Joseph Vaccaro Concrete

Called him several times, actually did talk to him once, but he never came over as he promised.

My experience with Joseph Vaccaro was truly horrid. Based on his high ratings on Unilocal and Next Door Glen Park I hired him to do three jobs: a walkway, a leveling of my driveway and digging out tree roots and repaving my front sidewalk.
After he finished the job, the walkway now has a large uneven patch that puddles right in front of my gate, the driveway work was done so poorly that I had to hire someone else to redo the garage door (for hundreds of dollars) to deal with the uneven concrete, and the cement job of the sidewalk left a mess everywhere – on the fence, on the gate, and on a deck as well.
When I spoke to him about these things, he got extremely angry and defensive, saying“What do you want? Me do it all over again?” He was unable to admit faulty work. With in a few minutes he was yelling at me, and believe or not, I was in tears. I could not believe his response, I was so taken aback. My housemate said, «He yelled at you? Oh that’s the Italian way!» My friend said, «Oh, he’s an older male contractor? They treat single women terribly.»
In any case he did not offer anything by way of making up for his bad work. I quickly wrote him a check so he would get off my property and spent the rest of the day trying to figure out what had gone so wrong. All I can say he he is not one to admit mistakes, to deal with women well, and he no shame at yelling at his customers. Perhaps if you are a guy and have a simple job, he would be just fine.

Lots of white dots on my sidewalk from the city. Joe came out right away, gave an estimate & said he would get a permit from the city. He did the work a bit sooner than I thought. Since my first meeting I had changed/​enlarged the scope– he dealt with the changes very well, giving me his opinions & reasoning which I accepted. The work day was Halloween – by 1:00 pm it was beautiful but wet, ready for goblins to add cement art to their trick or treat night. Joe made barriers around my sidewalk & driveway and much to my surprise & delight Halloween came & went without any markings.

I tried going thru EF Gomez first, but they were impossible to deal with. Thank God I Unilocaled Joe: he was remarkably trustworthy, super fair and competent! I couldn’t believe he did the work in one day: stripping ancient acacia roots, digging up 20 sidewalk squares, then filing them in perfectly and immediately. I love this guy. Fully recommended.

Mr. Vaccaro came out with his helper as scheduled and the two worked efficiently and were finished in a day. Our corner house had many different areas that needed attention and Joe did a great job. It was no fault of his that overnight the neighborhood morons came by to scrawl their names and shoe prints on the nice neat work, but Joe came out the next day and was still able to refinish those areas out fairly well.
I know that there were a few people who gave negative reviews to Joe, all related to him not responding immediately. If you want to hire Joe, be ready to be a little persistent and patient. He is absolutely swamped with requests and leaving a message doesn’t really work. He came out several times to meet with me and after not calling, I made the effort to reach him and politely reminded him of our situation. I am happy that I did, as he was very reasonable with his price, with a high quality of work, and was efficient.
Plus he is a really nice gentleman, in a refreshingly old-​school no BS kind of way.

Joe put in my sidewalk squares over the summer. He was fast and professional, and took care of all the permits. My neighbor had his sidewalk repairs done the week prior by someone else, and Joe’s work is side by side with that of my neighbor. My cement looks clean, white and uncracked. Conversely, my neighbor’s sidewalk is blotchy and uneven. The difference is really noticeable, and a testament to the superior work and quality of materials used by Joe. Every time I see my neighbor’s sidewalk, I think, phew, glad I used Joe.

Joe replaced the sidewalk in front of our home in San Francisco in May of 2012. 95% of the concrete that was replaced is now cracking, concrete is pulling away from the building, concrete is not even, and lines that were drawn were uneven
After trying to call and fax Joe to have these issues resolved with no response, I sent letters and started documenting all the issues that I had with Joe’s job.
It is now September and after writing letters to the District Attorney’s office and California State board I final received a full refund for the unprofessional job Joe performed.
I have lived on in the city for many years and it is an embarrassed to have guest visit my home because of the horrible job Joe performed.
I am just glad I have received a full refund and I can now get a new sidewalk and have friends and family visit my home and be proud of my new sidewalk.
I only wish he didn’t show up …
Please !!! Please !!! Do not use Vaccaro Concrete…

I contacted Joseph for a quote on a sidewalk curb repair. He said he’ll be in my neighborhood for a few jobs the next day and that he can stop by between 9−10am. Morning came and went and no Joseph. After reading some of the other reviews now, sad that there is one common theme: he doesn’t keep his word and to me that is untrustworthy. It’s a blessing he didn’t show up for the estimate because if I hired him and he is a no show, then major waste of time.

