Elmwood Landscape and Construction - Layton, Utah

Amy W.

Great Experience with excellent communication. Had a very large casted cement retaining wall and raised garden bed installed during winter months. The crew made some small mistakes, but communication was welcomed and Jeremy responded quickly to my communication and was able to have the crew fix errors quickly. I am very satisfied with how our wall and garden turned out. We did not have any grass or plants installed as it was a winter project. It is important for the customer to be involved throughout the planning and installation and willing to communicate any issues promptly, as with any construction project.

Jeff P.

It is our opinion: Do your homework we were over promised and under- delivered! Dead plants dead trees wavy lawn. No guarantee I have 7 dead bushes, 3 dead plants, and a dead tree. An extremely wavy yard and the response I'm given: working with nature, sometimes this happens.
Catastrophic failure (?)

Celestia C.

Jeremy was very helpful with extra tips on our landscape that we could do ourselves. Sometimes through the project the application was not according to the discussion with Jeremy verbally, by the crew, so it was beneficial that I know Spanish; but the foreman Fernando is bilingual. So even if I didn't, I know I could count on him to correct the understanding of the crew. They were going to skip a perforated pipe to gather surface water since they believed the solid pipe would be sufficient, but when I insisted that the discussion on having both a solid and perforated pipe there we as discussed verbally be applied, and in doing so, it eased my worries about the surface water from the hose and prior installed sprinklers, (and from very rainy days, that it too could be directed away from the natural swimming pool it created), I was happy with that. Thankfully, Even though they didn't think it was needed, they fulfilled my intuitive request.:) It is a good thing they did because when it started to pool again by the next day it was gone before it became a problem, usually it takes 2 days for that little pool to drain and usually towards the house. Now it drains down the hill as it should! They also did a good job with the draining with the flow well, but they came back thankfully the next day per my husband's request, to have it go below the surface of the hill as verbally discussed. They had to do some extra work for that, and they worked very hard but they charitably did so and I'm very thankful and happy in the end! They are great to work with as long as you communicate AND verify the project as they work! I might hire them again for installing a drip system when we are ready for that.

Braiden T.

I’m very frustrated with Elmwood. They installed my yard back in September/October. They did concrete work for us which is really great and the reason for this review being 2 stars. However, now that we are out of winter I’m realizing a few things I didn’t notice back then. The weed barrier was not installed properly and I have weeds growing throughout the rocks they laid for me. My front and back yard is so in even I practically rolled my ankle mowing my yard this spring. Looking back between the time they laid down the top soil and the time they laid the sod it had rained and I’m realizing now they just throw my sod down and didn’t fix the top soil whatsoever. All this on top of the many communication issues I had with them back when they were doing work for me.

Ryan K.

Landscape projects can vary in complexity, so it is important to baseline what you are doing. For this project we had a lot of concrete work, hardscaping, new plants and grass as well as a supporting sprinkler system. The overall design was a high mountain local scape which we did the design work. In transparency, my project would be considered by us as an 80% success highly driven by extensive oversite on our part. There is a bit of work we need to do ourselves to reach full satisfaction. In fairness to the Owner, he has offered to take responsibility to address the gaps, but his crew has not earned our confidence that they can do so without causing more harm than good. Below is the rationale for the ratings and details:

Weight Ranking Weight Rating
Project Management 25% 1 0.25
Execution to Print 15% 1 0.15
Concrete Work 10% 4.5 0.45
Sprinkler System 15% 2 0.3
Hardscape Install 15% 3 0.45
Customer Service 20% 2 0.4
Total Rating 100% 2.25 2

Project Management: Outside of budgetary elements of a project plan and high-level coordination of materials & resources being delivered on time, there was no actual tactical planning for this project. This resulted in many steps being executed out of order which required the customer to take a PM role and guide the project to closure.

Execution to Print: Crew provided was not able to execute to a detailed drawing. We frequently had to work with the crew in reading the print and executing to the correct dimensions. There are parts of the project that despite our efforts, were not executed per our design which is very frustrating.

Concrete Work: As noted with the issues reading a print and working through proper pad sizes and shapes in laying out the forms, the rest of the concrete work went fairly well. The finishing crew was very professional and diligent with the very large concrete pour this project required.

Sprinkler System: Install of the sprinkler system was rudimentary and showed a lack of craftsmanship. Zones were created that should have been mirrored and equally balanced but are not. There were missing sprinkler heads which we had to request they be installed and there was significant push back by the crew on this. We even found areas where a low-pressure water line was not terminated but rather folded and stuffed under a rock.

Hardscape Install: I'm being generous here with a 3 as the install of the chat was done very well. The cobble, however, was received mostly dirty with some rock. This also was the last batch of that rock type and we needed to go another route to complete the project. The agreed upon plan was to clean the dirty cobble and mix it with the new rock and then install. Execution was not per this plan, see PM above, and dirty rock was installed throughout the project. Elmwood agreed to fix this and replace it with the clean rock, but this again was not fully executed and only a few sections were replaced. As we personally took responsibility for cleaning the dirty rock areas, we found that many locations did not have weed barrier properly applied, or other areas did not have rock or weed barrier fully installed.

Customer Service: When it came to overall customer service, it was a mixed experience depending on who we worked with. The concrete guys, the concrete edger, hydroseeding were all very easy to work with. The core Elmwood team: Owner & Crew was a mixed experience. As a very detail-oriented person that is paying a considerable sum for the project, I had no qualm about flagging issues. Unfortunately, I fear this resulted in a retaliatory behavior in some of the crew members which likely influenced some of the issues noted above. The owner was generally willing to fix most of the issues, however, by the end of the project overall trust was lost in his team to perform quality work and we had to part on negative terms.

Carson F.

Excellent concrete work! They put a sidewalk along the side of my house. Great communication, excellent work to match my existing concrete, and great cleanup afterwards.

Taylor P.

They did a great job installing our turf putting green! They were very professional and timely. Would definitely recommend!

Stig

The day they started on preparing, the city water guys showed up to tell us we had s main line leak. The Elmwood guys were very patient and worked with us and the plumbers to schedule everything. Awesome guys, awesome job! Landscaping in the spring.