Universal Insulation Inc.

The company was prompt, courteous, and totally professional. The initial evaluation indicated that we do not need to upgrade the walls, only the ceiling. It turns out that my neighbor, whose house is very similar to ours, had his done by a different company just a few months before, and his cost was significantly higher than mine. I am very happy with the transaction. The interesting aspect to this was that the estimator (Kevin) indicated we need to have a small access point cut into the wall. I asked him if his company does that work, and he said no, they do not. This told me that he is not interested in earning additional money by "add-on" costs, that he is strictly business.

They came out to my house and they said that because the house was so new, that it did not have any insulation problems. They said that they have a minimum amount of money spent per job and they said that it would not even worth it. They did not do the evaluation or inspection.

The job could not have gone better. From the bid to the completion of the job they where very professional. The job was completed exactly on the amount bid. They finished the job and fully cleaned the area leaving no typical post contractor mess. A class company that I highly recommend.

Overall, I picked them because they had great rating from people on Angie's List. They followed through and did what they were suppose to do and we were very happy with the results.

I called the company and got a very prompt response for an estimate. Kevin came to my house 2 days later and looked at my job and spent time educating me about insulation. I called for an appointment several days later. I called on a Wednesday and they were able to give me an appt. for the following Monday. Three workers arrived at my house on time. They were very friendly and answered questions I had before starting work. They were very neat, protecting my carpet with tarps. The work was done in a very efficient and timely manor. PGand E offers a rebate on this work which Kevin was very familiar with and could explain. I would definitely hire this company again.

They were timely, they did what they said they would do.

They were on time and very good at what they did. They cleaned up after themselves when they were done. They did what they said they would do and it actually ended up costing less than they estimated to complete the work. They did an excellent job! I would use them again.

Most of the job went ok. One wall is very shallow due to the fact a medicine cabinet is embedded into the wall from the inside. When the workers arrived, I showed each of the two workers the medicine cabinet area separately, and pointed out that they should not drill in the vicinity because it would be too easy to drill through the back of the medicine cabinet. The cabinet is located less than two feet from the bathroom window, and is easy to locate with simple measurements. The workers drilled through the medicine cabinet, and blew cellulose into the bathroom and kitchen. I called the owner and told them what happened. They sent over a so-called foreman to clean up. The foreman spent about 30 minutes doing a shoddy clean up job which took me an additional 1.5 hours to clean up after. Not only did they demonstrate poor workmanship, but a lousy professional attitude. The owner tried to compensate me with a measly $50.

Kevin came to my house and looked in the attic over my garage and saw the vaulted ceiling in my living room. He said that he didn't think there was much he could do for me since I already have insulation in my attic and there's no way to put more between the roof and the vaulted ceiling. He advised me on getting a ceiling fan that will blow the hot air back down to the living area since my ceilings are over 20 ft. high. He was really nice and gave me a lot of good advice on how I can install more fiberglass insulation batts up in different parts of my house. He said that his minimum price is $600 and he thought that my house didn't have enough work to do that would warrant $600. How often do you hear something as honest as that? I'm glad I called this company. ($600)

The installation went very well. They started at 8 a.m and were gone by 3 p.m. That very night we noticed our heater turning on about 1/4 of the time that it used to. The house is also much quieter. I'm just sad that we didn't get this done sooner! Kevin and his crew were great, we highly recommend them.

I had to call them a couple times to send the bill for my rebate.

The work went smoothly and the company cleaned up with a few comments from me on finishing up with cleaning the driveway or areas around the house. They accepted this agreeably. When it became clear that several areas had already been insulated during a previous renovation, they reduced the price to match the amount of work that had been done. In the beginning of the process,the estimator gave me a sheet of information about getting rebates from PGand E. It was outdated and therefore confusing, but information on the PGand E website cleared it up.

Everything went very well. They came right out to evaluate our house and made good suggestions about what we needed and didn't need. We scheduled the work for Dec. 26th. They were right on time that morning and did the work in a very professional manner. We were completely pleased with the work. Since then, there has been a noticeable difference in the warmth of our house.

The company squeezed our appt for estimate in the same day I called, very responsive. Kevin came to the house to discuss the project (insulating the walls in our master bedroom). Before going much further, he wanted to confirm whether or not the walls currently were insulated (we had thought not). Surprise, in fact, they already had fiberglass insulation in them. Unfortunately, the cellulose insulation is better for soundproofing, but there's no point in filling the wall with cellulose when it already has fiberglass inside. A person of lesser integrity could have gone ahead with the job anyway, but Kevin didn't, and saved us a bunch of wasted money as a result. So, even though he didn't end up doing work for us, I wanted to post this comment to communicate his level of integrity, which was impressive.

