How to avoid concreting disasters

I have recently had a very valuable experience to do with finding and hiring a contractor to concrete our driveway.
In order to assist anyone thinking about having a driveway concreted, either on a new or existing house, I put all my experiences on this website: http://alanmadden.wix.com/concretingdriveway

Hope it doesn't happen to you.

Hi Alan sorry to hear about your situation.
I can relate to the issues your having. From what I can tell it appears that you appear to be on a significantly higher level than what a concretor would be. Can I suggest drawing them a plan next time with details of the actual products you want?

I another option to have better control might be to do all the prep work your self then get the concretors to finish off.

Wow.....

Great job name and shaming these crooks.......

BTW the report document does't download in the correct format.

I would love to download you entire site and expose these bastards......

You should have this in the concreting section of the forum.

Thanks for the feedback folks. Please spread the news for me - pass on a link to the website.

Bstar: I actually wrote up a very detailed contract - it's on the website - and stood beside them making sure the areas etc. were correct. I kept askingthem to do it right, made them redo bits etc. A detailed drawing might have helped but basically I don't think they would have done the job right. I didn't want to do all the prep work myself because I wanted a break - I've been renovating for nearly 30 years and I thought I'd let someone else do the donkey work for a change.

Handy007: Please feel free to download the website or please I encourage you to send the link to anyone who might be interested. I'll have a look at the building inspector's report - don't know why it doesn't download. I'll try to fix it. How do I move this discussion to concreting?

BTW: I've been threatened with legal action over this but I think the world should know what happened.

Cheers, Alan

Building inspector's report fixed - my website was unclear and directed you to click in the wrong spot. Handy007, please try again and let me know if it works.

Alan

Rule1..In the tender/quote/contract docs get it Designed ,Engineered, Specified & correctly certified in the first instance.
Rule2..Clearly define progress payments and inspections(when, where,who, and how?)
Rule3..Clearly define breach of contract, termination and remedies in the event of.
Rule4..There are standard contracts to use or reference, if you are not sure get legal advice
Rule5..Avoid slander,defamation,injury etc.. goodluck

Hey Alan, I understand what you mean. However my point is not all concretors are smart enough to understand a contract. Many of them may not even be able to read full stop. I think this is where the key failing was.

Yikes. That one is nothing but a disaster. Reminds me of a time I paid someone (cheap) to build a besser block retaining wall. It was not level and quite wavy, I think he did the footings the same way as your guy;( Ended up getting a stonemason in and fixing it up by putting a face stack stone type facade over the top. Looked pretty reasonable when done. You're mess looks like you need to start over unfortunately.