Tropical Depot

I am unimpressed. We used Tropical Designs for our swimming pool repair. We got multiple bids and didn’t plan on going with Charles, but he called my husband and really seemed to want the job. We paid over $ 11K to repair a crack in the pool, fix the hot tub, and install new flagstone. That was a fair price based on other bids we got for the amount of work involved. However, this job is less than 3 months old and the crack is still there. My husband has called Charles repeatedly. When he answers, he says he is going to come out and fix the problem, but he has consistently missed appointments. I just went out and looked at the pool and the crack is ridiculous. It looks like they just put putty over it, but didn’t actually repair it. I will update the review if Charles stands behind his work, but as of right now, I can’t recommend them.

Charles Dillard is the owner/​operator of an all-​inclusive landscaping and swimming pool company. From different sources, he operates his company under 3 different names:
1. Tropical Designs (name on his quote sheets)
2. Tropical Depot (name on his website
)
3. X-​Treme Designs (former name of his company yet still wears the company’s T-​Shirts)
My experience began when my neighbor hired him to replace their fence. This included a 70 foot section across my backyard. I agreed to split the cost of the section of fence across my backyard with my neighbor and trusted them to find a contractor. After my not so pleasant experience with Charles, I did some digging and didn’t find much on Tropical Designs but, found multiple negative reviews about Charles Dillard with X-​Treme Designs. It is my conclusion that he had to rename his company in an attempt to start over. I don’t think his quality of work improved with the name change. His crew broke things during the job, left things unfinished and did jobs incorrectly.
Below is a list of things that I was less than satisfied with:
1. During the project, I rarely saw Charles around. His workers just showed up and worked with little to no supervision.
2. Of the 5 times I saw Charles during the 2 ½ week project, he was drinking a beer twice. Since I didn’t give him beer, I can only assume that he carries it around with him. I also found beer cans in my backyard trashcan. I’m not sure if they belonged to Charles or his workers.
3. Charles didn’t stick to his scheduled work times. He would tell me he would be there one day and then he would either show up a day earlier or a day later but, rarely on the actual day and time he said he would show.
4. Charles told me that his guys would put up a board every 8 feet to act as a section divider. This never happened. I now have a continuous fence with no section dividers.
5. The majority of the fence is 6 foot tall but, there is one 15 foot section that is 6’8″ in height. During construction, they used all precut 6 foot slats and made it level across the top. This left an 8 inch gap at the bottom of the fence. Charles assured me that he would fix it and make it right. His solution was to put up a footer across the bottom to hide the gap which he nailed a 1×4 to the bottom of the fence. When the 4 inch board didn’t cover the full 8 inch gap, he nailed a second 1×4 to the bottom of the first board to cover up the hole. A more acceptable solution is to use 8 foot slats and cut them down to the appropriate height so; there wouldn’t be a gap to hide.
6. In the far corner of the fence, there is a gap between the bottom of the fence and the ground. It is about 6 inches wide and 5 inches tall. Charles knew about this and his solution was to put a 1×4 stake in the ground in front of the hole and hope we didn’t notice it.
7. The header on the fence is far from being level. In one place, there is a finger width gap in between the top board and the side board.
8. One place on the header, there is a 1 inch gap between the top boards.
Items Broken During Construction:
1. During the fence construction, my retaining wall collapsed. I have owned the house for 2 years prior to his showing in my backyard and have had no problems with the wall. I can only assume that the wall collapsing had something to do with his workers walking on it to get to the fence. Charles stated that the collapsed wall wasn’t his fault. He claimed that the wall was old and would have eventually collapsed. Bottom line, I needed the wall urgently rebuilt to keep the dirt held back from ending up in the swimming pool. I ended up paying for the materials for a new wall and paid Charles an additional $ 120 in labor for him to haul off the old wall and construct a new one.
2. An outdoor clock was broken on the first day of construction. Charles paid for a replacement clock.
3. A sprinkler head on a riser was broken during construction. Charles came back and replaced the sprinkler head.
The End Result:
From a distance, the fence and the new wall look alright. It is when examined closely, you notice all the flaws. I’ll be tearing down portions of the fence myself and redoing it correctly. What really irks me is my neighbors seemed satisfied with their side of the fence and paid Charles in full without checking if I was satisfied. I don’t want to stiff my neighbors so; I paid them the $ 840 for my share of the fence ($ 24 a foot x 70 feet /​2). This was basically money wasted.