My neighbour was referred to Sam from Prestige Paving and when Sam came to our house he seemed nice enough for us to go ahead with the company and get our old shared driveway repaved.
Sam was friendly and attentive at first – after demolishing the old asphalt he came regularly to check whether the new aggregate had settled. We discussed the fact that we had built a new garage the previous year, and it became obvious that the garage would ideally have been built a few inches higher to make it easier to prevent water ingress and to allow smooth grading for drainage back down to the street. However, drainage was not actually a problem with the old mutual driveway because it was level with a steeper edge up to the neighbour’s property which was always higher than ours, and this always allowed the water to drain down the driveway instead of into our property. Sam said that they would do their best.
The problems really started on the day they came to lay the asphalt. Despite many conversations with Sam on the grading, they smoothed out the grade between our neighbour’s property and actually raised it slightly higher than before. This smoother slope now diverts all the water from our neighbour’s property and the new driveway to pool inside our property. Sam kept blaming the previous contractor who built our garage, even though he knew from the beginning what we had and the conditions of the grading in our property and we did not ever have this problem with the old driveway. As a quick workaround one of the crew had the idea of solving the problem with the water gathering inside our property by creating a 30ft “speed bump” out of asphalt to divert the water down the driveway. It didn’t look good but seemed the best workaround as they refused to redo the driveway properly with the previous grading. However the bump is constantly crumbling now so not only is all the water diverted inside our property but now we have pieces of asphalt too that requires constant cleaning after every rainfall.
The crew also drove the heavy roller equipment inside our property and damaged our brand new interlock that had only just been installed. The stones are all chipped now - we had an assessment by the company that installed the interlock and the damage will cost us hundreds of dollars to get fixed. They were amazed that Prestige had not put down plywood to protect what they knew was brand new interlock. Sam did not respond when we sent photos of the damage but when we chased him up by phone, his response was “We will not be addressing that” but that he still expected the $200 we held back for the corrections.
Sam also promised to return and finish the job itself by the end of October when they were next working in the area (not only fix the speed bump but complete the original work as there were some gaps left around the edges of the asphalt). We’re now in late December and he has never returned, called or said anything to us as customers. He simply vanished! We know they have done several other driveways in the area but have not been back to fix it. Thankfully we had retained $200 until he came back to complete it, but looking at the damage they did and the work that is still missing to complete this is nothing compared to the headaches we are having and the cost we now have to fix our brand new interlock that Prestige Paving damaged.
So if you are looking to repave your driveway, pay the few extra dollars and get a true professional company that will guarantee the quality of work and complete the work itself without headaches. I was very worried going forward with a company that had little to no reviews and should have listened to my instincts. Sometimes we save a few dollars going with a cheaper quote but that will only cost you more in the future. Prestige Paving may well complete the work for you but really don’t expect them to call back or finish the work after you paid. And if they damage your property, like they did with ours, they will never fix it again! I never heard from Sam at Prestige again and really don’t expect to so if you want a company that will guarantee the work, they are not the ones for you!
- Approximate cost of services:
- $4,000.00