Reviews
What our clients actually say
Five-star reviews from South Florida homeowners, reproduced in full — alongside the standard every one of them had to meet, and six things you can check without taking our word for anything.
A testimonial wall is the cheapest thing on a contractor's website
Three glowing quotes, three plausible first names, three nearby cities. Fifteen minutes of work, no cost, and no way for you to check any of it. That is why almost every contractor has one, and why on its own it tells you almost nothing.
So the reviews below are published on terms that make them worth reading: the customer's own words, unedited, from Google rather than from a form on this site, with the build type named so you can tell whether the work resembles yours. The standard each one had to meet is set out further down, and it is the same standard applied to work on the Projects page and to photography in the Gallery.
The genuinely useful part of this page is not the praise. It is the six checks below, which let you assess any contractor — including this one — without trusting a website at all.
What clients say
Client reviews
“Arco transformed our tired backyard into a travertine pool deck we never want to leave. The crew was punctual, spotless, and the pricing was exactly what they quoted.”
“Our new paver driveway completely changed the curb appeal of the house. Every neighbor has asked who did it. True craftsmen from start to finish.”
“From the first consultation to the final walkthrough, everything was transparent and professional. The outdoor kitchen is now the heart of our home.”
How we publish
What is on this page, and what deliberately is not
Stated plainly, so you can hold the rest of this website to the same line.
The reviews are reproduced, not paraphrased
Each quote above is the customer's own wording. Nothing has been tightened, no adjective has been added, and nothing critical has been trimmed out of one to make it read better. A review edited into something stronger is no longer that person's review.
This page carries no review structured data, and that is on purpose
You will find no Review or aggregateRating markup in this page's source. That is not an oversight. Google does not permit a business to mark up reviews about itself on its own site for rich results — self-serving review markup has been ineligible for LocalBusiness since 2019. Emitting it anyway would be a policy breach dressed up as an optimisation, so the reviews here are presented as ordinary readable text and the stars you see are a picture, not a claim to a search engine.
Where the rating comes from
The score and the review count shown above are the figures from our Google Business Profile, not a number calculated on this site. If you want to read the reviews at source rather than as we have reproduced them — which is the right instinct — ask us for the profile link and we will send it. It is not published here yet, and linking to a guessed-at search result would be worse than linking to nothing: it is exactly how visitors end up reading about the wrong business.
What we will never do to get one
No discount, rebate, gift card or anything else is ever offered in exchange for a review, and leaving one is never a condition of scheduling, a warranty or a final walkthrough. If a review is critical it stays exactly as written, because a page of unbroken praise tells a reader only that the critical ones were filtered out.
The standard
What a review has to carry before it appears here
Published now, while there is nothing to be tempted into bending it for. Every card that ever appears on this page can be checked against it.
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The customer's own words
Unedited. Not tightened, not trimmed of hesitation, not rewritten into a stronger claim than the person made. If it needs a cut for length, the cut is marked.
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Real attribution
A first name and last initial belonging to an actual customer, used with permission. No composites, no invented names, no "a homeowner in Weston".
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City, at the agreed level
The customer decides how much identifies them, and can decline the city entirely. No street, no household-identifying date.
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The build type
What the work actually was, so you can judge whether the review describes a project resembling yours. A driveway review is weak evidence about an outdoor kitchen.
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The source, linked
Which platform it was left on, and a link to it where one exists, so you can read it where we cannot edit it. A quote we transcribe ourselves is worth less than one you can open.
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The critical ones too
If a customer leaves a mixed or negative review, it stays as written. A page of unbroken praise tells a reader only that the filtering worked.
The rating comes last, not first
An average is a claim about a body of reviews. It gets published when there is a body of reviews to average, it gets calculated from the ones shown, and it moves when they do. A score printed above an empty page is not a summary of anything.
Due diligence
Six checks that beat any testimonial
All of them independent of this website, which is the point of listing them on it.
Verify the licence
Ours is CBC1269393. Florida licences are searchable through the state's Department of Business and Professional Regulation. It takes about a minute to confirm a number, its status, and who holds it.
