I recently had Mid Atlantic come to my house for an estimate. I live
in Westchester county NY, north east of Manhattan. I have a typical 4
bedroom two story colonial house, 40 yrs old, on top of a large hill,
good drainage, etc. The basement is cinder block, and shows some signs
of efflorescense on all walls about 6-10in from the floor up. One wall
in particular will leak water onto the floor after a heavy ground
soaking rain for many days. Normally the basement is dry, but some
moisture is present in the spring-summer time.
So I was at a home show recently and accepted their free, no hassle in
home inspection. I am an engineer by trade and am fairly knowledgeable
concerning home improvements and projects.
I expected the sales pitch, but was curious.
I got the usual pre visit pitch where they insisted both home owners be
present ( ie my wife and I) other wise they would reschedule. So i
complied.
A gentlemen shows up, sits down in the kitchen and goes through a 3
inch binder of who they are, how great they are, where they have been
written up, etc. and the great companies they have done work for. One
interesting item I noticed was he kept bragging about how they wre
written up in Consumer Reports, the article he showed me was from 1974
! Also a bunch of pictures and fancy graphics about different
solutions.
OK, now the fun part begins, we go into the basement with a flashlight,
and he does a quick 1 minute inspection. Takes out a rubber mallet,
and starts hitting the walls and floors, and each time he gets a slight
hollow sound, he would go " wow, hear that? thats a big water gap that
has created a huge hole in the ground". Then he wants to walk outside.
Now, its 8 PM at night, dark, several inches of snow on the ground,
and I have a deer fence around the perimeter of my house for the
winter. He looks quickly and says "Now I see the problem! Lets go
inside, I have just the solution for you."
So i get the standard pitch about the large drainage ditch that must be
dug and two sump pumps, etc. the custom pipe, etc.
Tallies up a price of $20,000 for 165 linear feet. Before I could
throw him out, he notices that I am not going to shell out 20 grand,
comes up with the best story yet. " I have a crew of guys that are
stuck now at a large site, and they dont have work for the next two
weeks, and let me make a call to see what I can do on the price." He
makes a call to someone, seemed like a great acting job to me, and
whamo, drops the price to $14,800 with a free $1000 pump!
I have since hired an engineer, and states my problem is nothing more
than the ouside needing to be re-graded and re route the drainage
pipes.
I also had another company in today, similar pitch, but more honest,
and a price of $6500 for the same basic job.
I found way too many complaints on the internet concerning these guys.
Be careful, and I hope this helps someone in the future.