Waterman Construction, Victoria, BC

Our experience with David Waterman, owner of Waterman Construction Ltd, was nothing but a complete nightmare. We hired him to resurface our deck and since we live in a very remote area, we agreed to pay his travel and motel costs for the 5 days he estimated the job would take. Mr Waterman’s behaviour throughout this project was severely unprofessional, immature and at times hostile and rude. He was significantly late for work each day and then would clock out early, he made costly mistakes in miscalculating materials, told outright lies, didn’t bring the right tools for the job, and he didn’t have a valid proof of a BC driver's license, costing the project an extra wasted day as Mr Waterman was not able to be on-site. He also did not follow any work-site safety laws; each day leaving our yard covered in nails, tools and sharp pieces of plywood, demonstrating a complete disregard for our children's and dogs’ safety. Mr Waterman is not concerned with customer satisfaction and denies that his work is of subpar quality. It honestly doesn't take a professional’s observation to notice, that of the few boards he did manage to install, were done crooked and he over-drilled most of the deck screws, to the point that the wood is now splintering. I would think a contractor, who owns his own company, would be ashamed to have his name associated with such poor-quality craftsmanship. However, Mr Waterman does not seem to be concerned with professional standards. The original estimate Mr Waterman quoted us was off by thousands, his excuse for only ordering half the materials needed was he is "bad at math". He did not apologize or take any responsibility for this significant costly error, instead he made it clear that even though it was his mistake, this should not be taken out of his end. After taking 2 days longer than the 5 days he estimated (and now staying in our home so we could avoid incurring any further motel costs) he informs us he is leaving and going home: a 6 hour drive away from our village. The timing of his leaving coincided, very conveniently, with him now having received all payments for the job. Unfortunately for us, after 7 days and paying over $9000 ($1300 more then the original estimate) our deck was not even close to being half-completed. Surprisingly, we did hear from Mr Waterman again, when he tried to extort us, promising to come back and finish the job if we agreed to pay him even more $ for his labour. Even if, we wanted him to finish the job, which by this time we were hoping to never have to deal with him again, he couldn't even give us a time-frame when he would return, as his truck was repossessed from failure to make payments: a situation Mr Waterman considers to be out of his own control. We have made it clear to Mr Waterman, that we want a refund of the portion he was overpaid. We would have held this amount back until the job's completion, had he not returned materials on his credit card and then lied to us, saying it would take a week for VISA to credit his account, thus forcing us to buy the new materials on my own credit card in the hope to avoid any more potentially costly holdups. Mr Waterman will not be reasonable; he refuses to refund any of our money. This has left my family in a very precarious financial position. Dave Waterman, the owner of Waterman Construction Ltd is an unethical, immoral and fraudulent contractor. I hope by sharing our unfortunate business experience with him, we can spare others the same financial and emotional turmoil this contractor has caused our family. I wish I had done some research on his company, gotten referrals from his past clients and checked to see if he had any liens or past lawsuits that had been filed against him. I would have never hired him if I had done that due diligence.