Habitat Landscape
Aaron Kalmar - Landscaping HORRIBLE Pond Installation

Aaron Kalmar of Habitat or Habitat Landscape (whichever he is using at the time) is nothing short of a con man. He presents a very amicable image, but when it comes down to it, can't deliver a product and won't stand behind his mistakes, OR his estimate! He quoted the job at $20,000 (with a provision for /- 10%) and ended up at $28,000. That's 40% over budget, and he didn't tell us until the 3 days before he finished! We should have just told him to eat the difference on going over budget. He seemed like a nice guy, and made it a point to talk to us about his personal financial problems caused by his wife who couldn't stop spending money and bouncing checks. We felt badly for him.

We contracted him to build a pond for us. We had some specific design ideas in mind, but he advised against them. We wanted a two tiered pond with separate liners for each area, so that if power went out and the pump stopped, we wouldn't flood our yard. He told us that we'd never be able to seal the two areas properly, and that we would continually have leakage problems. He advised that we use one continuous liner. We assumed that, since he's supposed to be the professional, that he knew best.

We also told him that it was our intention to keep koi in the pond. Unfortunately, the system he designed made certain that we were unable to do so. He structured the system so that the water returning from the lower pond to the upper fed in at the bottom. The problem (as we later discovered) is that in the winter, the thermal zones invert and the warmer water is actually AT THE BOTTOM, unless that's being flooded by cold water from the lower pond. The bigger problem was that he did not install a check valve on the end of the line feeding the upper pond. When the pump turns off, this instantly becomes a large drain. The upper pond is not water tight, and will not even hold one inch of water. Each fall, we have to move all the plants from the upper pond to the lower, and drain the water from the upper into our yard.

Within 2 months of the pond being finished, the back wall started collapsing and water was running off the back. His solution was to send one of his many illegal immigrant workers (by his own admission, that's how he keeps his prices down) to stack some dirt and reposition some stones. This occurred numerous times in different spots. When we contacted him, he came out and looked on a couple of occasions, and during his final phone conversation told us that we were trying to "nickel and dime him to death." We have since had several leaks and areas where the liner sagged that we've repaired ourselves. He refused to listen to the fact that it was improperly built, didn't meet our requests, had inadequate filtration, any of it.

Since dealing with him, we've had estimates from 5 other companies to go back and change the configuration to eliminate the problems. The cheapest estimate we've had is $6,000. Unfortunately times were better when we had the pond built, and we can no longer afford to do the repairs. Suing him is pointless because it has been a few years now. Basically, we took a $28,000 course in how NOT to build a pond!

At our last area home show, there was a write-up in the paper about how he's giving away a pond to a deserving family or school. I wonder how much this free pond will cost them in the long run?

The bottom line is, unless you want a real headache trying to get what you paid for, especially trying to get it at the price you were quoted, don't buy a pond from a guy who doesn't have one in his own yard, and CERTAINLY not from Aaron Kalmar!

Company: Habitat Landscape
Country: USA
State: Michigan
City: Highland
Address: 4061 Woodland Dr

  <     >