Davie Shoring Inc

They leveled our house several years ago. I have called them 4 times to come out and check the foundation to make sure all is well before selling. It is under warranty. The first call they never responded to my message. The second call, Chelsea said she needed to talk to the boss and would call me back. She never did. The third call, Marie answered and saw Chelsea’s notes and admitted they dropped the ball. Marie scheduled an appointment to come out on 6/17 at noon. They no showed. When we called to check on it, Marie said she had notes but no record that an appointment was scheduled. I specifically spoke to her when we made that appointment. I am now reading other people’s reviews here and on the Better Business Bureau site that say they have had the same experience. THIS COMPANY ONLY RESPONDS IF YOU WANT TO SCHEDULE A BIG JOB WORTH LOTS OF MONEY. THEY DO NOT HONOR THEIR WARRANTY AND WILL NOT RESPOND TO APPOINTMENTS TO CHECK THEIR WORK.

Davie Shoring came to provide an estimate but wasn't interested in the job because I'm not removing 100-year old brick chimneys. They provided valuable opinions.

Over many years, the front wall of my home has settled to the point that the front door of the house contacts the floor at about the 45º open position. The Living Room floor, quite apparently, and to the naked eye, slopes downward at the front of the room. Using a 4’ level and a ruler, it is very easy to determine that the floor at the door opening is approximately 1¼” lower than the level part of the floor. Last August (2013), based upon Davie Shoring’s score on Angie’s List and its reputation, I contacted them to obtain an estimate of the work to correct the problem. On August 28th, I met with Mr. Jackson of Davie to discuss the work. He and I discussed the problem at some length, and he inspected the foundation from both the Living Room and the raised Basement below. We discussed the structural members that support the walls as well as the proposed placement of their PermaLock pilings. He asked me to move stored items to the other side of the Garage to allow for more room to perform the excavation work in that area of the Garage where a piling would be installed under the floor. A second piling was to be placed under a chain wall in a crawl space (approximately 5½’ high), on the other side of the center supporting wall in the Basement. I had to clear stored items from that area as well. Mr. Jackson provided me with a proposal before leaving. While I was somewhat concerned about the lack of precision and detail in the hand written specifications added to the printed proposal form, I felt that the considerable price ($4,000) and the aforementioned reputation and rating would likely insure a successful outcome. In fact, I was confident enough in these factors, as well as Mr. Jackson’s apparent understanding of the problem and the goal of getting the door to swing open freely and completely, to forgo seeking proposals from other shoring companies. I mailed in the signed proposal and my deposit check a week later. On Monday, September 23rd, I received a call from the Davie construction supervisor. He and a crew of two men appeared two days later to perform the work. The two men began excavating two holes in the crawl space, but did not perform any work in the Garage area, as Mr. Jackson indicated they would. I was somewhat worried about a possible disconnect between the job understanding of the person who specified the work (Jackson) and the crew that would actually perform the work. Nevertheless, I decided I was not going to second-guess professionals who specialize in this kind of work. The men spent about seven hours digging holes about 5’ deep and 4’ apart and installing the PermaLock pilings. They placed the pilings into the holes and jacked the footing under the chain wall. When completed, the overall increase in the height of the wall was approximately ½”. That was certainly not the expectation I had when accepting the proposal. It did not even come close to remedying the problem with the door. I would not have been willing to pay $4,000 for only ½” of increase in the height of the wall. The proper and safe operation of the front door was the primary objective of the work, but that has not been achieved. Before leaving, the supervisor and I discussed the results and he suggested that I could cut the bottom of the door to allow it to clear the floor. Of course this is not a solution because it would then necessitate installing an elevated threshold on the floor under the door to seal up the opening. Such a threshold would then be far too high to be safe and would constitute a tripping hazard. I subsequently wrote a detailed letter to Mr. Warren Davie of Davie Shoring to go on record and to complain about the failure of their efforts. It took several months, including many phone calls and a personal visit to their place of business just to get a response to my complaint. The response, which was not in writing, was that they don’t perform any work on the structural members; they only install the pilings. If that is so, why didn’t Mr. Jackson cut off that discussion in the very beginning? We must have spent 30 minutes discussing a much larger scope of work, all with the intent of leveling the floor at the front door. Why didn’t he say they would not be able to remedy the door problem? Any way you look at this, whether inadequate understanding of the problem, inappropriate specification of the work, or poor execution thereof, Davie Shoring failed to accomplish much of anything for me. As far as a grade goes, it would have to be an “F”. The only thing they did that might merit some points is the installation of the PermaLock pilings. But, even that is of little or no value because the wall had long since settled and was stable at that level. There is no way to measure whether there is any value to the pilings because they did not accomplish the major task of leveling the floor so that the door would open completely. Of course, I would never contract with Davie Shoring again. I will now need to hire a true shoring contractor to perform the job that Davie was incapable of doing. For the results achieved, they might as well have dug the two holes in an empty field somewhere in Texas and placed their PermaLock pilings there.

