How to Hire the Right Landscaping Company for Outdoor Steps

10 critical ground breaking benefits & risks involved in your decision how to hire the right landscape company in Barrie, Ontario & Simcoe County, Ontario for your steps, outdoor steps, and front steps in stonework hardscape and softscape landscape needs. Exterior stairs or outdoor steps constructed outdoors, are naturally exposed to the elements of the weather, so they have very important considerations. In Simcoe County, Barrie, Ontario and area, being a homeowner comes with it's own set of responsibilities & challenges besides having to efficiently evaluate a stonework hardscaping expert, which is a highly skilled masonry-style, interlocking stone trade. Not a decision to take lightly, especially when thousands of dollars of investment, the resale value of your home, the protection of your belongings, & you & your family's safety are at risk .  Make your choice after serious consideration of the relevant criteria, & adequate research. Importantly, you need to realize that living in Simcoe County, Ontario, Barrie, Innisfil, Springwater, Midhurst, Minesing, Oro-Medonte, Shanty Bay, Snow Valley, Phelpston, Thornton, Horseshoe Valley and area all experience drastic changes in winter to spring climate, with freeze and thaw cycles and rain acting to erode outdoor structures. With outdoor steps, and front steps, because they must be shoved from snow, exposed to the elements it is vital that you hire a company that will warranty their work for more than at least 3 years. It takes about 3 years of weather changes acting on a set of steps to see if it will last the test of time and weather, or if it will shift, sink, erode and cause tipping or even more serious tripping hazards. Improperly made exterior steps can even cause flooding of your home if they are attached to hour home.  It is that serious.  Reputation, warranty, accountability, integrity, and experience matter in this serious safety, structural, curb appeal investment in your home physical function and appearance of your front steps, outdoor steps, patio steps, and all the steps linking your home to your property.

In cities such as Barrie, & large spanning communities, like Simcoe County, homeowners can be preyed upon by high end marketing that isn't held to accountability, because the world around us is operating at such a fast pace that important home improvement investment decisions about your front door steps, front steps, entrance door curb appeal, steps around your home or patio steps, which are also outdoor steps, may be overlooked and not budgeted for in the regular home maintenance issues, such as  a new roof.  

Unlike  e-commerce & online shopping for a product, masonry-style, hardscape, landscaping, is a highly customized hands on purchase & investment, graded by skill & expertise from real work experience. You are evaluating more than a product for shape, colour, & price. You are entrusting the landscaping team that you hire to execute from design to finish, all levels necessary on an earth moving experience at a significant investment to construct a safe and lasting set of steps,  whether they are front steps, side steps, or patio steps, they are all outdoor steps and that is why their construction is challenged by the earths movement and the ever changing weather, so you need an experienced expert with many years experience to build them correctly.

As such, it is with prudence that you should make your choice of the right landscaping professional for your needs. When dealing with moving the earth around your home, remember, it's your investment & you should feel confident in asking important questions regarding your front steps and outdoor steps or any landscaping that you are considering to be completed.

The following collaborative list of expert landscaping advice delivers key factors in the consideration of one of your most important home improvement decisions: How to hire the right landscape professional in Barrie, Simcoe County & areas for the residential homeowner, exterior home improvement, landscape projects such as front steps, outdoor steps, any steps on your property, and any landscaping needs you come across.  Hiring unskilled people could end in disaster for your project, and if they are not insured, they can sue you if they are hurt or can hurt someone else with their insecure construction. There is a huge variation in what you get with your investment. So taking the lowest quote is not recommended for your best interest.

Paying more or less for your front steps, side steps, patio steps, or outdoor steps, or any landscaping doesn't always ensure you'll get what you need, especially with the climate and weather patterns encountered with  Landscaping in Barrie, & Simcoe County.  Don't be absorbed by a smooth talking salesman, check out who & how they will be completing your project & their credibility before you sign.  At Tough Oaks Landscaping we perform to exceed all these expectations & more:

1. Landscaping is a general term, that needs further definition.  There are many types of landscape professionals whom complete different types of projects, with a different set of skills & a different set of tools.  What type of landscape professional do you require, Do you need a hardscape landscaper, a lawn cutter, or a gardener

2. Who does the team promise to complete the work?  How will quality control be executed? Homeowners, often assume that the sales staff present at the consultation are the same individuals responsible for actually completing the work, while this is not always the case.

3. Ask for a written quote with a full description outlining what will be covered for the price that is offered to you to have the work completed.

4. If you are comparing other landscape contractors make sure they are quoting on the exact same features, with the same square footage & quality of products. Make sure they have included the details of what you asked for in the quote. Compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges. You may find what you thought to be the best choice by price is not giving you nearly what you are getting for a comprehensive quote.

5. Research reviews, or references. Make sure they are from real clients. Hiring a friend of a friend may make it awkward on the homeowner, if they have to enforce a warranty.

