Pat Gorman / Gorman Paving - Worst Experience We've Had With a Contractor

This is the worst experience we have had with a contractor, and we have worked with many contractors while renovating four houses during the past ten years. I would not agree to work with Pat Gorman again, even if he offered to pay me for the opportunity.

First, please note that this review is intended to convey only the facts about our experiences with Pat Gorman/Gorman Paving*. Gorman provides asphalt paving, seal coating, patio stone installation, and other services to commercial and residential customers in Northern Virginia. You, as the reader, must draw your own conclusions and determine for yourself whether you should hire this company. We make no attempt to advise or persuade you regarding that decision, which should be made pursuant to your own judgment based on a totality of the circumstances.

We'll start with a brief summary of the main issues, for those who do not want to read a lengthy tail, then relate the whole story in detail. Here are the primary points: 1) Pat Gorman talked a good game, saying things to us like, �Don�t worry, I�ll do whatever it takes to make you happy�, and �I stand behind my work�, but as soon as we had a problem with the work, he became irate and refused to correct the problem. 2) He represented himself as expert in areas where he appears to have little, if any, expertise. 3) He took on work that he and his crew could not perform, and then, when his efforts were unacceptable, he claimed that he does not do that sort of work. 4) He personally observed that his crew�s work was sub-standard and tried to get us to accept it anyway. 5) When we pointed out an obvious and serious problem with his work, he became personally insulting and then lost control of himself to the extent that his own crew physically removed him from the premises. 6) He ignored known industry standards for performing work. We did not know to ask specifically for every step that should be performed, and he did not advise us of those steps so that we could elect to follow them. Thus, they were not performed. 7) He stated that he would perform specific tasks that he did not, in fact, perform. 8) He used irrelevant clauses in his contract to threaten us when we did not accept the poor quality of his work. 9) He severed our electric dog fence, even after being advised of its existence, location, and importance and has not compensated us for the loss. 10) He abandoned the job on day two of a five day job and never returned to the work site, leaving his unqualified crew to finish the job--which they could not do.

Now the full story. We hired Pat Gorman based on the fact that he re-paved an asphalt driveway for a neighbor. Unfortunately, we did not check the Better Business Bureau, where he already had four complaints on record (now six, including ours)--our first mistake. Also, if we had been members of Angie�s List at that time, we would have seen that he has no positive reviews from previous customers. During the initial meeting with Mr. Gorman, he talked a good game, claiming to be an expert in all the things we needed, which included resurfacing the driveway, laying concrete paving stones between our house and garage with a path leading to the back patio, and expanding our front porch and covering it in paving stones. However, at that same meeting, he displayed his lack of flexibility when he didn�t want to use the same stones that we had used on our back patio because they are approximately ½ inch thicker than a smaller version he preferred. We should have dismissed him at that point--our second mistake. During that first meeting, we walked the entire area with Mr. Gorman and discussed, in particular, our concerns about drainage. We specifically focused on the need to control the flow of water between the house and garage and where the driveway meets the garage to avoid damage to either of the two structures. He casually dismissed all our concerns, stating that he would take care of the drainage, no problem at all, this work is what he does, etc. We did not require that Mr. Gorman state in writing the particulars of how the drainage would be handled, other than that the area would be �graded�--our third mistake.

Work eventually commenced, starting with raising some sunken patio stones on our preexisting back patio and laying new stones in a path leading to the front porch. Leveling the sunken areas on the back porch turned out to be problematic, because Mr. Gorman only wanted to raise and re-level two or three stones, thinking that doing so would level out a sunken area that was at least 10 feet in circumference. His approach to that problem revealed immediately that he and his crew did not intend to perform the work we had hired them to do. Moreover, he accused me of increasing the scope of the job by telling them to level more and more stones. That accusation was ridiculous; the sunken areas did not change in size, rather he simply did not want to lift all the stones required to level out the entire dip, and I would not approve the incomplete fix. Mr. Gorman ultimately did not fix the sunken areas completely, and many of the stones in those areas are still recessed.

At the same time that work was being performed, other members of his crew were laying stones on the path. From time to time, Mr. Gorman would call me over to see if I would accept stones or collections of stones that were obviously unlevel. When I asked him if he would accept such workmanship at his own home, he admitted that he would not. Yet, he asked me to accept it at mine. Also, on several occasions, I pointed out a problem, and he replied, �I was afraid you were going to notice that.� This approach to the work turned out to be typical, i.e., he would deliberately ignore a problem with the hope that we would not notice it or would accept it anyway. He routinely failed to correct his mistakes voluntarily.