The representative came on the time and date promised, answered all our questions, checked the condition of our original insulation. He gave us useful information about the relative importance of insulation in attic, walls and below floor and gave us a definite price. The job was done on time and as promised and the price was as originally stated.

Universal Insulation's rep, Kevin, came to give us an estimate for insulating some of the original walls of our home that had never been insulated. Kevin was at our door at exactly the time he said he would be. He was very helpful and knowledgeable and we set a date to have the work done the next week. We changed the date for the work as my husband had a few more questions. He made an appointment to go to Universal's office and talk to Kevin and rescheduled the work date. The work went quickly and the men answered any questions we had.

They gave us an estimate soon after I called. The representative was on time and friendly. He gave me information about the insulation, measured our house, and also gave me information on the PGand E rebate. When they came to our house to do the work, they did the job quickly and well. We noticed a considerable reduction on our heating bills, and our house was cooler this summer. I would recommend their services. The original estimate was higher than the actual amount we paid because part of our house had been insulated already - they weren't able to determine this ahead of time.

Representative came out and gave us a written estimate. He was very honest about not needing the (blown-in) insulation in the garage and on one exterior wall that already had insulation from a remodel. We appreciated his honesty and the fact that he wasn't "hard-selling" us. Said to take our time and call the office if/when we were ready to schedule, explaining the procedure and how long it would take. The workers arrived on time and everything went smoothly - drilling holes, blowing the insulation and patching the holes - EXCEPT the workers drilled through an interior wall in the kitchen and the insulation blew into the house. It was quite a powdery mess. The workers made a brief attempt to clean it up, but ultimately left us with a hefty mess to clean up. Fortunately, the insulation has made a noticeable difference - our home doesn't feel drafty anymore and we don't need to use the heater/AC as often.

However, sometimes when he placed a hole, it would hit the frame inside and it becomes a false hole. So he had to place a hole next to that. Of the total 200 holes placed, 20+ were false holes, which is a 10+% error. I feel that SOME OR ALL of those false holes could have been avoided. The workers weren't paying attention to the windows or any any special framing for the internal walls. If he had used STUD finder, may be some of these false ones could have been avoided. I hate to see them put false holes right into the frames. Also the other guy was not paying attention to the pipe on the exterior wall. When I showed Kevin the hole which hit the pipe, his response was their work is 100% insured. Who wants to deal with a broken pipe and fixing that. Also the second guy was spitting all over the place around the house. They should be professional, careful and knowledgeable with their work. I wouldn't call them again or recommend them to my neighbors and friends.

The estimator was on time, very knowledgeable, relaxed, and top notch. Price usually isn't my most important criteria, but it happened that they were best by 20 percent. Scheduling was fine, crew showed up on time, had slight trouble with equipment, kept me in the loop while they worked to fix it, and did a good job. Cleaned up fine. Small issue with my 220v electrical, but they asked me to withhold payment until they sent an electrician out the next morning. Everything fixed and working normal now.

Estimator was professional, prompt, and courteous. Scheduling was fairly quick. Crew was equally professional, prompt, and courteous. The only negative was the number of holes that were punched into the exterior of our home. From the estimator, I expected fewer holes than we got. My husband was displeased because he now needs to paint and didn't expect so many. He feels he needs to re-paint the entire house. So if you are going to have this done, just be prepared for many, many (patched) holes on the outside of the home. It was definitely worth doing from my perspective because the heat does not penetrate the house from the outside the way it used to. I noticed an immediate difference and I think the cost is totally worth the benefit received (plus rebate covers an additional $400+, so it's really less than $2000).

We had Universal come over to provide us with an estimate for blown-in insulation for exterior walls. The crew was very punctual and professional. Most of the insulation could be installed from the exterior, although they had to fill in two sections of the walls from the interior due to ornamental brick on the exterior. The crew laid down drop cloths and cleaned up after they completed the work.

Universal was prompt to give us a bid (which was approximately the same amount as other bids I obtained). Universal was the only company that would use netting to secure the insulation to the bottom of the existing subfloor, which is the method of attaching the insulation that I was looking for. The job took 1 full day with 2 guys working. All employees were courteous. They were on time and were able to meet the schedule that worked for us.

Excellent work. The work was completed as per schedule. The work crew cleaned up nicely. It had been necessary to access the power panel to get 220v power. When the workmen left a connection was intermittently loose. I called the company, and early the next morning a workman came and fixed the problem.

Excellent experience with sales person, the actual work, and follow- up responsiveness of the company when there was a minor problem.