6. View some of their projects  before deciding, & signing a contract to see the quality of their work.  It is a real shock, & nothing is worse for a client than what we have seen when an inexperienced contractor takes on a project beyond their skill level & bails out on the client. We have seen it happen in Barrie & helped out many clients in this situation. Masonry- style hardscape, landscaping is a highly skilled trade which requires precision & expertise that develops over many years of training.

7. Make sure you can see the signs of a reputable landscape contractor. Are they licensed, & insured, do they arrange the utility locates before excavation, if not you could be financially responsible if they accidentally hit a gas or utility line or cause an explosion, or if they get hurt on your property, making you liable for enormous potential costs, that they can sue you for. Remember quotes from companies with liability insurance, municipal license, and that take all the proper steps involved in construction will logically have a higher quote to cover the costs involved, than a here-today-gone-tomorrow contractor that will not be in business long enough to follow through with a warranty. Many start up landscape companies come out looking strong in the beginning and end up closing or changing there name and moving on, with no accountability. Will they cut corners, making an unsafe set of steps or stairs, while keeping their profit and just making the surface of the structure look good? This is why it is important to go with an experienced landscaper that knows this climate in the Simcoe County, Barrie and area, and knows how to construct the steps in the correct way, the right manner of excavation, compaction, and grading for the correct slope to make water your friend and not the enemy of premature erosion of your new steps.

8.  Does the contractor include in their costs & acknowledge that steps, walkways, patios, driveways all require different amounts of digging out of the clay & substrate. How far are they willing to dig for the steps or exterior stairs? Are they planning on correctly preparing the excavations dig site with proper fill & proper compaction rate. Excavation & proper fill are key in stabilizing the interlock & stone that is placed on the surface. Excavation increases the cost of projects by thousands of dollars, so if the quote you receive is out of alignment with others, it could be an indication that the proper excavation is not being accounted for, or even planned.  With out these proper ground preparation measures, the predominate cost of the brick, block or stone could be lost, if the project shifts dramatically it could  cause flooding issues to your home, or tripping hazards, wasting more money than if your wouldn't have decided to go with the direction of the lower quote.

9. Will they be in business in the future for accountability of their warranty? Find out the length & coverage of the warranty.  How long have they been in business, can you see their previous work in person? How do you know the photos they show you are actually of their work? The construction of steps are much more complicated than a walkway, and require a significant warranty, and they require an experienced tradesperson to build them.  Even heavy natural stone can't just be dropped into place with out the proper ground preparation as it will shift with weather also, causing a safety hazard and have to be prematurely replaced wasting your investment. Remember it is much more costly to have to redo a hardscape project especially a hardscape project of outdoor steps or stairs than it is to do it correctly the first time. The materials used in stonework landscaping require skill. Saving upfront costs often force your hand to pay 10 fold to fix installation mistakes after. Installation mistakes can cost you the destruction of the stone or interlock material, and the labour to do it again, besides the danger of injury to anyone using the steps.

10. Material costs fill a huge portion of what you are paying for in a landscaping project. Make sure the contractor that you hire is in good standing with their suppliers. According to Mike Holmes, you want to check the contractors suppliers to make sure they are honest enough to pay their bills on time. If not, you may find yourself financially responsible for the materials you have already paid for to the contractor. 

Include us in your comparison of quality landscaping professionals in Barrie & area, to exceed the landscaping industry standards & deliver to you a landscape of heirloom quality.

We can relate to homeowners facing seemingly endless responsibilities & decisions regarding maintenance & protection of their home investment. We are here to ensure that your completed outdoor steps, or exterior stairs are an investment improving the value of your home and safety and not a potential liability with a costly aftermath, falling apart and unsafely constructed by low cost, here-today-gone-tomorrow contractor.

Tough Oaks Landscaping are the top expert trusted experienced landscaping professionals for hardscape step or stair projects. With Tough Oaks Landscaping initiating from a small town in Northern Ontario,  we were held to the highest level of accountability for performance, & we succeeded on all levels. Expanding our business to Simcoe County has opened our eyes to trending differences in today's landscaping market. We put our family name behind our work. For a business to succeed in a small community everyone knows your work & your ability to succeed depends on how good your last project & everyone's project before that holds up to in the long run over seasons of severe weather changes.  We have a tested and true product with our landscaping steps, these hardscape stairs can hold up to -40 C winters, and we know what it takes to hold up to Simcoe County, Ontario climate challenges.

Feel free to contact us at any stage, whether you have thought about your steps, outdoor steps, outdoor stairs, patio steps, stone staircase or landscaping in your yard for a long time or you are new to considering the landscaping options, the possibilities of a beautiful or functional stone & greenery landscape, front entrance, with steps or stairs connecting to a walkway, patio  deck, outdoor kitchen,  interlocking driveway , garden, lawn or other feature await you.

To start the ball rolling, for our no obligation FREE LANDSCAPE QUOTE please click our safe link here CONTACT FORM  and send to us or email us directly.  Thank you.