Groundworks

The work crew didn't cover some of the appliances in the basement to prevent dust from getting onto and into them. They finished the job and the next morning I found half the basement flooded because they had let silt or gravel stop up the drainpipe and the sump pump was working constantly. (Addendum: A plumber from another company discovered that the blockage was caused by hardened spray foam which FSM had squirted into the system to repair damage they had done and did not disclose. See below).They cleaned out the stoppage with a rake handle and hosed it out. I spoke to a plumber from another company afterwards and he pointed out that using small gravel to cover the perimeter pipe can cause the stoppage in the main pipe. Also he pointed out that using the grey softer drain pipe may be a mistake because it can collapse under pressure--as contrasted with the hard pipe other systems use. In addition, the salesman who arranged the job convinced me to buy a battery back-up for the sump pump. They ripped out a two-month old sump pump I had had installed recently and put in their sump and battery system. The plumber I talked to later told me that the battery back-up has only 4 hours of running time, so, if there is a loss of electric power that last two or more days, I'm in trouble. There is a water-pressure-powered system that is preferable. All in all, I feel I paid to much for an inadequate result. I'd never recommend this company and I don't understand why the WJR home repair program promotes it, except that they are a sponsor. Addendum: Since I wrote the original report I discovered sewer gas leaking into my basement. Nelson Brothers Plumbing, whom I trust, opened the floor and discovered that FSM had broken a drain pipe, sloppily sprayed foam in the opening to try to repair it, but left a hole for sewer gas to leak into the house, then covered up their mistake with concrete. Also, FSM connected the drain system to the main drain without sealing the connection, so there was a second place for gas to leak into the house. I had the owner of Nelson Brothers call FSM to report what was discovered and he indicated that the FSM representative understood what he was saying and indicated that the person responsible was fired, but when I called and asked for at least a partial refund, this same person only offered $200 and said he had no way of knowing who did the damage (suggesting that I and Nelson Brothers were lying). This is BP-scale avoidance of responsibility. I wouldn't wish this kind of nightmare on anyone. Don't hire this company.

The initial meeting with the Sales Rep (Steve) went very well. He was very friendly, knowledgable, and explained the whole process. After meeting with two other contractors, we felt most comfortable with Steve and FSM. Their pricing was middle of the road, and their wall anchor system was more robust than their competitors. The day before the scheduled installation, the office called to confirm the installers would be at our house around noon as they had a job to finish up in the morning. They would be complete by 5pm. You can imagine our surprise when the installers were knocking on our door at 8am! Things did not get off to a great start. During the initial meeting, we were told that the crews would protect our stairway carpeting and make sure to clean up after themselves. The crew did not have the carpet protectors on the truck as promised. Luckily I had some paint tarps that I draped on the carpeting to protect it. The foreman layed out the anchor placement, and the crew began digging the corresponding holes in the yard. The foreman left the three remaining crew members and we did not see him again. The three remainign crew had been hand digging holes for several hours when the owner (Bob) showed up. Bob noticed the foreman had layed out the anchors incorrectly. This wasn't a big deal to us, as no work had been done inside the house yet, but it meant that the holes the crew had been digging for the past several hours were in the wrong locations. The crew began to dig more holes in the corrected locations. None of the crew appeared to bring lunch with them, and the foreman had left with the truck, so feeling bad we fed the crew lunch. As the afternoon wore on, we began to worry they might not finish on time. More crews were brough in to help dig, and the owner came back to assist. The job FINALLY wrapped up around 6pm. They were obviously hindered by the foreman goofing up the initial layout, and the lack of excavation machinery. At one point, they had a mini-excavator on a trailer in front of our house. I asked the owner why not use it to speed things along and he said it would destroy my lawn. I wanted to tell him that my lawn WAS ALREADY destroyed from having 9 guys trampling it and throwing the excavated spoils all over. During the initial meeting, we were told the crew would carefully cut out the existing sod and return the yard to its original condition after completion. Not the case at all. I was left with a trench about 4' wide and 25' long. The soil was mounded up over the trench and they placed the tiny pieces of sod back on top. It looked rediculous! I had to re-sod the entire area. After work was completed, we noticed some scratches and grease splatter on our washing machine. This was irritating because we specifically asked if we should move it out of their way. Further, the stairway walls to the basement were scuffed up requiring me to re-paint.

Over all I feel that they did fair work but didn't live up to much of their sales persons promises. They came to put in one system and found the basement needed a lesser and cheaper system. However, this conclusion wasn't reached until they had tore out the bottom 28" of drywall all the way around our basement and then tore into the footings with jackhammers for a few hours. They didn't do any testing or probing to figure out what I'd needed until making a mess that cost me another $1500 to have another contractor repair. The sump pump piping then came apart and broke off my wall the first time it rained because it was improperly installed. When I followed up with them based on their promise that customer service was their number one priority they sent me up the chain of command having me make 4 phone calls to 4 people. I was then told the boss would call, this was over 2 months ago and still no call. My biggest problem is that we paid for a patented and warrantied drain system which at $5800 quote was not unreasonable. We got something any contractor with some quickcrete and a jackhammer could of done for 1/2 the price and it wasn't even done well. They did knock $1000 off the price initially but that didn't even cover the cost of the repairs to their mistakes rather than justify the lesser material costs that they had. Then the VERY POOR customer service follow up was just disappointing. EDIT 06 JULY 2010: Initial repair did not go as planned; it didn't go very well but once they were aware of the issues, they went out of their way to make everything okay. The final cost was higher than the original estimate, but it was lower than what would've been quoted if they knew exactly what was going on. There were 12 inches of rain accumulated during one night and my basement was dry.