Silver Creek Engineering Inc

In the process of selling our home, the inspection report indicated further investigation by a licensed structural engineer in which we called on Silver Creek Engineering to assist in this matter. My husband tried to set up an appointment with Mr. Scott Szentes, who finally agreed to stop by our house which was on his way home from work. Mr. Szentes was on our property for 45 minutes, and most of the time was unnecessary as the evaluation was complete within the first 15-20 minutes. We then receive a bill for 2 Hours, ($150) of which we agreed to pay $75 (already too much) and Silver Creek was unwilling to reconsider their costs based on actual time spent onsite without sending us to collections. We believe this organization is one of a "Typical Engineer" willing to take advantage of their ability to write small print on their contracts and squeeze every nickel out of you without offering any reasonability... even over just $75. Moreover, we did not even receive any form of written response from the "Evaluation" so the effort turned out to be a complete waste of time and money.

Steve Kessinger (Owner) was out for 48 min. He arrived at 0900 for the appointment and left at 0948. Silver Creeks agreement is 165/hr including all local drive time, drafting etc. Not to exceed 795.00. I AM BEING BILLED FOR THE MAXIMUM TIME. At best 2 hrs went into looking at the foundation including drive time, printing the 6 photos he took while at the home. When I called to dispute these charges David who setup the appointment tried to explain in a circle the price... there was even a 135.00 charge for him to write down the address and set the appointment.... I guess if you offer work to them they start billing you immediately. Terrible experience, I hope companies that operate like this close their doors.

They came out, did the evaluation of the work and suggested the fixes. They gave us names of the people that we can use to fix it. They were good, on time and followed up on all our questions.

I received excellent service. Matt performed a very thorough inspection and explained his initial impressions with me before leaving my property. Prior to his report being finalized, I emailed him additional photos of structual changes that happened within days after his inspection, and he evaluated these photos and responded back to me via email. He also reviewed the home construction plans which I mailed to him after his inspection as they were not available that day. He obviously spent alot of time and effort considering the various data when formulating his final report. He provided an extensive list of recommendations. This was a very stressful event and time for me given I had recently purchased the home and the structural problems developed over days. I had alot of questions and concerns and Matt took the time to address all of them thoroughly.

The company representative gave me a verbal analysis of his recommended solutions and followed up with a detailed report sent to me in the mail. It was very helpful in helping me to make a decision as to what course of action to follow.

I found the company through Angie's list. I called in and explained our needs. I was able to talk and consult with Scott at my convenient time (after normal working hours on Friday) with a short notice. I felt sorry about that while the people were really nice. Before the appointment I sent a list of questions to Scott of our concerns about the issue. During the one hour consultation, Scott was very well prepared about every question we have and gave a very detailed and clear technical explanation with a lot of patience. He printed out some graphs and drew some by himself to help me understand the whole construction process. I left the office knowing exactly what we need to do. It's not a big money business for them at all. But they provide the best service and expertise I can imagine.

Did a good job.

We live on two and a half acres, and recently connected to city water. When we were interviewing plumbers, they agreed that the diameter of our water pipe needed to be larger than was typical because of the distance from the main to our house. But how big? They didn't know, but were happy to guess, saying things like 'Twice as big should do it.' I was not happy with this, because if they guessed wrong, we would have poor showers for a long time. We ended up calling Purdue and talking to an engineer who calculated the correctly-sized pipe, which we then had installed. Our water pressure is great! Now we are on to the next phase of our renovation, and wanted to talk to someone who could advise us on the structural aspects of the renovation. I didn't want someone who would just guess, I wanted someone who KNOWS. Steve knows his stuff. He didn't just give advice, he justified what he said. I am glad I hired him and feel more confident about progressing with the renovation.

My home inspector recommended that I consult with a structural engineer about a property that I am considering to purchase. Steven Kessinger met myself and the home inspector at the property for an evaluation. Mr. Kessinger was very insightful into the construction of the basement and described the bowed brick wall was not an actively moving area and was possibly related to some additional work that was performed 20-30 years after the structure was built. He first went into the basement and crawlspace. He later looked at the whole house and walked around the perimeter of the outside of the building. He evaluated the angles of the various corners of the building. It was probably not a big job, but he treated it with very professional attitude and I felt as though I had a good analysis of the situation.

They were very informative. He went beyond the call of duty to evaluate the situation. He was a nice guy. His recommendation was that the dip in my garage door header was not significant enough to warrant spending $5000 to fix. He said a lot of garages' have the same problem.

Was polite, easy to understand. $150 per hour (including his travel time & the time it took to prepare a written summary with problem & what was needed to fix & pictures of problem.) Per hour charge included taking me back down in crawl space to show me problems per my request -- so he was here a little longer than he would have been.

STEVE WAS ACCOMODATING ON THE APPOINTMENT TIME, ON TIME, PROFESSIONAL & POLITE. HE EDUCATED US ON THE WATER TABLE ISSUE [HISTORICALLY, CURRENT], & SOME STEPS TO CHECK. IN ADDITION WE DISCUSSED THE HOME IN THE CONTEXT OF ITS AGE, STYLE, ETC. STEVE HAS AN UNDERSTANDING AND APPRECIATION OF THE AREA, OLDER HOME, WITH A LOOK AT A LIFE TODAY. HIGHLY RECOMMEND HIM.

I TALKED TO STEVE KESSINGER WHO WAS HONEST ENOUGH TO TELL ME THAT I DIDN'T NEED TO START WITH A STRUCTURAL ENGINEER. HE TOOK A LOT OF TIME TO EXPLAIN THINGS TO ME. HE WAS THE FIRST STRUCTURAL ENGINEER I TALKED WITH WHO GAVE ME SOME GOOD ADVICE IN WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A CONTRACTOR FOR MY NEEDS.

unknown

VERY HELPFUL. I WOULD CERTAINLY USE THIS COMPANY IN THE FUTURE.

THEY CAME OUT PROMPTLY, AS SCHEDULED, AND PERFORMED THEIR EVALUATION. THEY ALSO DISCUSSED WITH ME AT THAT TIME SOME OF THE IDEAS, BUT SAID THEY WOULD HAVE TO CONSIDER THE PROBLEM MORE, BACK AT THE OFFICE. SO FAR, SO GOOD, BUT THE REPORT NEVER WAS SENT. I THOUGHT I WOULD WAIT A LITTLE LONGER, AND THEN FORGOT ABOUT THEM. THEN TWO MONTHS AFTER I EXPECTED TO RECEIVE THE REPORT IT ARRIVED BY MAIL WITH THE INVOICE. I HAD ALREADY DECIDED WHAT TO DO BY THAT TIME AND THE REPORT WAS NOT REALLY NEEDED. I TRIED TO CONTACT THEM ONCE TO DISCUSS THIS AS I WAS WILLING TO PAY FOR THE HOUR THEY SPENT DOING THE AT HOME EVALUATION, BUT FELT I SHOULD NOT PAY FOR A REPORT THAT WAS 2 MONTHS LATE. THEY NEVER RETURNED MY CALL.

I CALLED THEM MULTIPLE TIMES. THEY NEVER CALLED BACK.

unknown

LOOKED AT OUTDOOR STRUCTURE.