Joe and his work are great. His bid to replace ten sidewalk squares and a walkway was quite a bit less than the other two bids, he arrived promptly when he said he would, did the work efficiently, quickly and well, cleaned up nicely, came back the next morning to remove the forms. It looks great. We are pleased and would certainly hire him again.

Joe did a top notch job removing roots around my tree and repairing uneven sidewalk. He was incredibly fast and efficient, in at 7 a.m., out by 12 noon after repairing more than a half dozen squares. He did this all for a very reasonable rate.
There is a language barrier. I recommend that you keep calling Joe until you get a pick up, rather than waiting for a call back.
If you’ve got the white dots, there’s not much you have to communicate. Just let him have at it and he knows what to do.

I had a feeling about this guy from the beginning. He’s a real paisan, as they say … truly from the old country. I can agree with every positive statement made by his other customers below and above. Punctual, reliable, reasonably-​priced, hard-​working, fuss-​free. His work – demolishing and repaving my sidewalk/​drive/​curb, including serious tree root abatement – was meticulous. But what impressed me most was the overarching sense of trust and goodwill which Joe emanates. He bent over backwards (literally, at times) to save me money, while simultaneously managing the demands of the city inspector (s). His final price met the original estimate word for word, dollar for dollar. Mr. Vaccaro is the living incarnation of an ‘honest Joe’.

Received a notice from the city that we needed to repair our sidewalks within 30 days so I searched in Unilocal and came upon 6 contractors including Mr. Vaccaro 2 of the contractors didn’t even bother with giving me a quote even though I faxed over the documents the other 3 contractor’s gave me a quote over 2k but Mr. Vaccaro charged me $ 1,755.00 including the permits he came over to my house on Thanks Giving to finalize the deal with a handshake and he started the Job on Dec 03, 2010 he arrived at 6:50am and was finished at 1:30. The next day Mr. Vaccaro came and took his signs and with that I issued him a check and the deal was completed he did a Fantastic Job I highly recommend Mr. Vaccaro he’s be doing Concrete job for over 50 years.

We wanted an area by the sidewalk cemented. I called Joe and he came to the house at the end of July. He gave me a quote of $ 800 written on the back of his business card. I called him back right away to get the work started. He said it was a small job so he’d get to it when he was in the neighborhood. I called him a couple of times in August. He finally returned my call last week and said he had another job in the area and could proceed the first week of Oct. I asked him for a contract so we could get started. He called and quoted $ 1,400. He said the price of concrete had gone up. This might be true but nearly doubling in just two months??? He should receive NO stars. This is unethical practice.

Hire Joe — don’t waste your time on anyone else.
I got the dreaded dots on the sidewalk in front of my house (highway robbery by the city, if you ask me). I called other contractors. All of them were incredibly expensive and most make you wait days for their estimate.
Then I came to Unilocal,read his reviews and called Joe. He gave me an estimate on the spot. He’s a one man operation from the old country: a great guy, honest, nice, fast and reasonable. I ‘ve never even written a review for Unilocal,and this is no hype, He is the best!

Joseph is a jewel; if you need cement work done, you have best quality, most experience, fastest work and lowest price all wrapped up in one with Joseph.

My sidewalk was a mixture of canyons and crevices. It was just a matter of time before someone got lost. I used Joe Vaccaro to replace the entire sidewalk in front of my house.
I’ll admit it: I love this guy.
Here’s why:
1. He returned all calls. We played phone tag for a few days and he returned every call.
2. He showed up when he said he would.
3. He gave me a reasonable estimate on the spot after he came to see the work to be done.
4. He called me to ask if he could come a week EARLY to complete the job.
5. He did a good job.
Joe is the man to go to for concrete.

If you need sidewalk repair, driveway or backyard paved, I highly recommend Joseph Vaccaro, concrete contractor. He’s punctual, keeps his word once he gives his word, and it’s refreshing to have old time school thinking where the contractor actually follows through on what he says he will do. Joseph is probably 70+ years and been a concrete contractor for 50+ years. He’s stronger than an ox, definitely out does me in wheel barreling out dirt & bricks. LoL
My family recently made a rental purchase and needless to say, the previous neglected a lot of much needed repairs, including almost the entire front sidewalk that was uprooted by the overgrown tree in front of the building.
I had already gotten 5 estimates, 3 from contractors off the City’s list of concrete contractors and 2 that I found on my own. Joseph was my last estimate and he gave me an estimate right over the phone based on how I describe the damaged sidewalk. His price was awesome, 35% lower than my lowest estimate and when I looked him up on Unilocal… when he did do the work, he received all 5 star rating. But beware when he didn’t follow up with doing the job, he received 1 star reviews. My only suggestion is that hopefully you’ll give him enough work, so that he wants to do your job, shows up, and it’s worth his time to do your job as his work is excellent.
I had another property’s backyard paved around 20 years ago and it cost me 50% more than today’s prices from Joseph to do about the same square footage for both the front sidewalk and rear garden on this job. Excellent work, best price, punctual and a man of his word… do I need to say more?
As of the writing of this review, for sidewalk repairs, he charges approximately $ 100 per square plus the DBI permit fee. This is approximately $ 11 per sq ft plus permit fees. The only way to have your sidewalk repaired for less is if DPW was going to do sidwalk repair in your area and they include your sidwalk along with their work. As of the writing of this review DPW would charge $ 9.95 per sq ft and permit fees are included since the contractor is doing the entire area.

