NEAL'S CONSTRUCTION CO INC

It did not go well. 1. While our foundation was totally exposed we had a heavy rain. They had placed a pump "just in case" of rain, which quickly failed. Our basement was filled with two to three inches of mud. There was never a call to see if we were having any issues. This would have been bad enough to warrant a not good rating - but it only got worse. 2. When the mudjacking was complete, the dirt was just thrown back in the holes with no compacting done. Major settling in that area occurred for quite some time. 3. And now to the worst part - the egress window. From the very first rain following installation it leaked water into our newly redone basement (that we had waited many years to have the finances to complete). We were told we weren't keeping our gutters cleaned out and that we weren't maintaining positive drainage and that we should have connected that portion of the house to the drain tile that they had installed (but under their recommendation we had not connected the rest of the basement walls since we had never in the 55 years since the house had been built had an issue with any water leaks) and one excuse after another. When we expressed concern that the holes in the egress walls had not been closed up (the ones that would have connected with a drain tile system) we were told they "always" close those. Teresa finally came a dug down just to "show me" that they were closed - they were not. After they closed the holes the problem did not stop. We spent over $6000 on attorney fees trying to get a resolution. Almost every avenue we tried was ignored. We had city inspectors and other basement contractors involved, but we really wanted the solution to come from Neal Construction. It took close to two years for us to get action - digging out the egress, sealing the foundation wall, etc. - and so many hours of our time and so much mental energy. 4. Now on to the basement windows. Within six months of installation, the windows were starting to fail. A neighbor called us one day and asked if we knew our basement window was laying in the grass. We assumed he meant the screen - but the glass had actually fallen out! It was a 100 degree day and who knows how long we had been pouring cold air into the great outdoors. We tried and tried to get Teresa to respond to this too. Finally my husband took it upon himself to get the window manufacturer to send a representative out to look at the windows. Wouldn't you think your contractor would take care of that? So, we had to pay more money to get the windows re-installed - because Neal Construction contracts that out to an individual and so the installation wasn't covered in whatever they consider their "warranty". 5. After all our foundation work was complete they were supposed to bring in "topsoil" and grade around the house. We are still (4 years later) having chunks of brick and rocks come to the surface. This was not "topsoil" this was junk dirt from another project that was easy to move from one location to ours. But it reminds us frequently that a lower bid may not be the wisest one to accept. We have never had an issue with any other contractor that we have hired. We are not complainers and have done enought house remodeling on our own to know that things don't always turn out perfectly or go quite as planned. That is why we dealt with the mud ourselves and why we tried to bring things to a peaceful resolution. But, when a contractor does not take responsibility for the final product being what the consumer has paid for, then we have a problem. We tried to maintain professional dealings with Neal's Construction, but this was not returned with anything except excuses about them doing the work that we contracted them to do. When we were finally finishing the last of the repairs, Teresa did admit that she had "maybe taken on a little too much" at the time she was doing our basement work and that things hadn't been completed as well as they should have been. This was the closest we ever got to an apology or admission of inferior workmanship. This is the worst company we know about in Wichita. I hope we never have to write a similar review.

Excellent!-

We hired them for one full day's service. They came in with a full truck load of cement and the guy came in three hours earlier. When they finished the work, there was some cement left on the track. I called them to ask about that and the owner was very indignant and very rude. But, they didn't do a bad job of what they did.