on September 22, 2020. On this date she also showed one of our workers that she would like a catch basin box reinstalled at the top of her hill like we mentioned to her on July 18, 2020. What the customer was willing to pay for were different services she requested: the cost to mulch the berm, regrade part of the hill, lay new sod on the hill, and install the catch basin. This cost $871. InvoGreen was paid to grade in between the berm and the fence, redo and expand the berm, and replant the trees. On November 5, 2020, the customer emailed that she was ready to pay for the project, but she was concerned about a few things still: some of the sod was not taking as well or was not appearing to adhere to the ground and the water was still pooling in front of her patio. We replied on November 6, 2020, assuring her that we would come out to replace a few pieces of sod if needed even though we don’t guarantee sod since we can’t control whether the customer is taking care of it. At this point we had fixed the first drainage issue which was that she wanted water running alongside her fence, but she was still having water run into the middle of her yard and then pooling in front of her patio. It appears based on video footage the customer has shared with us that this was not an issue prior to our first project because she blocked the water flow with bags of dirt.

  The customer emailed that the drain box cover flew off and that some of the sod pieces were struggling so on December 16, 2020, we came out to screw in the drain box lid and replace the sod. The customer emailed on February 21, 2021, that she wanted us to take responsibility for the drainage issues she was having in front of her patio because she felt this was not happening until after InvoGreen completed the first project for her. We spoke with the customer on the phone and explained that she wanted to wait to install a French drain until after we revised the berm to her liking to see if this would fix the issue. We had recommended the French drain numerous times. Since revising the berm didn’t fix the issue, the next step should be to install a French drain in her yard that would drain into the sewer, and this would cost $1,035. She didn’t want to spend the money and reiterated on the phone that she felt this was our responsibility to fix. On March 28, 2021, the customer emailed stating that she was getting other bids to fix the drainage issues and wanted InvoGreen to take financial responsibility for this.
  
  The customer did not want to take our suggestions, including installing a French drain which was recommended by other companies too. We have been recommending the French drain since April 3, 2019. We cannot give the customer a refund for past work because we did this work based on the customer’s specifications and she did not want to follow our recommendations. We came out numerous times at no cost to the customer and at no point did we tell the customer that we were done addressing any changes that she brought up. The original job was only 8 days in June 2019 and we continued to address this customer’s needs, questions, and changes for nearly 2 years after we were done – most of this done at no cost to the customer whatsoever (only completely new requests were billed to the customer). Despite our continued willingness to help in this situation, the customer decided to file a complaint instead. We are open to other solutions here and at no point did we indicate that we would stop supporting this customer. However, we will not pay for another landscaping company to do additional work and we cannot give a refund when we repeatedly went back to make sure we performed the job to the customer’s specifications. Had the customer taken our recommendations, we believe there would have been a different outcome.

  Customer response

  12/09/2021

  When I initially met with Invogreen I was not interested in a french drain system.  I already had a french drain system installed about 20 years ago that was addressing the water element into an established basin, overflow of water to street sewer.  I was looking at a tree line that would provide privacy and maintain the flow of water down the fence line. The contract did include a  berm with trees and grading etc.  ****** had indicated that she had  a drainage specialist that would be working this project.

  
  

  Invogreens review regarding that the previous existing berm was  installed to absorb water is incorrect.  A soft berm was added to tie two trees together as a feature.  Water flowed down the hill and surrounded the berm  in front and behind the berm before draining into the french basin which is located at the end of the fence line.  Mulch bags were added to the top of the berm to try to keep the water to flow behind the berm  instead of surrounding the berm with water.  The water has never flowed to the middle of the yard.

  
  

  The berm was still present at time of installation.  How the water flowed to the french drain was discussed with *****.  ***** felt he could support the water to continue to flow down the fence line to the existing french drain. The initial landscape installation did not appear to present any problems that I could note upon completion.  ***** assured me that the drainage element was addressed with grading.  He identified the area of sod that was a concern stating that this area would bounce back (see picture below of area). ***** was recommended by the owner as being a drainage specialist so I accepted his response.  Invogreen did not come to the site to see if the landscape install was correct. Instead I was asked if everything looked ok. How am I to know if grading was done correctly or if the berm's pyramid shape would result in run off. 

  
  

  7/16/2019 text picture/message to owner reflecting sod area and the difference in the rock color (see below pictures).  I understand that colors can not be completely matched. In this case existing rock color were grey tones, what was installed was brown tones rocks.  The rock size is what was matched.  This resulted in grey color rock in the front and side leading to brown colored rock in the back.  

  
  

  On 9/24/2019 text sent to ascertain if it was cool enough to address the sod and change out the rock color with response that it was a good time to change out the sod. I was to let her know type of rock.  It was only after some episodes of rain that I realized that there was still a drainage issue.  The berm was in a pyramid shape that resulted in soil and mulch being washed away when it rained, exposing the root ball.  The trees were not planted in the ground, instead placed on top of the ground with soil and mulch packed around them. I had to replace soil and mulch numerous times to prevent the root ball from being exposed.

  
  

  10/03/2019 text to owner asking if we could  schedule a time to see about looking a drain bid. Did receive a bid of $1035 from Invogreen on 10/14/2019.  

  10/17/2019 email sent to Invogreen informing her that I am needing to have foundation work completed first and requested when would be the latest month that a drain could be installed.

  
  

  10/30/2019 text sent to schedule sod and rock replacement.