Very thorough and spent time explaining. They asked to reschedule the appointment twice.

We hired Davie Shoring to move a house 13 miles. They cut the house in half and moved it to our property. They built the foundation, a series of concrete chain walls and cinder block piers and put the house back together on the foundation they built. Over the 4 years that we have lived in the house, I started noticing a black spot on the porch ceiling. I would paint it, using Kilz then paint and the next year it was back. This summer, my husband pushed on the spot with his cane and his cane went through the wood. It was rotten. We also noticed that when it rained hard, water would come down the side wall of the porch and run out between one of the lap boards. We had a roofer come out and he said the porch was never rejoined to the house and there was no tin valley where the 2 roofs overlapped. Therefore, every time it rained, all the water was pouring onto the ceiling of the porch and sitting there and also running down the inside of the porch wall. We contacted Davie Shoring and they sent a person out to look. He agreed that no valley was put under the tin and the porch was not rejoined to the house but he said they didn't do roofs or foundations and we must have paid someone else to put the roof back together. They met the next week and decided that they would not do anything about the problem because they didn't do it. I have pictures of them, in their Davie Shoring shirts, doing the foundation that they said they didn't do. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of them doing the roof but we did not pay anyone else to do the roof. Jamie from Florida, was the person we dealt with and he is the one that was in charge of moving the house, getting permits, the foundation and putting the house back together. He is no longer there. When we signed the contract, Jamie told us that Davie Shoring would put the house back together and fix everything except the plumbing.

The work in general was pretty good.

