Black Tar Construction
reviews and complaints

Hi *** and ***,

I hope you are keeping warm during these cold winter days!

I completely understand your concerns regarding the slope of your driveway, but it seems as though you are confusing city/commercial highway and main road specifications, with residential work. You are correct regarding sloping from crown to edge, but this only applies to main-roads and highways, this is done to ensure that the water flows towards the city catch basin and into the water and sewer pipes.
As for residential, there are two main specification requirements. First and foremost is ensuring that you have positive drainage away from your foundation to prevent any foundation problems in the future. Secondly is ensuring that water does not stagnate on the driveway by draining it away the driveway, both of which, we have implemented successfully. We did two water tests with you on-site, the water properly drained away from the foundation and did not stagnate.
Concern#1 (Water Running Towards Middle of Driveway): It is the norm to have the water run down the middle of your driveway. In fact, it is the most common, and the most requested method of paving a residential driveway. If you wanted your driveway paved outside of the norm, we would have happily paved it to your specifications if you brought it to our attention prior to completing the project.
Concern#2 (Negative Drainage from Road to Middle of Driveway): Our first option is to always have the water drain towards the street. Unfortunately that was not possible with your driveway since the road was higher than the bottom half portion of your laneway. We must pave based on the elevation of your land. We cannot make severe elevation differences to your land without you attaining a city permit first. Once again, we would have happily changed the elevation of your land if you would have requested it ahead of time, and provided us with the necessary permits. It is hard for us to predict out-of-the-norm expectations when they are not communicated with our staff before hand.
We did three site visits to address your concerns, one of which we asked you for the documentation you claim to have received from the ***... we have yet to see these documents. You stated to one of our *** that you had a city inspector inspect the driveway. Please provide me with his name and phone number, I would like to speak with him, I am positive that there was miscommunication. Please email the documentation and city inspector details to *** at your earliest convenience.
Situations like these make us realize that there is always room for us to be more informative with our customers. Moving forward, we will make sure that the two points stated above are clarified with future customers to avoid any potential miscommunication. For future reference, I kindly suggest voicing your specifications to contractors 'prior' to the project initiation, especially if they are not in line with industry standards. Something that seems obvious to you may not be obvious to us, and vice versa. It allows us to give you what you are looking for, and results in both parties being much happier.

Kind Regards