ESA INC

Tom was very responsive to our inquiries, called when he was on his way and apologized for just being a few minutes late. He was easy to reach on his cell and was reachable by e-mail readily (which we really appreciated). The company has been highly rated and recommended to us by some of the environmental testing groups we talked with. Fortunately for us, we'd done a lot of research, had a few estimates under our belts, and weren't to be swayed by the moderately high-pressure approach we met with in the estimator. We told him clearly the areas we wanted abated and he ignored our requests, instead saying he was going to estimate only the cost of removing every wall and ceiling in the house. We told him we were aware of the dangers and intent on doing things safely, but tearing down the house to the studs was an unnecessary cost and inconvenience. He sent an estimate that was $10,000 more than the the next highest estimate. We couldn't afford to pay $21,000 for the service and couldn't afford to put in brand new walls when they were completed. It would have been cheaper to buy a new house or build one, at that point. We asked Tom to amend the estimate just to cover one area of particular concern and he seemed reluctant and said it would still cost us $15,500 (obviously trying to make the initial estimate seem more reasonable). The amount was, again, $10,000 more than the next highest estimate. And, it's not as if the other companies around have to mitigate the environmental hazards to a lesser degree. ESA would have to meet the same air quality standards as every one else and would apparently just gouge us like crazy in the process. Again, we appreciated the estimator's time and consideration. But, his approach was a bit "steamroller-y" and had we known less about abatement than we do, I think we could have been scared and pressured to follow his advice, advice which didn't take our concerns into consideration.