Scott in Waterloo

Interlocking front walk and large solid stone block front steps, plus an interlocking back patio, were done at this location about 3 years ago, just before I bought the house. Last year I noticed some chipping off of pieces of the stone front steps, and thought (incorrectly) they were concrete so I stopped using salt on them, which is supposed to be hard on concrete. This year by early summer a lot of pieces were chipping off, but I had no idea who’d done the work or who to contact about it. Then by chance, this fall my next door neighbour had Helmutz doing his driveway and side walk and I asked one of his crew his opinion (as an expert) on the crumbling of my steps and walk. To my surprise the first thing he mentioned was not only did Helmutz do this install, but he’d been on the crew. He said they had gotten a lot of bad stone that year from some supplier and it had crumbled away at many sites, and been replaced. Further, he suggested the reason my interlocking walk was sinking and sliding downhill away from the steps was due to insufficient or incorrect aggregate or sand below it, or a spiking error, or something. My back patio is also already sinking at one corner. I called Helmutz about this and got a very friendly lady on the phone who said someone would come by to look at everything. A day or two later I got an e-mail saying someone had seen the site (they never even rang the doorbell to talk to me) and as this installation only had a 2 year warranty, they would replace the step blocks for $2000 if I wished. I wrote back relating what the installer had told me about my site having obvious shortcomings in both labour and materials but they were firm on the “out of warranty / nothing can be done” narrative. I wrote another e-mail suggesting they might wish to better stand behind their work for the purposes of their reputation if nothing else. A day or two later a man called and we had a fairly lengthy conversation. Throughout the call he was very pleasant and polite but the “nothing can be done” narrative remained absolute and was incredibly disappointing. There are stone works from the Romans and Greeks that have survived thousands of years but stone front steps from Helmutz can’t even make it two years? The photos I’ve attached are from early November and late November (today) and in just those few weeks you can see the rapid advancing of the disintegration of my steps. One day all that will be left is a gravel pile! Very disappointed in Helmutz and based on my experience I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone.