Wemco Landscapes

Multiple calls to them have gone unanswered. Chris sent me an email to say that if I give him the business he will «adjust» the money for the design from that…
But what about the design that his father (Tom) already took the money for? They stole my money and didn’t give me a design like they said they would! Cheats! Frauds!

The only reason I signed up for Unilocal was to give Wemco this review. Little did I know my wife commented 4 years ago. It only got worse. Wemco installed a gas line to our BBQ and 4 years later, it has developed a leak. Why you ask, because they used galvanized steel pipe rather than a plastic coated material to prevent corrosion. I smelled gas on Thanksgiving and PG&E had to cut the gas line leading to the bbq. I tried to call Wemco at least 25 times, left numerous messages and not a single return call. Overpriced and they took advantage of my wife initially and horrific customer service after the job was completed.
If you use WEMCO you are a fool. I wish I could give them 0 stars but that is not an option.

I agree with the multiple negative reviews, I wish I had thought to check Unilocal before I hired this company. They are nice guys but poor businesspersons. If you are considering using this company, I advise you NOT to. The details of my project are so similar to others already posted that I will not repeat. My biggest complaints are the time it took to complete the job and the fact that the «design» is really just an estimate for a job. Their website is also untruthful.

I had them re-​do our back yard 8 years ago. In hindsight I can’t recommend them, I’m afraid.
Tom drew a beautiful design. He asked a high price. I am willing to pay premium prices for premium work… but that’s not what I got. In some places it deviated from the design (without consulting us) and the answer was «well, the design is just a guideline). We asked for 1 or two changes as we saw how things had come out; they did them grudgingly.
Have you ever wondered why pools have decks around them? Without some mass of concrete to hold it up, the skimmer eventually subsides. And if your landscaping comes right up to the edge of the pool, you get a lot more crud IN the pool that you have to clear out regularly.
The design recommended we remove most of the concrete around our pool so there was room for a lawn and trees in that area. The pool leaked immediately and they made no offer to pay for the damage. («I like the owner to take care of that…» I think was what he said. :-)) In good faith I took his word for it that the original skimmer installation was bad – given my past experience with this house it wouldn’t have been a surprise – and paid a highly-​rated pool company about $ 2000 for a new skimmer that was properly attached to the pool with rebar. It lasted a year before it started to leak in the same spot.
My landscaper at my previous house used drippers for everything except the lawn; it’s a little more labor but it makes sure the water only goes where you want it. Wemco went cheap and installed sprinklers for all of the plants, most of which were planted near the house. I paid about $ 5,000 to repair the resulting dry rot on the north side of my home.
I also would look very carefully at their tree recommendations. They planted two Bradford pear trees in a relatively narrow space between the house and the fence. An arborist I consulted later told me these trees are much better in parks than near homes. They need to be encouraged to spread; if they grow too much upward, the boughs tned grow against one another, building up internal stress. Eventually they can go off like bombs. Both of mine did, within a year of one another. Fortunately each one hit the fence, not the roof, and did it when nobody was walking by.
Wemco also recommended a Jacaranda, which they planted next to a building. Despite being staked, it grew at an angle in order to get out of the shade of a neighboring tree. In a few years it was leaning 20 degrees and had shadowed most of the patio. When it reached the power lines we allowed PG&E to take it out because of the increasing risk that a large, angled tree would fall in a storm.
So, although the work was initially beautiful, it has come with lots of regrets.

as of Sept 18 2012
FYI — Better Business Bureau rates them as «F «
Thier contractors licenses is SUSPENDED for no workmans comp INSURANCE which was cancelled over a year ago. (a month before they finished my job)
I had them out last year and they did a nice job. I agree with the bathroom comment below (it was the same at my house) — UEWWW. About 25% of the plants died and i cant get them to come back. Some of the cap stones on the walls are now loose — They wont call me back. I guess we will be re-​planting and repairing this ourself.
I liked them and they did good work if you watched them closely — mostly they ended up re-​doing things that we found that they did wrong — but no, they didn’t complain about any re-​work. It took them three times as long as they predicted with all thier mistakes — thier own fault for not having anyone out here to supervise the manual laborers.
No wonder that this company is in trouble. I am truely sorry to say this, but I think the changed from a reputable — excellent quality comany — to a bunch of bad businessmen who are trying every trick in the book to stay in buisness.
BEWARE of WEMCO

Wemco Landscapes put in a waterfall in the backyard and waterless pond in the front yard.
Chris and his crew where always on time, took pride in their work and did a great job.
I would highly recommend Wemco Landscapes.

