Olshan Foundation Repair

We had an excellent experience with Olshan. They installed two helical piers on a corner of our home that recently experienced some settling. They were the ONLY company of 4 that sent out an actual structural engineer (Marc S.). Their quote was the most competitive and seemed to make the most sense for what we needed to be done. It was low pressure and Marc was very patient with many subsequent questions. After we committed they asked for no money up front. I paid half when they started and half when the job was completed. It took 3 days and minimal disruption at the home. I worked from home during the entire process. Matt L. was the supervisor on site the entire installation and was very responsive and informative. They allowed me to inspect all the work very closely as the job progressed and answered any questions about the installation/repair process. I could not be happier with how the entire process went and would highly recommend Olshan for foundation work.

Writing this based on my current experience and will update as things go along. I Fist contacted Olshan almost 2 months ago because of ongoing problems with my foundation with cracking, movement, and water getting through to the basement. I called Olshan because they did the original repair and gave a fully transferable lifetime warranty. It was not for this I would never do business with them. Since then I have learned they are a horrible company to work with. Fist, their front office origination is horrible and they have no idea how to run a schedule. I had to call multiple times to make an appointment to have someone call and make an appointment. It takes them multiple days to call you back and when they do they give you one option for an appointment and if that doesn't work you have to schedule another phone call to make an appointment. From the fist phone call on, they have done nothing to try to help my situation or provide good customer service. Within the fist 2 minutes of the phone call with the company they already started denying that my current problems would be covered under my warranty and stated it only covered the sump pump even though the paperwork I have states nothing about excluding certain items. When I finally got someone over to the house to look at the problem it was just as bad. The engineer acted as though he was put out to be here and within the fist 5 minutes of being there started to deny that they would cover anything. He was purposefully misleading about the work they had done. He specifically told me that no anchors had been placed on a wall even though there was clearly anchors on that wall. He left as soon as he could and took no measurements or pictures as to the ongoing damage. After leaving he told me he would make contact within 2-3 days as to what the plan moving forward would be. After almost 2 weeks I had to call, leave messages and e-mails to get a response. When he finally did he stated that he wanted to get the GM involved and would need to come out and make another inspection. Humm maybe if you'd done it right the first time this wouldn't be an issue. Additionally I have been asking him for over two weeks now for the original paperwork, blueprints, and work permits so I can know exactly what work they actually did. He still has yet to provide these. Almost 2 months after the initial contact their has been no progress made and no plan moving forward to fix the issues. Hopefully they get better from here but as it stands stay far away from Olshan. If it wasn't for them doing the original work and warranty there is no way I would do business with them.

I went on Angie's List and I saw them there, and I wanted 3 different estimates so I got them to give me an estimate. The estimate was comparable to the other one. They were really friendly. The price was very high to me. I have lived in this house since 1964 and my floor is uneven and it has never bothered me. I had put wooden flooring in the house and they couldn't put it there because of the dent, and they put linolium. I want to sell the house, so my son told me to get estimates to even the floor, and so that is what I did, and then we decided to stay.

I will reassess the issues discussed with Marc and make a determination after I check out several options for me to consider that Marc discussed with me.

Our house was built in 1972 and had settled roughly 5" across 25' because of inadequate piering and soil drainage. Olshan installed 7 helical piers and cut 3 original builder piers. In my mind I imagined a completely level house when we were done but the reality is that remodeling over 40 years and window replacements meant to do so would cause significant damage and cost to the rest of the house and plumbing. The crew arrived on time, worked quickly and when it came time to lift the house, spent a fair amount of time working with me to find a good compromise in elevation that would not create additional headaches. In the end the foundation is now much closer to level and more importantly, stable. This was the most expensive bid I received but the work was done professionally and as agreed.

It took longest just to get someone to come out to inspect and prepare a plan/estimate. The crew that did the work started on time, was on the job early each day, kept me apprised of what was happening, and cleaned up and roped off the work area daily. They were finished even a day early, and left the property looking even better than when they started. You'd never know any digging had gone on. I am very pleased.

Overall, I learned from the tech about what might be going on with the foundation and what signs to keep an eye out for with respect to any movement in the future.

They were fabulous. I was very pleased with them. They left everything so clean, I didn't know they had been there. It took them one day to complete the work and everything has been fine since.

They spent a couple of hours doing their inspection. They didn't find any problems. They didn't charge us anything. They arrived on time. They were very professional.

