Avoid Reflections Landscaping

Summary and Recommendation

Recommandation: AVOID! Reflections Landscaping (Sammamish, WA) is a contractor from hell.

Specifically, on our project Reflections demonstrated flagrant incompetence in the areas involving stone, cement, and electrical work.

As a customer with first hand experience in dealing with Reflections Landscaping, and its owner Jeff Skierka, I wanted to be able to capture and document our experiences with this contractor. Maybe it will help others in determining whether they want to risk their project to Reflections Landscaping.

I have heard since that Reflections is now trying to take on non-landscaping jobs - working inside the house. That's even scarier.

On Landscapers in General

One very important lesson we learned during our project is that landscapers tend to be the contractors that give the most headaches. They are not skilled in the trades, use the lowest-cost migrant labor, and are not subject to inspections like real trades. Yet they have no problem cutting into your new plumbing, wiring, or making an attempt to learn some masonry on your dime. What's worse, landscapers usually are doing their work at the end of a project, after all the skilled trades who know what they are doing have passed inspections. So landscapers basically show up, do their damange without ever having to worry about passing inspection. They just make it appear good enough so the owner's happy, and then get out of there before it hits the fan.

Our Project

Our project was very major- we were essentially rebuilding our house and starting the landscaping from zero. We had about 5 rock retaining walls, 7 planter boxes, lots and lots of fruit trees and plants. We did a watering system and low voltage lighting. One of the signature elements was mortar-set stone on the stairs and landings at our front entry.

Absolutely Clueless

One of the biggest surprises about Reflections Landscaping was how absolutely clueless they were in the areas that they should know well. Some examples:

Masonry - This could take an entire chapter to describe the disaster that was our front stairs. We were spec'd for some bluestones set in mortar on our front stairway and landings. Mr. Skierka had his crew performed the (first) installation during a huge downpour on the coldest day in November. Needless to say it didn't take long before all the stones were loose. So he had his crew remove the stones and try again. Wouldn't you know they chose the only day of the month when it was raining? I was able to observe this installation, and it was clear from the dry mortar and the huge voids everywhere that this was another train wreck in the making. I hired a professional Mason, who noted the following defects in Mr. Skierka's work:

Delaminating stones - junk material where the layers were already splitting
Mortar type was type S, "Home Depot grade," not type M used by professionals
Joints too wide
Base was not prepared right - professional practice is to "Scarifiy concrete" for better adhesion
In between the first and second installations, Mr. Skierka applied some kind of sealant. What is the sealant? Mr. Skierka couldn't say what it was other than that's what the guy at the store told him to do.
The mystery sealant was applied over dirt - subsurface not clean - leaving pockets of sand.
Saw cuts showing on the edge of the stones.
No overhang on stair treads for shedding water
Gaging of steps varied by an inch or more from step to step - well outside of code.
Riser faces - no mortar underneath
Standard industry practice is to always cover work when raining, and to add heaters if the temperature drops too low. This was obviously not done first or 2nd time.
Step heights and treads varied by up to 1 inch, would not pass code
40F ambient air temp minimum is required. This was clearly a problem with the first installation
Inspection of the broken-out mortar remnants indicate that the mortar appears to have been frozen during cure.
Stones should have been wetted during install, not dry mortar slapped under dry stones.

Cement incompetence - For a patio, they wanted to pour cement pad up against unprotected wood siding! This was unbelievable to me how anyone, especially a contractor, could ever think this is acceptable. Mr. Skierka's explanation? "We do this all the time." But why, I ask, won't this prevent moisture from escaping and lead to dry rot and major structural damage? "We do this all the time. Trust me." You get that non-explanation followed by "trust me" routine a lot.
Wiring - Mr. Skierka installed a low voltage lighting system, but due to his inexperience and lack of knowledge, the wiring runs are too long and used too small a gage of wire for the electrical load. A professional electician recommends that the wiring be torn up and fixed.
Half-ass installation - Mr. Skierka pre-ran low voltage wiring through some channels through concrete, but never tested that they actually worked. Naturally this wasn't discovered until after all the concrete was poured and everything covered up; and he tried to "fix" this by running electrical wires through the mortar bed, between the stones on the front-door landing during 2nd (failed) attempt to install the stone.
Plumbing - The crew did not have anybody with training in plumbing, but they cut into our main water line when installing the sprinkler system. I had to pay a real plumber to inspect to ensure that the check valve was not screwed up, because it could cause contamination to our drinking water.

Poor quality control

An unacceptable number of plants didn't survive a year. Upon investigation, it was due to bad installation.
Plantings with root balls
Loose plantings
Turf was installed with no surface prep - no rototill, no soil, no fertilizer.
Trees planted with canvas still around the root ball
Rock walls with running seams - as with a brick wall, you don't want your seams to line up because that is structurally weaker. Mr. Skierka doesn't seem to know this, and so you get running seams.
Rock walls that are leaning on existing structures
Voids in the rock walls were not properly back-filled, so they make for a nice, safe, comfortable place for the neighborhood rodents to hang out
Wiring fiasco. The low voltage wiring runs are too long, use too small a gage of wire. Mr. Skierka was not aware of how to do a basic electrical load calculation to ensure proper
General half-assed approach -

Poor financial control

Always hustling to get a large payment up front
Tells you verbally that you are "on track" with the budget, but every bill had thousands of dollars in surprise new line items.
Had trouble with the authorities -
Was dishonest about sales tax
Had license suspended

Poor supervision of employees

Mr. Skierka kept trying to tell me how good his masonry installers were. "The best! They've been doing it in Mexico for 14 years." Actually no, very clearly not the best. And since they only spoke Spanish, Mr. Skierka was unable to communicate with them. How can you supervise someone with whom you cannot communicate?
Mr. Skierka would show up in the morning, tell his guys what to do, at least the ones who can understand English, and then disappear. There was no effective supervision.

Does not listen to customer

There were lots of things that we wanted that Mr. Skierka did not deliver. My wife wanted roses, and all we got was long winded lectures about why we shouldn't want roses. We were spec'd for espollier on our apple trees - not delivered.
Really all of this is indicitiave of the fundemental problem with Mr. Skierka: he does not listen to his customers. When the customer raises a concern, Mr. Skierka percieves that the customer just needs more convincing. He tries to appeal to you as if he were a friend, and he resorts to a lot of "just trust me".

Signature feature or One Trick Pony?

Mr. Skierka will tell you that he has a "signature" feature - red maple trees with an up-light and a twisted tree. That's all fine and good, until he landed the neighbor next door. Now there are He calls it his "signature element." I call it "one trick pony."