Where to start? I really wish I had read the Unilocal reviews before I hired this company to relandscape my backyard. Bottom line, don’t expect ANYTHING from these guys after you send them the final check. The contract specifies a one-​year guarantee on all work, including the plants. We have had about 15%-20% of the plants die, and have contacted the company numerous times; they keep promising to come out and replace the plants, but they never do. I paid this company $ 75,000 to do my backyard, just to give an idea of the scope of the project.
Next stop, small claims court, because now I’m mad. I don’t mind paying a fair price for a fair job, but poor customer service is one thing I will not ignore.

Called Wemco to get a estimate on drainage installation for the front and backyard. I made an appt to have someone come out which they did about a week or so after the call. The individual that came out wanted to bring out his boss to take a look at the back yard to be able to give an accurate estimate?
Not sure why an estimate couldn’t be done on the first visit. So I set up a second appt. I was told I would get an estimate emailed to me and to check back in a couple of days and I did and then continued to check back every couple days thereafter until it dragged on into weeks to get an estimate. In addition, everytime I left messages the receptionist (Patty — I think) had me confused with another client and would call me back and start talking about a completely different job, I had to tell her at least on 3 different occasions she had me confused with another client by the same name. And when doing so she would just say oh I’ll have someone call you back which never happened.
Awful customer service and even more so never getting an estimate after having them out to the house twice! Needless to say we went with another company.

I had just signed a $ 40,000 contract with Wemco, then I decided to check Unilocal.The reviews definitely made me nervous, I hoped that it is generally only unhappy people who write reviews.
I’d have to say my wife and I were both very happy with the results. We were disappointed that it took a few months before Wemco could schedule our job, but once they started, they never let up and the job went quickly. The workers were always very pleasant. They worked amazingly hard. They always cleaned up at the end of each day, taking refuse to the dumps in their own truck and trailor rather than leaving a dumpster in front of the house for the neighbors to fill.
Chris was the project manager on our yard. He is a really likeable guy and was always happy to accomodate any changes we wanted. No questions asked, the changes were made, no extra charge. I regularly harassed Chris with text messages with picturesof things that didn’t seem right to me. He would immediately either correct the problems or explain what was going on and alleviate my worries. I am sure I annoyed him with all my questions, but he took it all in stride, never getting ruffled.
One reason I decided to go with Wemco is that I had a strong sense I could trust this company. I am sure I could have found someone who would have done the job cheaper, but I knew these guys would stand by their work– you could feel they really wanted to do their best for you.
So from our experience, it turned out to be true– most satisfied customers don’t think to write a review. We had a very positive experience with Wemco.
— Tom

I had the owner come out for a quote. He showed me a large portfolio of photos of their past work. It was all very lovely… but refused to give me a quote. Hmmmm…
But as the other reviewer had said, oddly condescending. Kept stressing the volume of work that they do, and that they were the best in the business, and how long they had been in business. So that in itself is not a bad thing, but the odd part is that if you’ve been in the business that long, why wouldn’t you be able to provide a quote?
Wemco wanted to charge me $ 800 for their design fee. To even take a single measurement, I would have had to agree to pay $ 800 (said that my project was smaller so I would only be $ 800, not $ 1000) without having done a single thing. SO ODD!
I don’t know why I have to commit to $ 800 when I don’t even know how much the amount of the job is going to be. He did say I could shop the design around but I wouldn’t find anyone better to do the work. So I was really uncomfortable with committing to a huge fee up front, without even knowing how much the job was going to be so I told him I would think about it. But I couldn’t get a quote without the $ 800. I guess to be fair he gave me verbally some ballpark figures on how much pavers + labor cost, but he wouldn’t give me a quote because he said the number will always change, and he wouldn’t want to do that to his customers.
Then his office calls me back the next day and says that they are calling me back to provide references. So I said, yes, that’s great, I would LOVE to get references. Then she proceeds to tell me that I have to commit to the design fee before giving me the reference. What? What’s the point of a reference if you’re already paying someone for the work? She didn’t understand that’s not how references work. She proceeded to argue with me that with the volume of work, there was no way she could provide references to everyone that asked for one. But I told her that if I was really happy w/​a contractor’s work, I would be more than happy to be a reference. And she countered, questioning me if I really would want to have 50 people calling me in one week (because that’s how many quotes they do a week). So no, I wouldn’t want 50 people calling me, but it’s not like you have to give out the same reference to everyone. Anyway, we couldn’t come to an agreement and I told her I really wasn’t comfortable working this way. So thanks for calling me back for the reference I hadn’t asked for (but would have liked).
In any case, we talked to 2 other contractors, and they are providing quotes (and references) without an upfront fee. Yay!