  11/04/2019 text sent to schedule sod and rock replacement

  11/11/2019 text sent to schedule sod and rock replacement

  1/06/2020 text was sent in regards to finding larger size rocks that were a better match to the existing rock color except the rock size was larger.  I also informed ****** of the difficulty in keeping soil and mulch on the tree root ball due to the pyramid shape. Her response was to add gravel around the berm etc.  later to perhaps replant the root ball deeper.  She also indicated that the larger size rock may not look well in the area.

  
  

  This is just the beginning of text messages, I can go on at length regarding emails, text message contacts etc. 

  
  

  As more episodes of rain occurred with water not flowing down the fence line at all, it became apparent that we needed to look at different aspects of this landscape installation. I discussed this with ****** and she agreed that we should plant the trees in the ground and widen the berm.

  
  

  Invogreen did remove two trees and plant three trees in the ground.  The first and last tree of the shortened berm Invogreen  were not able to be  planted in the ground. These trees remain planted on top of the ground with a widen berm.  I placed a large rock at the beginning of the berm, to  helped  keep the soil in place.  I am still having to replace soil for these two trees but there is less run off.  As mentioned in Invogreens response I did pay for additional sod to be installed on the hill and french basin to be installed.  The initial sod that was installed rolled down the hill upon first rainfall(see picture).  The top of the french basis lid was found in the neighbors yard, it had not been nailed in place.  Employee came out and  re-planted the sod, pinning it in place as well as putting screws in the french drain top. The employee who installed the sod was not aware that sod on the hill should be pinned down? No  one from Invogreen to check about proper install. 

  
  

  I asked for the berm to be shortened because ****** gave me the impression that it was the berm causing the water to be directed to the middle of the yard.  Once this was done and the water was still directed to the middle of the yard it was evident the berm was not the issue. When discussing this with ****** she indicated it would only cost a couple hundred dollars to regrade the fence line area.   I felt I needed to look at this issue further.  Other landscape companies have indicated that yes you can go ahead and attempt to regrade but there is no way you can grade to how it was before.  Recommendations were to deal with issues that  were presenting.  I shared with ****** that regrading was not recommended.  ****** agreed that it would be difficult to grade the area to how it was before. There is an incline now  to the fence line where  once the area was flat, allowing easy flow of water down the fence line.  I appreciate  Invogreens attempt to resolve the issue related to the initial landscape installation but it did not resolve the area of concern.  Other Invogreen  recommendations were at a cost that I did not feel I should be responsible for.  During a verbal conversation with ****** she indicated she would assist with the cost of correction.  Three landscape bids were emailed to her. The bids range from approx $3000-$5000.  Invogreens bid was for $1035.  I am not sure why Invogreens cost would be significantly lower as compared to the other three bids.  ****** responded that she would review. When no response was received I proceeded with filing a complaint with the better business bureau.

  
  

  The installation of another french drain would not have been necessary if grading had been completed correctly along the fence line.   The incline to the fence area was evident once it was pointed out to me. The grading element at a minimum should  have maintained the level ground area that was already there. Grading was included in the initial installation project description. The pictures below reflect that the water did flow to the existing french drain system with out much  bags at the top of the berm.
  

  
  

  Thank You 

  
  

  ***** ****

  

  Business response

  12/12/2021

  1. As the customer indicated, she did not want to take our initial recommendation of a French drain because she didn’t feel like she needed it. She also indicated later that she didn't have the money to pay for the French drain which we recommended. We tried another solution which she was unhappy with. We continued to follow her directions since she didn’t want to take our initial recommendation.
  
  2. The customer indicated that grading caused a drainage issue and that other landscaping companies indicated that it could not be re-graded to solve the issue but, rather, as part of the solution a French drain needed to be installed. We were not present when these other companies made this claim. However, we are confident that if grading caused an issue then re-grading would fix the issue. We recommended a French drain from the very beginning because we believe that one always needed to be installed. The customer didn’t want to take our recommendation.
  
  3. Our cost to install a French drain was $1,035 which was much less than the $3,000 - $5,000 quoted by other companies. The reason is because we wanted to keep costs as low as possible to make sure the customer was happy with the final outcome and to ensure that the customer had a French drain installed like we had recommended from the very beginning.

  4. We have continued to try and resolve these issues with the customer by coming out to address her concerns over a period of nearly two years despite the fact that we didn't feel these concerns were our responsibility. However, we are not going to pay another landscaping company to do additional work that includes a French drain which we recommended at the start of the project. From the very beginning, this customer didn't want to take our recommendations due, in part, because she said she didn't have money to pay for them. Now, she is trying to get us to pay for them instead.

  Customer response

  12/15/2021

  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because:
  It does not address the initial question regarding the grading as a result of the landscape install.  Both myself and my neighbor had french drains installed to address the flow of water.  Since the landscape installation there is no water that flows to these areas, instead it if flowing to the middle of my yard.  Grading was not addressed by ****** in any way.  Secondly all of of the recommendations from this company have been to provided additional services which I was not comfortable with since the initial install presented with issues. If the employee who is now terminated from this company was a drainage specialist as indicated, I would assume that grading would have been actively addressed during this project.

  The owner has come out to look the area, multiple times but never addressed the grading issue. Recommendations always included additional projects. The only adjustments by this company has been in regards to the pyramid berm.  After multiple comments to the owner over a period of time, regarding the soil and mulch run off, exposing the root balls of the trees, due to the shape of the berm, did she agree to replant the trees partially in the ground and widen the berm.  This would not have been necessary if the trees had been planted correctly in the first place. 

  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***** ****

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