1. Start-up. Took off work to pick stair style, ironwork style, and paint color. Stairs and ironwork provided were not the ones selected. 2. Steps/Generator, never happened. Told I would have steps to access the house and a generator. I showed up the first two weeks, asking for the steps. Stopped going often because what was the point in standing outside looking at the house. After a few weeks, they said maybe they could find me something somewhere. My neighbor was gracious enough to climb to get the mail that was being tossed on my porch. 3. Plumbing Pete's Plumbing performed this service, as a subcontractor. When the stucco was put on the house, they sealed over the line that allowed the AC to drain to the outside. Davey Shoring kept assuring me it was going to be done. Finally, the plumber came out to do the work. In May, after the work was supposedly complete, I had another plumber working under the house because none of the drains worked. They noticed the pipes for the AC job sitting under the house in the corner. When I reported this, the plumber did come out and fix it. Gas Meter - I pointed out to Stephen Giles(Davey Shoring), that the gas meter looked hazardous. It was decrepit and hanging from the house. At the start, I had been told I would get a new meter. Stephen told me that if I wanted a new one, I would have to "contact Atmos." He said the meter was inspected and approved and good to go, and it wasn't his job to get me a new one. When I couldn't get the hot water heater to light, I called Entergy. They came out within a half hour and removed the gas meter, stating that it was leaking like a sieve and had never been inspected. They said the plumber knew better than to just put the old meter back on the house without an Entergy inspection. It took about two weeks to get the plumber back for the inspection. Meanwhile, I had moved out of the temporary apartment to my house, and now I had no hot water and no AC. Water connection. I have photos of the outdoor water faucet that the plumber put on my house. We dubbed him Picasso Pete. The pipe was constructed at odd, twisty angles away from the house. Stephen stated adamantly that that was how it had to be. He said the creation was inspected and approved. Eventually, the plumber came back with a drawing and improved the construction of the pipe. Air Conditioner. The AC was "Inspected and Approved" too. When I look back at the pictures, the power wasn't even hooked up after it had been "inspected.". Additionally, they had kinked the freon line, so it was not cooling. It took three trips by the Davey Shoring AC contractor and about a month, and then I had to hire my own professionals. My AC man had to replace the new freon line that Davey Shoring contractors had installed because it had three leaks. It had been soldered imporperly. In the end, the AC had to be replaced too. It did not survive the trauma of hanging from the house, being thrown around the back yard. and being re-hooked up incorrectly. This brings up the "It is inspected and approved." line that Stephen Giles used frequently. What he meant was that the guys who were in charge of it said it was ok. Pete's Plumbing approved his own work. The electricians approved their own work. It didn't matter if it was done or not, if they said it was approved, then it was completed. Consequently, I have little or no confidence in this job. Liens. During the course of the construction I had three (3) different companies call me, send me letters, and knock on my front door because checks they were issued bounced, and they were going to have to place liens on my house. I don't think it is coincidence that I did not get a new walkway up to the house, and the steps were not the style I selected... The brick and the cement companies were two of the companies. Stucco. Within four months, the stucco has cracked in about six places. Davey Shoring was pretty quick to come out and paint it, but they missed a crack. If the stucco is cracking in less than four months, how long should I expect it to last? Electrical Box. They detached the electrical box from the house, elevated the house, then reattached the box at the lower level. Then, they pumped foamy junk in and around the hole where the electrical box had been. Stephen said it was inspected and approved, of course, and added that he wasn't there to make my house look better. I was told by the company overseeing the grant that the electrical box should not be lower than the elevated AC unit, but it is. Stephen Giles pf Davey Shoring says it is "Inspected and approved." Trees. House was elevated into the trees and roof was damaged. Stephen put up a fight about it, finally sent someone out after weeks to cut some of the trees back. I had to hire a roofer and tree cutter to do the job right. Sheetrock. Was told that they would repair damaged sheetrock. Did not repair any of the sheet rock that was damaged in the lift. Hired a worker to repair all Sheetrock. House Flooded after elevation. I told Stephen Giles that water was collecting on the porch that had been elevated with the house. He told me they would drill holes so that the water could drain. I wasn't excited about having water pile up under my house, but knew that it was only option at the time. He did not get around to it for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, we had a hard rain. The porch flooded. .My den and laundry flooded too. Fortunately, my worker who had put the floor down was at my house and helped lift a good part of the floor before it got wet. They only put the holes on one side of the porch. It doesn't look like I will flood again, but water does not drain from the other side. Mosquito Haven. The way they constructed the back steps has left a slop pile next to my back door. the space cannot drain or dry up. I have mentioned the problem, but it was never addressed. Clean-up. This is actually written into the contract, so I can't be told 'not our job." I had clumps of cement everywhere, and pieces of the AC, and a long pole, material they used to make the iron railing, that broke my lawnmower when it ran over it. My driveway is covered with cement where it was mixed and stored. And as always, job done or not, for the past week, they have been hounding me to come into ok the payment of the last check. I'm afraid once I sign the last check, they are gone. They have been phoning me for over a week, and yet the window/door man just finished his part of the service two days ago. The door/window contractor was excellent. I will write a good review for him. Cracks in porch and bricks dislodged. This is something I just noticed as I was checking this week. At the start, they promised me the best, to help me, to oversee the job. During the job, I mostly heard...That's not our job. It's been inspected and approved. Sure, we'll get you a quote on that. Can you meet me to sign the check? Stephen was very good at avoiding complaint topics by pointing out how much the value of my home improved, or he had really seen some horrible stucco jobs and the one on my house looked decent. I think I only saw him onsite two or three times. He didn't seem to be a hands on guy with the project... just a hand me the check kind of guy. In hndsight, I realize I should have taken more photos and kept a log of the time I took off to accommodate these folks who were getting $227,000 to work on the house. There are three Road Home houses on my street and they were allotted $100,000. The grant for my house was more than twice that amount, and yet ALL of the Road Home houses were elevated and finished much nicer than my house. None of the Road Home houses used Davey Shoring. When I pointed out some of the items to Stephen Giles of Davey Shoring, he said "That's why they are out of business." (And yes, I researched it, and they are not out of business.) Pictures are available.

Ron Jackson came out to give me a quote for a shoring job on my home. He was on time and extremely professional! Once he finished what he needed to do to give me the estimate he took the time to explain the information to me a swell as review the drawing he had prepared for the job. We were going to use his company for the work but ended up not needing the work.

Davie Shoring Inc were excellent. I had my house leveled twice. The previous company just poured cement on the ground and then put a piling on top of it. That is why my house sank again. Davie Shoring dug holes an put what looked like thousands of pilings in and had everything done in a week. The price was very very reasonable. I have a two-story house, 27,000 feet inside, so they had to do it all over the grounds. The previous company came and look at it and said it was an internal job, they would have to break up the concrete slab in my hall. Davie Shoring came out and looked at it, and they said - because it is a two-story house, you need more supports in there, and you need them closer together. The previous company had them too far apart. Davie Shoring's people were very polite and clean and picked up after themselves every day. While they had everything up, we had all the plumbing redone, so Davie Shoring held off on putting the mud back in again until that was completed. We have the number of the foreman who did the job and we can call him anytime, and he will call us right back - if there's a problem. It was a really good experience with them.

