RV Provider is a small business in Woodstock, GA that is a sort of ‘handyman’ service.   I recently needed some work done, and found RV Provider on the NextDoor website.  I did some searching, and they seemed to have good reviews, so I gave them a call.

What did I need done?  Well, my HOA complained about a couple of things.  Most notably my chimney.  The siding was cited as “dirty”, and the black metal cap on top was “very faded”.  So, I went to the NextDoor sight looking for recommendations and ended up with RV Provider.   I contacted them for the first time on June 4, 2020.  They came to my house (well, Ricardo did), and went up on the roof and gave me the bad news.  The siding on the chimney was bad, and needed to be replaced and not painted.  Ricardo took some measurements and asked for my email address so he could send me a quote.

A day or so later, I got a quote, but not as I was expecting it.  I was under the impression the quote would be something official and through my email.  Instead, I got a short text message with the price.  Somewhere around $1600 to do the siding and to take care of the chimney cap.  When I questioned the quote because I wasn’t sure what it meant (I’m a very detailed person by nature), that was only for the part of the chimney you could see from the road.  To do the whole chimney it would be around $2300.   Ok, well that made more sense to me.  I was more than I wanted to spend right then, but I wanted it done right so I gave them the go ahead.

They came out on June 12 and finished on June 13.  They re-sided the chimney a little different than it was done but overall it looks alright.  But, there were a number of issues both with the work and with how they treated my yard and left parts of it.  So let’s take a look at things they did:

   

  

So the first two pictures are holes they dug in my yard, in the hard clay.  A couple of them make sense, since they needed a flat spot to stick their ladders and such, but others were in other parts of my yard and looked random.  And you’d expect them to put it back when they were done?  No, they still look like that.  You can see a little more in photo #4.  The third photo shows another spot where they did some flattening and just left some trash.  I mean, I do get some of this, but at no time was I asked or even told that they would be taking a claw hammer to the clay on the side of my house and leaving the potholes behind when they left.

On the subsequent pics, you can see where they took bricks from a retaining wall that I paid to have installed, and used it as a base for their ladders and such.  Again, I get the need, but I spent money for that wall and didn’t appreciate them just taking it apart without even discussing it with me.  In the next pic, you can see the the missing bricks from the top of the wall, as well as the satellite dish they removed from the chimney (and never put back).  Now, it was a second dish and no longer used, but you wouldn’t know that without asking me about it.  They just took it down and left it lying against the wall.  It’s still there now.  As far as they know, my satellite is now not working.  Who takes down a satellite dish and leaves it on the ground without saying a word to the customer?

Finally, in the last pic you can see general disregard for my property.  They did clean most of it up, but the proof of their visit is still very obvious.  The holes in the ground, the satellite dish on the ground, a vent on the side of the chimney hanging there (didn’t get a pic of it, but the vent is still hanging there).  And paint droplets/spray in and on my 2 new Lennox AC units.  I know paint droplets aren’t a big deal, but again I spent $16000 on my new AC units and don’t appreciate the general disregard for something I spent so much money on.  Overall, they left a mess behind, and things just undone.

But that’s not it.  One of the very things that was part of the quote was painting the top of the chimney.  They did paint it while they were here, and right after they left, it still didn’t look right.  I figured maybe it needed to dry.  I let it dry for a few days and then a week.  Here’s a pic from a week later.

So you can see, the chimney cap is still looking faded.  I reached out to RV Provider about it and they told me that they used the wrong kind of paint, that they need to use an oil-based paint, and that he’ll be back in a few days.  That was in mid June.

Since then, it has been a non-stop attempt to get Ricardo to come back out and finish the job.  He keeps apologizing that he has been busy, and says he’ll be back out within x days.  It’s now mid-August, and Ricardo has stopped responding to my texts.  My last contact from him was on July 27th, when he again promised to show up on that Saturday.  And since then, no more responses.  I guess since he already has my money, new jobs with new money are more important than taking care of something he’s already been paid for.   As I said, he stopped responding to my texts (Which were not very frequent, by the way.  When he gave me a date he would be here, Id wait until a week after the date before reaching out again.  Point is, I was not flooding him with text messages) around the beginning of August.

My HOA is still complaining about this, so I’m now at a point where I have to pay to get it painted a second time.  Thanks RV Provider.

Let’s break this down into pros and cons:

PROS:
– My chimney looks good now, well the siding part does.

CONS:
– I feel like they were overly disrespectful with how they treated my property.
– Pricing was not clear and I had to ask many questions to get it figured out.
– Took down satellite dish and left it lying on the ground.
– Left vent hanging out of the side of the chimney.
– Got paint residue all over my new air handlers.
– Used wrong paint for the chimney top.
– Led me along for nearly 2 months, promising to come out and finish and never doing so.

Verdict:

I would not use them again, nor would I recommend them to anyone.  As a matter of fact, I would recommend people NOT use them.  My job was simple, and they made me feel like they had no regard at all for my home or yard, and left me hanging for something I already paid them to complete.

And I have again received notices from my HOA about the chimney top.

Explanation of ratings:

Cleanliness:  These guys may have cleaned up the materials they tore out, but I don’t feel like they left my yard like they found it.  Not pleased.

Politeness:  Ricardo seemed nice and all.  There was a small language barrier due to this thick accent, but that was fine.  Average rating.

Knowledge:  My chimney was re-sided, but stuff not put back.  And he used the wrong paint.

Value:  For the amount I paid, a little over $2k, I feel I should have gotten better work as well as better communication on some their activities.

Integrity.  And here’s where it falls down completely.  To promise to fix what I paid him for, only to eventually refuse to respond.