Get the insurance certificate from the insurer
Not as a forwarded image. Check the dates cover your project and that the coverage matches the work. A certificate is easy to request and hard to fake at source.
Telephone the references
Ask any contractor for customers you can call, then call them. Ask what went wrong and how it was handled — every project of size has a moment, and the answer to that question is the whole review.
Walk a job in progress
A finished project shows you the taste. An open excavation shows you the base, the compaction, the drainage and how a crew keeps a site — which is what you are actually paying for.
Read the proposal for scope
Two quotes that differ by thousands usually differ by base depth, excavation, drainage or edge restraint — the paver installation page sets out what those layers actually do. The number on the front page is a summary of the specification behind it, and the specification is the part you are actually choosing between.
Read the one-star reviews first
Wherever you find them, for any contractor. Five-star reviews tell you what went right on an easy job. The low ones tell you what happens when something goes wrong, which is the information you are really buying.
On our Google profile
We hold no Google Business Profile URL to publish here, so this page links to none. Guessing at a search result and calling it our profile is how visitors end up reading about a different business with a similar name. Call or email and you will get the real link, or a straight answer that the profile is not set up yet.
If you are a customer
How we will ask, and what we will never do
| Practice | Us |
|---|---|
| Ask once, after the work is finished and you have lived with it | Yes |
| Publish exactly what you wrote, including the critical parts | Yes |
| Let you decline, with no effect on anything | Yes |
| Let you set how much identifies you, or withdraw later | Yes |
| Offer a discount, rebate or gift in exchange for a review | Never |
| Make a review a condition of anything — scheduling, warranty, final walkthrough | Never |
| Draft it for you, or edit your words into a stronger claim | Never |
| Filter out, bury or respond combatively to a critical review | Never |
More about how we work is on the about page, and the markets we build in are listed under service areas. Incentivised reviews are not a grey area in the United States — the Federal Trade Commission's endorsement rules treat an undisclosed incentive as deceptive, and the platforms remove them. We would rather have fewer reviews that survive scrutiny.
Before you enquire
Questions about this page in particular
Are these reviews real, and can I check them?
They are Google reviews left by customers, reproduced here in their own words. You should not have to take that on trust, though: ask us for our Google Business Profile link and read them at source. That is the right instinct with any contractor, because a quote on a company’s own website costs nothing to produce. It is also why this page gives you six things you can check independently.
Where does the star rating come from?
From our Google Business Profile — it is Google’s arithmetic over the reviews left there, not a figure calculated on this website. A rating is a claim about a body of reviews, so it only means anything if you can go and look at them. If you find a number anywhere on this site that is not backed by something you can check, treat it as an error and tell us.
Can I see your Google Business Profile?
Ask us and we will send you the link. The profile is where the reviews above were left, but its URL is not recorded in this project yet, and linking to a search result we had guessed at would be worse than linking to nothing — it is how visitors end up reading about the wrong business. Call or email and you will get the real address.
How should I check a contractor properly?
Verify the licence number, CBC1269393, through the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation — it is also on the about page with the rest of our contact detail. Request the certificate of insurance from the insurer rather than as a forwarded image. Ask for references you can telephone and for a job in progress you can walk. Then read the proposal for scope rather than price — two quotes that differ by thousands usually differ by base depth, excavation or drainage.
Will you ask me for a review?
We may ask, once, after the work is finished and you have lived with it. What we will not do is offer a discount, a rebate or anything else in exchange for one, make it a condition of anything, write it for you, or edit what you say into something stronger. If the review is critical it stays as written, because a page of unbroken praise tells a reader only that the critical ones were filtered.
What will a published review here actually contain?
The customer's own words, unedited. A real first name and last initial. The city, at the level the customer agreed to. The build type, so you can tell whether the review is about work resembling yours. The platform it came from and a link to it where one exists, so you can read it at source rather than taking our transcription on trust. Anything we cannot attribute does not go up.
Judge us on the proposal, not the praise
Ask for the licence, the insurance certificate, references you can call and a scope written in specifics. Then compare it against whatever else is on your table.