[quote=jpinpb]I wasn’t going to put this information on Piggington b/c he’s not a contractor and I wanted to keep him all for myself 😉 But I’m going to share it so that others may benefit from his service. Antonio Fletes 619-462-1109. He is here legally living in Spring Valley and knows how to do a LOT of different things. Only charges $150 a day and earns every penny. Older guy, but do not be fooled. He works hard and kicks ass.
We are putting in our patio. He helped clear and dig up the yard and set the forms. We had a little surprise when removing the planter which butted up against the house, which oddly and unbeknownst to us apparently somehow was propping up the wall of the house. Also, as we were removing the dirt, we uncovered the sewer drain had a huge hole in it, covered by a brick. God only knows how long it was like that. He fixed that. He set forms and cemented supporting walls.
We had some cracks in the stucco and we asked if he could fix it. He showed us photos of his work. While removing the stucco, we had rotted, termited wood. Had to have been 20 years of damage. He replaced all the bad wood. The guy is great and I feel really lucky I came upon him. He knows his shit and doesn’t mess around.
All I wanted was a patio and uncovered a can of worms. It could have been much more costly. This guy saved us a lot of money and headaches down the road. Not only is he a good, hard worker, but honest and very respectful and appreciative.[/quote]
Thanks for posting this, jp. I know several hard workers like your guy. I don’t know how long the owners you purchased from owned your home, but obviously they didn’t disclose these obvious flaws to you in their Transfer Disclosure Statement. Perhaps they were never disclosed to them when they bought and thus they didn’t have knowledge of these problems themselves.
I myself dug up quite a bit of large concrete pieces from my own backyard the first year I owned my place, when removing large high-maintenance plants I didn’t want. It was very old garden border but it did not interfere with the foundation of the house. It’s amazing what you find (incl extensive damage) when you endeavor to install a window or otherwise disturb something on an older property that has not been seen or touched by human hands or tools in decades.
I’m happy for you that you were able to fix these problems reasonably with your good and experienced help 🙂
