Thornton Construction Services/TCS

Called EXPRESS PLUMBING (same as TCS-Thornton) from newsprint ad before joining Angie's List; punctual arrival for estimate. Main water line between the meter and house had been leaking for 2 weeks, was under hardscape (cement walkway). The representative recommended installation of new copper line requiring cutting, jack hammering, and patching 35-feet of cement and trenching 30-feet of lawn. I requested a written estimate twice, was told that they prefer working directly with insurance company. Plus they would have to visit the job site again in order to provide the estimate. Seems they wanted my water restoration business inside the house because of high moisture readings more than the plumbing repair. I gave up on EXPRESS/TCS after 2 weeks with no water. Another company did the job w/o cutting ANY cement.

We had a slab leak in our living room and needed someone to stop the leak ASAP. We had a local yellow page directory of which we found the advertisement of TCS Express Plumbing. Unfortunately we were not a member of Angie's List at the time so we didn't have any real references for this company and didn't have the luxury of time to look for a reputable company. Lesson learned. We should have joined Angie's List, but that's hindsight now. They did respond fairly quickly to come in and shut off the water. The technician that came named Shawn was actually a nice guy and he was the one that deployed the dehumidifiers, fans etc. He lifted up the carpet, removed the padding and proceeded to dry the place up. He then assured us that they would handle dealing with the insurance company and that they had a lot of experience dealing with insurance companies. The next day they sent a plumbing crew of two to tap the leaky pipe at both ends and re-route the broken line which was in the slab through the walls and ceiling and reconnect it in the kitchen. They cut out so many holes in the drywall, which were very sloppy and re-routed a copper pipe through the walls. The pipe they replaced was routed poorly. Not straight, parts of the pipe were kinked and they damaged a shower drain pipe when they were soldering the pipe. I then received a call from the woman in the office, which I found out was the owners mother. She then lectured me for 15 minutes on how they would deal with the insurance company and keep us informed of everything that was happening. They only have an answering service. You cannot call directly to the office and speak with someone. This is very frustrating. It would take a day before we would get a call back. When asked if I could call the tech directly, she adamantly stated that all calls must go through the answering service. Every time you call the service they would ask for all the information, like address etc. I told them they already had the info, but still insisted we give it to them again. This woman tried to portray her company as high tech and that emails would be sent directly to an iPhone so they could respond quickly. WRONG. They never talked to the insurance company and instead would email me statements demanding payment. I had to deal with the insurance company myself. They offered no help. Come to find out, this is a very small company with only about 15 total employees, which is why it would take days to accomplish anything. They still have not come to patch the drywall (It is Sept 30 now) I have since had another company come to inspect the work because I was afraid that we would have another leak. They told us that the re-route was done poorly not to mention that so many holes in the drywall were not necessary to re-route. I would NOT recommend this company to anyone.

We came home from a 2.5 week vacation to find wet flooring upstairs. A hot water supply pipe had leaked while we were gone. I chose Express Plumbing (a division of Thornton Construction Company) from the Yellow Pages to come in to find the leak and repair it. The initial service for location of the leak and repair was satisfactory, and was about $500 of the total repair. The next step was for this flood remediation company was to dry out the areas affected by the leak. They brought in 16 pices of machinery, they were clean and put down plastic to protect unaffected areas of my home. The machines were loud and the company did not come back over the weekend for monitoring as they said they would. They cut holes in my walls where I did not think it necessary, and also they were going to cut holes in my ceiling, again, where I did not think it necessary. I stopped them from doing this. They did initially ask who my homeowners insurance company was, probably so they could assess how much they could charge. Having just returned from an international trip (tired, jetlagged, etc.), I accepted the offer of Thornton Construction Services to complete the repairs to my drywall and baseboards. This is where the quality of the work started slipping. The baseboard repair and drywall repair were OK, but way overpriced. TCS forgot to re-install some outer wall insulation that they removed. Oh well. The painters were nice, but not professional painters - i.e. needed to blue tape everything, and did a very poor job with coverage. They also put a bead of caulk over the blue tape (I assume to keep paint from seeping though?). I had never seen this practice, and certainly did not like the finished result. I am having my regular painters here to re-do some of TCS's work starting today, which is what reminded me to write this review on Angies list. My husband and I both did not want this company back in our home to fix what they didn't do right. The real nightmare came with the billing. It took hours of my time over an entire month to get TCS to give me an accurate bill. Their inital bill contained work and billing for things they never did in my home (to the tune of several thousand dollars). Perhaps they just thought I would pass it on to my insurance company so we could all pay through higher rates. Their office staff was rude and non-professional (hanging up on me). Plus, I couldn't ever get the owner to call me and talk with me. My husband tried also. TCS has an answering service, so you cannot call their office directly. They decide if, when to, and who shall call you back. If I had not been diligent in taking some pictures of the work, and had not had some knowlege of basics (like how to calculate square footage of areas), I would have been overcharged several thousand dollars. As it was, the repair costs of drywall repair, installing baseboard, and painting probably cost almost 2x as much as if I had hired a drywall/painter type of person. I will NEVER use this company again, and have also considered reporting them to the Better Business Bureau. I told TCS at one point that I would report them to the BBB and they told me, "We are not members." No surprise, eh? At the advice of a friend who works in insurance, I did let my insurance adjuster know that I felt I was being fradulently charged. Hopefully my insurance company can put these guys on a black list of do not use service providers. I also learned, after talking with friends, that I could have called a 24 hour service with my insurance company and asked for a recommended repairer when I discovered the leak/flood. That is definitely what I will do next time. I will also be even more thorough with my own documentation of pictures, plus having workers sign in and out (so I know the hours they are billing me are accurate). I chose this company out of the Yellow Pages, because I couldn't find anything under "Flood Repair" on Angies List. I didn't think to look under Water Damage. TCS's Yellow Pages ad said Family Owned & Operated since 1985. I thought I was getting a reputable company. I was wrong.