Original State Restoration

This is a mixed bag so I will break it down into the 2 phase. Phase 1: water damage clean up. Phase 2: repair and restore. Because I had a mixed bag, grading was tough. Professionalism, punctuality, Quality was all based on phase 1. Responsiveness and Overall was based on Phase 1 and 2 I was connected with them after having a water leak with water damage (My insurance hires company CB who hires Original State). The first phase of the clean up was great. I had a primary connect of Robert for which I had his cell and communicated mostly by texting. He was very prompt to scheduled times, through, communicated well, and was extremely happy with the clean up. Since it was through insurance, I can not speak to cost / value. I could not recommend them higher for this phase of the project. When entering Phase 2: restoration, I read the only other review on them and grew a little concerned. However, since phase 1 went perfectly, I believed they may have been off their game or over burdened and my experience would be different. After given them the job, my experience changed drastically. I advised them I had already been paid by my insurance and I would be paying them to work. The communication drastically decreased. I was not able to obtain a start date for the job despite multiple weeks and texts. The delays were unexplained. After talking to company CB who contracted them, they also told me Original state had also decreased their communications to them and could not get Original State to communicate well with them. Based on the prior reviews and my change in experience, I change my agreement to hire them for phase 2 and will being going with a different company.

First the good part: the night of the sewer back up, they were at our neighbors house and accommodated us in coming over and cleaning out our basement too. The guys were great that night and very, very helpful. Even in the following week, the clean up and demolition service was great. If that was all there was to this story, they would have an A rating. But I had a newly pregnant wife and a fully finished basement on a house we were intending to put on the market that summer. I was told that we could restore the basement in 6 weeks. Having zero experience with this, or even knowing what qualifying questions to ask, I took this at face value and arranged other important life decisions one makes when your wife is pregnant with your first child around this timeline. It became apparent soon enough that this time line wasn't going to happen, so I asked for a project plan, with a timeline, milestones, etc. When I would get a response, it was days later, never complete, and made me feel as though I was being unreasonable. I never actually got a complete project plan, just piecemeal information here and there. I should have bailed at the beginning, but I felt a loyalty because of how good they were that first week during the clean out. I could go into more detail, because it ended up taking 6 months to complete (I will admit that some of that was due to decisions we willingly made) but the consistent themes throughout was that there was no project management going on, there was an overall feeling of distain for the customer, and the subcontractors they used were equally as poor quality. The total project ended up totaling in the $60-70,000 range. It wasn't the price I minded, it was a high-end job, and we knew it. And in the end, the final result was one we were happy with. I attribute the final result to (1) us insisting on using other vendors than their partners for our finishes and (2) the great 'finishing' craftsman who stayed at our house for weeks on end. However, the issue with this company was that the project management and communications along the way were terrible. Recently I had 3 friends experience basement flood damage. Mind you, their homes didn't have the finished basements like ours did, so for the clean up work, I told them about Original State. 2 of them told me that when they told them they'd been referred by us, that Original State mocked us as being 'notorious' and 'vain'. Classy move, mocking a referral. Sorry for having standards. Either way, you're welcome for the referral, I won't make the same mistake again. And neither will they--because, guess what? ALL THREE of them have had the same experience of poor communication, lack of project management and professionalism. I guess all of us are just unreasonable for caring about our largest investment, our young families, and hoping that a company we're paying to be responsive and professional.