Joseph Vaccaro is a scrappy older man who I would very much like to recommend but just can’t. I had a chance to meet Joseph when he came out to my home to give me an estimate. He was punctual and seemed to understand what I needed. He even went into detail about city permits and what we could and couldn’t do. Next came the actual bid. Awesome — great price.
I followed up and contacted a previous reviewer on Unilocal to see if they were still satisfied with his work. They were and I was set to pull the trigger on some new concrete. All was great. I called Joseph and left a message. «I’d like you to do the work,» I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster when talking concrete to an answering machine. After a couple days I had not received a call back from Joseph so I called again. Can you tell where this is going? I left at least 4 messages over the next 10 days for Joseph before moving on. I ended up hiring another company that was only marginally more responsive. Overall Joseph presented himself very well and his price was, well, too good to be true.
I understand that this behavior is typical of contractors but I would never hire anyone who treated me or others this way. It is simply disrespectful and a waste of everyone’s time. How they stay in business is beyond me. I have a buddy in San Diego who is a contractor. When I ask him how he gets jobs in such a competitive business he simply said this: «I return calls.»

Mr. Vaccaro is an exceptional contractor. I was written up by DPW for sidewalk repair at the end of 2008. Several of my neighbors got hit with the same thing. We called about 6 contractors to get a price – half of the contractors did not get back to us within a reasonable amount of time (2 weeks!). A couple of them gave us ridiculously high quotes, as if we were stupid. Some of them tried to upsale us and some of them basically tried to sell us work that we didn’t need. Needless to say, the process of selecting a contractor was painful.
Mr. Vaccaro gave us a rock bottom price and promised he would do an excellent job with no hidden costs, and he would deliver the work on time. His quote was almost half of the others. We looked at all the quotes thoroughly and gave Mr. Vaccaro the job. He showed up with his crew at 6 AM and repaired the sidewalk along 3 buildings by 2 PM. Coincidently, it was his birthday. We were so impressed with his work that we tipped he and his crew generously. In fact, we were grateful that we gave him the job. Six months have gone by and I always get a smile when I see how nice my sidewalk looks.
I would recommend Mr. Vaccaro to anyone that needs sidewalk repair. He is totally awesome.

Mr. Vaccaro is a top-​notch, old-​school tradesman. He answers his own phone (with a «Hello,» don’t be thrown off) and arrived promptly to give me an estimate.
I needed a driveway leveled so it would stop destroying the car at the mini-​mountain where the driveway met the garage floor. Unfortunately, when I first called Mr. Vaccaro, I foolishly didn’t have the garage door opener with me. He gave me a price anyway, on the spot, after eyeballing what he could. Two other contractors also came and looked at it (it took them longer to give me appointments, so I had the opener by then). Only one of them replied with an estimate – which was several times what Mr. Vaccaro had quoted!
I called him back to give me another estimate that took the actual inside of the garage into account. We had a slight communication problem – his accent is strong and I should have been more careful – but on the second try he came right away. Once he saw the inside of the garage, he gave me a higher price – by $ 100, which didn’t bring him anywhere near the other bid. And he was able to start work in a couple of days.
He arrived promptly by 7 a.m. with one assistant, said he thought he’d be done by 3 p.m. depending on where the drainpipe was beneath the concrete he was sawing out, and was actually done by 2. The job is beautiful, the new slab nice and flat and perfectly matched up with the old concrete on all sides. He didn’t moisten and put a plastic sheet over it, which I may do later today (all I know about concrete I learned from Google), but nobody seems to do that, and the concrete should cure perfectly well in this weather.
He gave me a great price (a fraction, again, of the other guy’s) on some concrete removal I’ll want done later. I’m definitely calling him again. You won’t beat the price and the work is very, very good.