After I called for an estimate, their engineer/salesperson arrived promptly and told me he would provide me an estimate in about a week. Not having received that in over three weeks, I emailed the company. They apologized and got me the estimate. They worked with me on how they could adjust their recommendations to suit my budget. Work crew arrived promptly as scheduled, figured out how to obtain/ remove materials through a window so as not to have to go through the house. Knowing the nature of the fine dust of the deteriorating concrete in this 100+ year old home, I expected a there would be dust in the house - there was. They did a great job on cleanup in the basement. It seemed to me the workers worked extremely hard in an unpleasant crowded space to get a great job done. Done in 2.5 days as promised. I am very happy with the work they did. Meantime, the original engineer/salesman had said he would provide me with some names of contractors who did tuck pointing as Olshan did not. In spite of reminders, a phone call, an email, I'm still waiting. Nice guy, but not so responsive. Workers made up for that.

I have an old bungalow that had cracks in the block foundation and moisture issues in the crawlspace. I called up Olshan to come take a look and get an estimate. It took 2 weeks to get a guy out to take a look. I told him right away that I wasn't interested in straightening the floors. You can't expect to have perfect floors in a house that old and mine really aren't bad. I just wanted a dryer crawlspace and to see if the cracks were an issue and get that fixed. When I showed him around he kept chuckling like he couldn't believe my house was still standing. He ended up taking an hour inspecting things and taking measurements with his leveling tool. Then he took another hour to create an engineering drawing of my house. My house is a rectangle. So in other words, it took him an hour to draw a rectangle. When he finished he told me that he measured the floors and concluded that the southeast corner of my house is sinking and needed to be reinforced with their really expensive cable lock system. This system included installing 15ft pillars all along the south foundation wall. When I told him it was out of my range, he made some disparaging remarks about my house like it was going to fall down if I don't get this done. I ended up getting some other quotes and it turns out that that wall doesn't even provide much structural support. Instead it's the beams that run the length of the house that provides the support.

It didn't go well. Salesman quickly made it seem that the problem was clearly the fault of the builder and It would be an easy case to get the builder to pay for any repairs. This statement came off as a sleasy salesman tactic to get my business. The salesman recommended an engineering firm to do the repair report; problem was I had previous poor experiences with their recommended engineering firm and when I asked for a second engineering firm recommendation, I never heard from Olshan again. I did contact an engineering firm recommended on Angies List and they prepared a professional repair report. This engineer said the proposed solution by the local Olshan salesman would never had worked with my soil. I feel lucky that I didn't use Olshan. They might be a great company for very small repairs but it seemed that my project was beyond what they normally do.

I attempted to call/email Olshan on two different occasions in the month of July for a quote to stabilize our chimney. We never received an email or phone call back. We will be going with another company for the work.

It was way out of range for us however so we didn't hire them. They seemed to be an ok company. I had no complaints with them. It was just more than we could do. He was even helpful in providing alternative solutions.

I had a flooding problem in the basement. Water would come through the floor. They brought big crew about five to six guys, including the supervisor which worked along side with them. Excavated, installed piping, and installed the sump pump. They finished the job within the day. They only problem was that they did not lay plastic when cutting the concrete. Dust got all over the house, in the furnace, and in the carpet. I had some one clean it up and Olshan paid for it. I was very impressed with the service. I am comforted that the basement no longer floods.

I was initially so impressed! The woman at the office was responsive and confirmed the appointment time to estimate by phone and e-mail but, the estimator failed to show up. The estimator himself called once to reschedule our meeting and then failed to show. I called the office and spoke with the receptionist again who was very apologetic and helped me leave a message for the estimator. I never heard back from him and called again. Again, the receptionist was apologetic and urged me to leave a message w/the general manager. I did so and never heard back from anyone again. Such a shame! I'd had high hopes considering the professionalism of the receptionist/scheduler and the e-mail appointment confirmations.

A request for estimate was scheduled & done within a week of initial call to Olshan. Even though the job was small they charged the minimum charge of $2,500. It took almost a month and several phone calls to actually get the work initiated. The 1st day the workmen were on site approximately 1.5 hours, long enough to get full payment of $2,500. We then had to call the supervisor twice to get them to come back about 10 days later. They finished the chemical application over a three day period and dug the hole to the piping. They said the hole and work on the piping was extra, but they wouldn't charge us for it. They said they had to let it dry before filling in the hole. We called the supervisor several times to ask him to finish the job. Finally after a call to the manager at Olshan they filled in the hole. I wrote the check on May 3 when the work was initiated and they completed the work on June 20.