Our yard was done June 2010. We had a hard deadline to meet and they agreed to start on a certain date. They did not show and did not answer the phone messages I placed. Since I have dogs it was important to know when they would be there, but communication was impossible. They did not return phone calls, at all! They began over a week late and would sometimes show up and sometimes not.
I was given an estimate and plan designs for the entire yard, but later was told the designer misquoted the price for a small section of the yard and instead of $ 300 the price for that section would be $ 1200. We said no.
Then the price for the pavers was «misquoted», but they didn’t charge us the extra price instead they again said the designer messed up, but they would eat the price. Unfortunately to save themselves money they arranged it so the square foot measured on the plans was «wrong» and the pavers they already laid out was all they intended to put down. They said what they did was the agreed upon measurements and what was on the plan showing more than measured. They would not do what was expected unless we paid them more. We again declined since we were paying so much already.
The landscaper never contacted up to discuss plants. We ended up getting our own at a cheaper price.
We explained we used the backyard a lot for entertaining and yet the lawn they installed was not for high traffic. It is practically barren now from normal use. It’s not dead, it’s just not there. I have large blank spots visible all over lawn will need to install new sod.
When some of the sprinklers did not work I called to ask them to come out and fix the issue they never returned my call.
Be sure you ask for an invoice for every item used, I didn’t and I’m kicking myself for that. Review your bill carefully to avoid double charges or missed deductions.
A very poor company and I’m terribly sorry I ever used them. Cheats and liars.

Reading these two reviews, I feel compelled to write an alternate perspective. I had WEMCO completely level and rebuild both my front and back yards Aug-​Sep of 2008. The result is excellent; the process of getting there was not perfect but not nearly as bad as these reviews lead you to believe. I’ll give you quick snapshots of the bad and the good.
Bad: The original drawings were done well, but that person just hands them off to the project manager and there is no communication between them. So there was a lot of data lost. Also, as people have mentioned, the decisions about what to plant where were done without consultation and just «happened». The plants chosen were based on a list we’d provided earlier, but there was no discussion and substitutions occurred. Also, documentation of the plants, location, how to care for them, and also other instruction manuals never arrived. There were other small issues that popped up, but nothing I consider unusual given the scope of the project.
Good: The folks doing the work were extremely responsive to my requests. I asked questions and got answers; as the project progressed and I could see things weren’t going to be as they had been imagined, I made change requests and they were implemented. There was no whining or arguing, and everyone worked hard to do a good job. Some of the changes were quite significant, and while they were warranted and made sense, I could easily see that they could have resulted in a huge argument. But they didn’t. Finally, after they left, there were several issues and loose ends that needed to be cleaned up, and they always came back to make everything right.
Bottom line: It was a large project, and some stuff didn’t go perfectly. But the yard looks spectacular: new stone walkways, a large portico in back, a 50 foot long 5 foot high river and waterfall, beautiful new patio, and lovely plants. I got my money’s worth and am happy WEMCO did the work.

Wemco let us down. After reading the other reviews, we asked questions like, will your workers have a porta-​potty on site? What’s the payment schedule and will you try to make us pay before materials are delivered as other Unilocalers mentioned? Will you be here until the job is done? The answers were all good, but none of them were true. The owner told me specifically that they had a trailer with a porta-​potty that they brought to the site every day — not true. I never saw one. They said they drove away for bio-​breaks, but then they would drop workers off for nine hours straight. What are we to do?
They asked for money for work they hadn’t done (in 10k chunks) four times. They gave us a landscape design drawing that they had to take back to do the work because they couldn’t get another one printed, which they promised to replace. That never happened. They killed the koi fish in our old pond and the owner (Chris) promised to replace them, they never did. They cut holes and removed trim pieces in our fence to set concrete forms that they promised to fix — it never happened. They ordered an incorrect landscape light that they said they’d replace — never happened. They threw out all of the user manuals for the new pond equipment and promised to replace those, too. They never did.
Beware of the contract, as well. Ours referenced ‘See schedule’ for deliverables and progress payments, and I wouldn’t let them start until we had a schedule in place. The owner came one evening with a hand-​written schedule that he said he’d have typed up for the contract, which never happened. Luckily, I took a picture of it, which I still have.
The big work got done behind schedule and with a lot of anxiety. The little stuff has been lingering for seven months, and at this point, I don’t want them coming back. Good riddance!