After the stones were laid between the house and detached garage, it was apparent that the drainage concern that we had discussed with him had not been successfully addressed. We pointed out to Mr. Gorman that, due to the angle and height at which the stones had been installed, water would run away from the house and pool against the garage. Also, the stones had been placed at virtually the same height as the foundation of the garage, which made it likely that water would go into the garage under the garage wall. When we pointed out the problem to Mr. Gorman, he quite glibly stated that there was no problem at all, and he would prove it to us. He then used the garden hose to spray water in the area. The water immediately created a large pool right up against the garage wall where the wall meets the foundation. The water took about 20 minutes to disperse, and the area was still damp over an hour later. And that was on a hot, dry, sunny summer day. When Mr. Gorman saw what had happened and that he had, in fact, created a drainage problem, he became extremely angry. He immediately threatened us and our neighbors�who had signed a contract with him for driveway paving earlier that morning�that he would put a lien on our houses if anyone refused to pay him or tried to cancel a contract. He then started screaming that we were a �nightmare to work with� and �the worst customers he had ever had�. He accused us of having made all kinds of changes to the scope of the work. (We had, in fact, made only one slight adjustment to the width of a step, a change which was so minor that the subcontractor hired to do that portion of the job implemented the change at no additional cost to us.) Mr. Gorman stated flat out that he would not take up the stones and re-grade the area to allow for proper drainage. His only offer was to charge us $2,000.00 more to put in a drain against the garage wall. Mr. Gorman also denied that he had ever discussed any drainage issues with us, and further stated that he does not �guarantee drainage.� Of course, this was quite a surprise to us, since we hired him to address those very issues, and the contract even specified that the areas would be properly graded. At no time previous had he explained that he does not deal with drainage�on the contrary, he had assured us that he could, and would, properly handle all drainage issues.

After his initial outburst, Mr. Gorman continued, for several more hours that day, to be extremely insulting to both me and my husband, calling me a mental case, among other things. At one point, he even started screaming at my husband, �Make her go in the house!��meaning that my husband should make me go in the house. Sexist enough for you? Eventually, my husband became so offended by Mr. Gorman�s behavior that he strongly cautioned him to discontinue the insults. Mr. Gorman laughed at my husband and continued the insults and jibes until he eventually worked himself into such a state that he appeared both mentally and physically out of control. Observing this, a couple of members of Mr. Gorman�s crew stopped work and forcibly removed Mr. Gorman from our premises. Mr. Gorman never returned to the site, though work continued for several days thereafter.

Two days after this incident, while the crew was taking the weekend off work, I decided to wash the stone dust off our house. Mr. Gorman had promised to clean the house after all the stones had been cut, but he did not do it, and his crew had removed their hose from the premises, indicating that they had no intentions of cleaning up after themselves as promised. As I washed the house, water splashed into the area between the house and the garage. My husband, who was working in the garage at the time, advised me that water was coming into the garage between the wall and foundation. The pool of water in the garage was precisely adjacent to the area where Mr. Gorman had made the water pool two days earlier. With the help of a neighbor, we moved our belongings out of the way of the water so that they would not get damaged and took a picture of the water inside the garage, which we then sent to Mr. Gorman via e-mail, again requesting that he properly grade the stones, as damage to our garage was now imminent. Mr. Gorman responded with an email message that included the implication that the water had not really come from outside the garage and referred to our attitude towards having water penetrate the walls of our finished garage as �childish. He did, however, agree to send one man over the next day to look at the problem, stating that there would be no guarantee that the problem would be corrected. Our email exchanges with Mr. Gorman, as well as the pictures of the water coming in from under the garage wall, are available for review.

So, the next day we started the ordeal of trying to explain to Mr. Gorman�s crew how to properly grade the area to allow the water to drain away from the two structures and into the yard. His crew vacillated between ordering us to tell them what to do and claiming that they were experts and knew what to do. (In actuality, their so-called expert on that day was, by his own reporting, a brick mason who had no professional experience in laying patio stones. It was only his second day of employment with Mr. Gorman.) They could not figure out what slope should be used to accomplish proper drainage away from the buildings. We advised them that 2% was the minimum industry standard and provided them with documentation of that standard. They then could not figure out how to calculate a 2% slope over the affected area, which is approximately 6� x 23�. We calculated the slope for them and told them how many inches down the area needed to be graded in each direction to achieve proper drainage. The crew then demonstrated that they did not know how to grade the area to match those measurements. They attempted to grade the area one stone at a time using a small level. This approach was unlikely to accomplish a consistent and correct grade over an area of approximately 140 square feet. We pointed out that they had a string level, which even included marks for different grades, and that they could use that level to calculate the depth of the slope across the entire area. However, they did not know how to use the string level, as illustrated by their having put the string up backwards so that the grade marks on the level were pointing in the wrong direction. We did our best to help them understand how the work needed to be done and how to use their tools properly, but they did not follow our advice. After a very long day, much of which was spent debating how the work should be performed, they managed to lay only about four feet of stones, and those four feet were not graded correctly. In fact, the stones still slanted toward the garage and were still aimed directly at the seam between the garage foundation and the wall, making it extremely likely that water would enter the garage again. Realizing that Mr. Gorman and his crew simply did not know how to grade for proper drainage, we gave up and told them to cease work. We will have to perform the work ourselves or hire someone else to do it. Mr. Gorman charged us $12,500 for stone work that he and his crew could not perform. Rather than tell us up front that he lacked expertise in laying patio stones, that he did not know how to address drainage issues, and that he did not guarantee good results, he took our money, then failed to perform the work as promised. He has never offered to return any of our money to compensate for his failure to perform. In fact, he threatened to put a lien on our house if we did not pay in full, including for work that was never completed.

