Ace Construction

I called Mike Archambault to plow snow in our driveway, which this roofing company does in the winter. Last year he had done a fine job of doing this for us, but this year last time he was two hours late, which I wish I had remembered. He agreed in the morning to plow our driveway at 10pm last night. He didn’t show up at 10pm. I called him and he showed up at 10:25pm while my husband had to wait at a grocery store, since our driveway was unusable. He showed up with a little snow blower. Most of the driveways up here require an honest to goodness snow plow on a truck. Mike moved just enough snow for my husband to get his car into the garage, but not enough for us to get back out of the garage without backing up all the way to the narrow opening at the street, 260 feet away, whereupon one is forced to back up into the street without being able to see whether cars are coming. He then accepted my payment and promised to come back in the morning to finish the job. We both assumed more snow was coming. No doubt more snow did come, but if he had done a good job in the first place, our driveway would at least have been functional. I first tried to reach him after noon, and tried six more times after that, but he would not answer his phone. A very nice boy, perhaps a teen, answered once and said they were all out shoveling driveways. We do not know why Mike would not have his phone with him. I could understand if he was sleeping. It would be believable that he had worked all night. But it is now the following evening and he has still made no effort to get back in touch with me. It is very important to ensure that work is done before the contractor is paid, and not to accept a promise that work will be completed later, but this is just a snow-plowing job. One does not expect to get ripped off over a little snow-plowing job. I did not go out to see what kind of job he’d done. I should have. You can bet my husband and I both went out to see what kind of job the man we were forced to hire to do the job right did. Mike usually does other work, but honesty and commitment are very important at every level of work when people need work done.