If this is their best effort to get the business I hate to see their efforts doing the work. Here is what happened so far. I called Monday to make an appointment and was told the girl that does that was out but would call me back. She did not call back that day but the next morning. She an appointment for the following day. I took off work to meet Ron Jackson but got a message from Ian williams an hour before the appointment saying the appointment girl Chelsea needed to allow more than an hour for a quote and he couldn't make. I had already taken off work. I immediately returned the call from Ian and was told he was out for 3 hours. Talked to Karen who said Chelsea was out but she would call me back. She never did. I called back later to see if anyone was coming and Chelsea said she had trouble understanding Karen and the message was garbled. I asked to speak to Cody Lawrence the manager who said they were busy with grant money. Cody asked me to call mark onellian who would give me a quote. I called mark who said he was busy and "just didn't know what to do" . I asked for his first available appointment. This company is very unorganized and difficult to do business with.

They were thorough and answered all my questions. They gave me different estimates for different options. There are no hidden costs.

It was done very quickly, sloppily, and the house was not shored so it had to be redone. I would not recommend him. They did come and correct the work.

Outstanding! More than satisfied. Will recommend profusely to others.Always on time, knew exactly what to do, very patient with the customer. They let me see each step and make the key decisions about how far to raise it. Got exactly what I expected, no surprises.Yes, I did get about a dozen major or minor cracks in the sheetrock, but almost all are along existing seams of the boards, so will be easy to fix.

They worked on my house 12 years ago. I have been calling them for six months now and I am yet to get somebody out here. They are taking too long to respond. I had given them good recommendations before. They are not answering my calls now. I needed them to come out to my house and do an estimate on the shoring that needs to be worked on.

The actual experience was rather annoying. No one on their crew speaks English. At all. There would be one guy some days, two others, doing the prep work. They would come to the door to ask me things that I could sometimes figure out, but it was time-consuming. There was an English-speaking foreman who said - call me any time. But the few times I called he never answered his phone and he never returned my calls when I left a message. He didn't give me any indication that they found anything new/different from the estimate while they were working, but when he presented the final bill it was about $4,000 more than the estimate because of things they had discovered during their work. It would have been nice to know and to approve or not. I imagine you can't say "no," though, once they start. It still ended up costing less than the next lowest estimate. Once they started, they didn't stop until they were done. I'm happy with the result, overall. I can actually feel the difference when I walk around my house. It feels more sturdy. I have recommended them to others. My next door neighbor used them based on my recommendation and others called them for an estimate.

Davie Shoring responded quickly to our request for an estimate and did not take long to schedule the actual job. Once begun, the process was slow. They told us it would take a month and it took closer to three months -- during which time we could not be in residence. They were completely non-responsive to our requests for a stated timeline to finish. It supposedly takes about 6 months for the house to settle out after raising. We did have cracks appear in the walls during that phase but nothing remarkable. However, since 2006, the cracking has steadily increased. Davie does say they stand by a lifetime guarantee but we can assure you that they don't. We have called Davie repeatedly and they have never returned our phone calls. We finally decided to give up on them and called in another contractor to repair the cracks in 2011. We are paying $5000 to repair Davie's mistakes. Evidently, Davie did not keep the house on an even keel when raising it. Our experience is that Davie Shoring is greedy and disreputable.

We did not use them. By the way, the person who came out to give us the estimate was only a salesperson...NOT A STRUCTURAL ENGINEER.