As for the driveway paving, we now know that industry practice is to adhere an old asphalt driveway to a new asphalt overlay with an adhesive, which is called a tack coat. We should have researched the correct way to repave with asphalt before hiring Mr. Gorman or anyone else--our fourth mistake. Mr. Gorman never mentioned a tack coat to us, even though he agreed that our existing driveway was probably original to the house, making it nearly 40 years old. Our neighbor, who did research industry practice, asked for a tack coat on his driveway, and Mr. Gorman agreed to put one down for him. Mr. Gorman also told our neighbor and his own crew that they would put a tack coat on our driveway as well. However, he did not do so. When our neighbor asked Mr. Gorman why he had not applied a tack coat to our driveway as promised, Mr. Gorman stated that we did not get a tack coat because we did not personally ask for one. So, Mr. Gorman was not true to his word and did not follow well documented industry practice, nor even advise us of the option so that we could choose to adhere to industry standards.

Mr. Gorman�s contract terms also deserve discussion. In regard to driveway paving, he states that he will not guarantee proper drainage. So, if water flows into the garage or house, understand that�despite anything that he says prior to signing the contract--his contract indicates that drainage problems and consequential water damage created by his paving work are the customer�s problem. Also, his contract requires the customer to stay 20� away from the job site, and any attempt to communicate job requirements or specifications to his crew will be considered interference and will void all warranties. Read his contract carefully and realize that it is a weapon he holds in reserve to use against you should you take issue with any aspect of his work. We didn�t read it carefully enough�our fifth mistake�and he then threatened us repeatedly with those terms. Specifically, he claimed that we had no right to be on the work site or to advise his crew�even when both he and his crew routinely asked for our input. He also stated that, per his contract, he does not care about, or guarantee, proper drainage, thus directly contradicting everything that he promised to induce us to hire him. No one who does quality paving or patio stone work should neglect to accommodate proper drainage, as it is a crucial part of doing the job right and avoiding consequential damage to customers� property.

Last but not least, Mr. Gorman�s crew severed our electric dog fence, including cutting out a section of the fence approximately 50� long. The electric fence wire was repeatedly pointed out to Mr. Gorman and his crew, and they were cautioned not to cut it. They cut it anyway, and Mr. Gorman has never offered us any compensation, or even an apology, for the damage.

Good luck to any who hire Pat Gorman/Gorman Paving.

* Note that this company has several addresses associated with it, i.e., 9532 Liberia Avenue, Manassas, VA; 12215 Sour Gum Court, Gainesville, VA; and 8033 Sudley Rd

Manassas, VA. Phone numbers include 8669-BLACKTOP, 800-425-5867, 703-257-3880, and 571-233-5187. Pat Gorman�s Virginia contractor�s license number is 2705-075084A.

Comment On This

It is very telling when the only good comments about a contractor are written and posted by the contractor himself.

Given Gorman's unfailing lack of honesty, one would be quite foolish to believe a single word of the comments that he has posted.

To date, there is not one positive comment posted about Gorman by an actual consumer. Check out Angie's List and Checkbook. Check his record with the BBB, and now with the VA Licensing Board, who just issued a fine against him for misconduct. You'll find lots of complaints.

Comment On This

What do our customers have to say?

. To whom it may concern:

We had Gorman Paving pave our driveway in April 2001. We were very pleased with the job results. Pat and his crew did a first class job. Over the winter we observed that there were some cracks developing in the driveway close to the road. We believe the cracks were caused by a neighbors concrete delivery truck. We called Pat who came out the same day to see the situation. He readily agreed that the area in question should be repaired under warranty. The area was dug up and patched with hot asphalt then sealed by his crew. Again, we were very satisfied with the results. This repair was done at no cost to us. It is a pleasure to deal with someone who stands behind his work. We are happy to recommend him to others.

Bill and Helen Jean Pollume, Manassas VA

. Dear Mr. Gorman,

The other day my daughter drove up the driveway to visit me. Her first comment to me was " what a smooth driveway" I had been using the driveway and really hadn't noticed how smooth it was. Since she drives a small Mustang which feels every bump in the road, this comment about a smooth ride in the driveway was quite significant so I decided to pass on the compliment . The only thing I noticed was the lack of the " bump" as I backed out of the garage. You did a great job of smoothing the transition! Thank you also for doing the road repairs on Winter Way Lane curve and you're investigation and repair of the breaking road on the bridge. I thank you for you're work as do all my neighbors.

