Serving Ooltewah, TN and surrounding areas
In business since 1989
Free estimates
Emergency services offered
"A few years ago, we bought a house in Belleau Woods Sub-Division. An old friend just happened to live across the street and had just had a fence built. He had done a lot of price shopping and had A-Affordable do his fence because their price was lower than any other bid. His new fence looked OK to me. <br /> Knowing he was a meticulous sort of guy, and had done his home work, we just called A-Affordable and they came out, gave us and estimate and we signed a contract. Their installation crew came out and built the fence. <br /> I did not watch them install it, but it went up in a timely manner and they were gone. We actually had the fence built before we moved into the house. Only after starting to use the house and fence did I discover that both the big gates that were sized so that a vehicle could come through them were swung so that they went up hill. When You try to open the gate the bottom of the gate immediately scrapes the ground and you have to push and tug the gate to get it to dig a trench beneath the gate and open some of the way. Both gates were designed to swing uphill. The gates are designed to open to the outside so they open in the direction you would be going to get out, but you can't get the gates open. <br /> We had bigger problems with the house than worrying about the gates, and you could get them open enough to walk through, and on the occasional time we needed a vehicle to come through we would just magage to move enough dirt, or physically lift and tug the gates open. And in a short time, the bottom of the the gate had dug a trench and you could move a wheelbarrow through them, but they never opened correctly and still dont. The corner post of the south side gate begin to settle inward almost immediately, but for what use we needed the fence was adequate, and as time went on I quit thinking about needing to call the fence company and complain. <br /> In fairly short order, perhaps two years, the vertical boards started warping and coming loose from the frame of the fence. The bottom of the fence in places was above the level of the ground enough for our small dog to get out. We paid a handy man to run horizontal composite boards along the ground to seal up the opening under the fence, and while he was at it he replaced a lot of the nail gun fasteners with screws to screw the fence back together. <br /> Now the fence is leaning downhill. On one side of the house the neighbor already had a side fence up, we used his part of the side fence, fenced the back and built the other side at our expense. Our side fence is leaning over at about 30 degrees. The gates are all floppy and dont open or latch correctly. It looks like they put the concrete on the bottom of the posts with a paint roller, the posts were not set into concrete like you would think that a fencing company would do. <br /> So on 7/20/2012 I called A-Affordable and ask if they would come out and give me an estimate on making the corrections needed on the fence, including re-hanging the gates to swing in (downhill) so they would open all the way. The estimator gave me an estimate that was 52% as much as the original fence. I chose to not do the repair with them. <br /> I have NOT been on the phone yelling and screaming at A-Affordable, or writing hate mail to the newspaper editor like some people would do. In fact, I took the blame for using the low bidder in the first place. They may not even have a record of my having problems with their fence other than what I told the repair estimator last July. <br /> Now I am shopping for a company to replace this entire fence; but do it right. I just joined Angie's List today to try and find a high quality fence builder. <br /> <strong>Summary:</strong> <br /> I don't think that A-Affordable did anything especially wrong or criminal other than swinging the gates so they had to swing uphill and into the dirt. And if you just need a low cost fence put up that doesn't have to last long, they might be a good choice. <br /> But if you need a fence to last years with the rest of your house, I would use someone else or at the least ask them about what they could do to install a more permanent fence rather than their cheapest fence. <br /> Ron Vermillion <br />"