The start date listed above is the date I signed the contract. They started about 3 weeks later. It took them about 3 days to tunnel under the foundation. **NOTE: Anyone having his slab raised or leveled in Jefferson Parish, expect a lot more costs involved. Davie Shoring was finished tunneling on a Thursday. They called ATMOS to remove the gas meter. In Jefferson Parish If you move the slab at all, the Parish Law requires the gas meter be removed. ATMOS was to have removed the meter on Friday and there would be about 4-5 days without gas. I took my last hot shower on Friday morning in anticipation of the gas being turned off. ATMOS didn't come until Monday. *NOTE: Before the Parish made the contractor take out the meter, the contractor just turned off the gas, disconnected it from the house and swung it out of the way until the job was finished and then reconnected it.Davie Shoring was on the job as soon as the meter was removed. It took them about 4-5 ours to level the house. I then had to have a Parish Inspector come out and make sure the house was up to code. I needed to have 3 gas valves replaced, they made me put a pan under the water heater and put a new drain on the water heater. I called a plumber to have the work done. COST: $1,952.91. This is in addition to the $8466 for Davie Shoring.After the plumbing was done, Care Services (plumber) called the Parish to arrange another inspection. The inspector took 3 days to come out. I thought the Parish was finished. A week later, my gas still wasn't on. I called Davie Shoring. The person answering the phone said someone would call me back. When they called, they said the Parish said they would send out a House Inspector. (Whatever that is) Two days later there was a piece of paper in the mailbox stating that there also need to be a FEMA inspection. After a big argument, Davie Shoring convinced the Parish that it wasn't necessary because the job had nothing to do with FEMA. The Parish then called ATMOS and the gas was turned on 3 days later.I have now been without gas for over 2 weeks. I waited to get a final bill from Davie Shoring before paying the final installment. They called and sent the foreman by to check the job and pick up the final check. The check was picked up on 6/10/11. The foreman said the company would send me the warranty papers shortly. As of this date, I have not received those papers.Over all, the problems were not Davie Shoring. They were Jefferson Parish and ATMOS. After Davie Shoring got started, it only took them about 1 week. Did Davie Shoring do a good job? Only time will tell. The job is warranted, so if the house settles again, they will redo the job-I THINK.

I called around to different shoring companies to get quotes on raising/leveling my house. I was looking for a company that has been around for a while and not a fly by night company that showed up the past couple of years trying to cash in on Katrina money. Had an appointment scheduled with someone from Davie's Shoring to come and see what kind of price and services they would offer us. I was happy to hear from someone the day before to confirm our appointment since I tend to forget them. The following day someone from the office called to say their guy was running a little late but will be there shortly. He never showed. Not only did he not show, but I never got a call back to say what the problem was. I waited and waited. Afterwards, I tried to call the office but it was after closing. They didn't bother to call me the next day or any other day to follow up so neither did I. Very unprofessional.

They definitely took more time than the other companies to talk to us about our project. We are getting quotes from three companies and we haven’t decided on a company yet.

My experience with Davie Shoring from start to finish was absolutely nothing short of perfect. The inspector (Rob I think?) was courteous, professional, honest and punctual. He gave me a solid quote ($700/pier plus $100 permit fee) and didn't push to oversell me. I asked him to inspect the rest of my house to see if anything else needed to be done while they were there. After the inspection he assured me that all my piers were in great shape and none needed any additional work - when he had nothing to lose and more business to gain! The crew called me one morning and said they had a cancellation, and would we mind if work began that day. I left for work at about 8am, and by 11am when I went to check on the project they were already half done. The finished the porch that day and returned the following day to fix the column, which required some finesse, and patch up the bricks that had shifted when the porch started to sink. All in all they were extremely courteous, the work the did was fabulous, very well priced and their crew is knowledgeable and hard working. They cleaned up after themselves and were totally unobtrusive. I got quotes from 4 different shoring companies to fix this one corner of my porch, and Davie Shoring not only came in the lowest, they were respectful through the whole thing (I had one gentleman from another company try to convince me to refinance my house to come up with the $23,000 that I was going to need to completely redo my porch, even though they claimed the whole house was about to fall down if I didn't immediately stabilize it with another $80,000 worth of work. I kindly asked them to leave my property.) Highly recommended.

Overall I cannot say, as I was not rhe contracting party. However 10 years later, the foundation is still stable.

I contacted Davie Shoring, Inc (504)464-4712) August 29, 2009. I was given a written estimate and contract the same day. They estimated the work to be completed in 60 days. It was explained that this was a small job and crew would be sent as it completed a job early or before a bigger job was started. I was pleasantly surprised on October 9th when Davie Shoring called to see if October 12 would be convenient. I said not really but I could make it work. They said how about today. They started and completed in one day. I was pleased with the level of professionalism. I was made a part of the process. The job foreman informed me of what exactly was being done step by step until the job was completed.

We had a VERY bad experience with them. They did a lot of damage to our house. They started putting the foundation in incorrectly and it had to be torn out and re-done. They weren't doing it the way it was supposed to be done. It was a big mess. They were terrible in communication. They didn't supervise their workers. There was constant theft while they were on site. It was just BAD, BAD, BAD!

I spoke with their engineer and was able to come up with a creative solution that saved me money which I appreciated. The people were very considerate. The work was done in a timely fashion. I would use them again.