Theresa H Meade, Fairfax Virginia

. Pat,

Thank you for a professional job. Maggie & I both think it looks great!

Jim Maynard

. Excellent Customer Services!

I recently hired Gorman Paving to remove my old driveway and install a new widened driveway at my residence in Vienna, VA. It was a difficult job as my driveway has a considerable slope.

I was thoroughly pleased and completely satisfied with their work from start to finish. I had the pleasure of meeting Pat Gorman during the process and really appreciated his hands on approach and attention to detail.

The paving crew arrived promptly as scheduled and completed the entire job in one day as promised. I was particularly impressed with the professionalism of Gorman's foremen and crew. We reviewed the scope and details of the project together and they installed the driveway exactly as it had been designed. Two of their crew members stayed late into the evening to clean the sidewalk and driveway apron and wash down our cul-de-sac.

As agreed, I paid them in full upon completion of the work. My driveway was installed in January of 2010. A couple of months later, after three feet of snow had finally melted, I noticed some weather related cracking near one of the edges and a couple of spots in the pavement that had settled a bit.

I scheduled a follow up appointment to evaluate what additional work was necessary with Pat Gorman. Shortly thereafter, they dispatched another crew to complete the necessary repairs at no charge.

Without hesitation, I would recommend Gorman Paving to my family, friends, neighbors and business associates. They have provided me with a good quality driveway at a reasonable price. Most importantly, they stand behind their work. I had several estimates to consider and I'm glad I selected Gorman.

Tom Sweeney, Vienna VA

Comment On This

What do our customers have to say?

. To whom it may concern:

We had Gorman Paving pave our driveway in April 2001. We were very pleased with the job results. Pat and his crew did a first class job. Over the winter we observed that there were some cracks developing in the driveway close to the road. We believe the cracks were caused by a neighbors concrete delivery truck. We called Pat who came out the same day to see the situation. He readily agreed that the area in question should be repaired under warranty. The area was dug up and patched with hot asphalt then sealed by his crew. Again, we were very satisfied with the results. This repair was done at no cost to us. It is a pleasure to deal with someone who stands behind his work. We are happy to recommend him to others.

Bill and Helen Jean Pollume, Manassas VA

. Dear Mr. Gorman,

The other day my daughter drove up the driveway to visit me. Her first comment to me was " what a smooth driveway" I had been using the driveway and really hadn't noticed how smooth it was. Since she drives a small Mustang which feels every bump in the road, this comment about a smooth ride in the driveway was quite significant so I decided to pass on the compliment . The only thing I noticed was the lack of the " bump" as I backed out of the garage. You did a great job of smoothing the transition! Thank you also for doing the road repairs on Winter Way Lane curve and you're investigation and repair of the breaking road on the bridge. I thank you for you're work as do all my neighbors.

Theresa H Meade, Fairfax Virginia

. Pat,

Thank you for a professional job. Maggie & I both think it looks great!

Jim Maynard

. Excellent Customer Services!

I recently hired Gorman Paving to remove my old driveway and install a new widened driveway at my residence in Vienna, VA. It was a difficult job as my driveway has a considerable slope.

I was thoroughly pleased and completely satisfied with their work from start to finish. I had the pleasure of meeting Pat Gorman during the process and really appreciated his hands on approach and attention to detail.

The paving crew arrived promptly as scheduled and completed the entire job in one day as promised. I was particularly impressed with the professionalism of Gorman's foremen and crew. We reviewed the scope and details of the project together and they installed the driveway exactly as it had been designed. Two of their crew members stayed late into the evening to clean the sidewalk and driveway apron and wash down our cul-de-sac.

As agreed, I paid them in full upon completion of the work. My driveway was installed in January of 2010. A couple of months later, after three feet of snow had finally melted, I noticed some weather related cracking near one of the edges and a couple of spots in the pavement that had settled a bit.

I scheduled a follow up appointment to evaluate what additional work was necessary with Pat Gorman. Shortly thereafter, they dispatched another crew to complete the necessary repairs at no charge.

Without hesitation, I would recommend Gorman Paving to my family, friends, neighbors and business associates. They have provided me with a good quality driveway at a reasonable price. Most importantly, they stand behind their work. I had several estimates to consider and I'm glad I selected Gorman.

Tom Sweeney, Vienna VA

Comment On This

Action is being taken against Pat Gorman and Gorman Paving by the Virginia Department of Occupational and Professional Regulation as a result of their investigation of our complaint. The board's determination of misconduct by Mr. Gorman will become part of his official record. Read about our experiences with this contractor at www.gormanpaving.info.