Ronchetti Masonry & Waterproofing Inc

Excellent! Charlie's crew was prompt, arrived on time every day and worked a full day, cleaned up after themselves and were very neat. They were easy to work with, very pleasant people and responded to any questions or concerns we had. Charlie's estimate for the work was accurate and the work was completed on time and exactly as discussed. He told us that in general he charges about $1250 per day, and his crew will do as much as work as they can per day. His work exceeded our expectations and we have received many compliments on the quality of the work. We feel we received very good value for the money spent. We plan to hire him again to repoint our foundation in the spring and maybe install new front steps and a path in the future.

He was wonderful. He did a great job. It was done earlier than promised. It looks really good. The price was really good. It wasn?t the lowest or the highest but he had the best proposition. We have used the fireplace and everything seemed to work. The chimneys are fine.

Once he got started with the work, it was very good. The only thing was when I first called him, he didn't return my call right away. Once he responded to me, he was pretty responsive. He fit our job in between some other jobs and I had some difficulty pinpointing exactly when he was going to do the work. Once he scheduled to do the work, it was quick and efficient and they did an excellent job.

(11/20/2009) After an extremely wet spring and summer we've not had a drop of water in the basement, exactly as Mr. Ronchettin promised, and I've happily put my surface pump away. This work took two days and part of a third, the two-person crew was efficient and professional, and they carefully cleaned up when finished. It also looks good (if a trench can look good). Mr. Ronchetti himself did the initial consultation and was very informative and helpful. Because his company had just finished another job in our town, they were able to fit us in quickly and showed up exactly as promised. This stuff is expensive but the price was in line with other reports on Angie's and what I'd heard from friends. And, it's worth it, no water! UPDATE (04/22/2010) This report is a follow-up.. During the very heavy rains in Eastern Massachusetts this spring we had not one drop of water in our basement, an extremely welcome change from past experience.

I got him off Angie's List, and I was very impressed by him. He spoke with common sense, and he clearly knew what he was doing. He gave me an estimate for more work at a lower price. Although we had to add a few things on, his esitmate was still lower than the waterproofing companies. He was on time and very clean and neat, and I was very surprised at how clean they kept the basement during the work. I need more work done down there now, and as soon as I am ready to have it done, I will be calling him.

He was wonderful. He we needed french drains put in to prevent flooding in our basement and he did a gorgeous job. He is a delightful guy and I would highly recommend him. His price was reasonable for the amount of work that he did.

I called Charles Ronchetti to try to solve a wet basement issue. I assumed I would need an expensive french drain system. Charles said a the first thing to do was to make sure water was being directed away from the house as good as can be. Charlie and his team tore out and repoured a concrete walkway so that water was directed away from the house. It completely solved a wet basement problem that had persisted for years. After that, I used Charles for all my masonry repairs, including fixing garage brick walls, pointing the foundation and more.

Excellent work from beginning to end. Mr. Ronchetti showed up, introduced me to the laborers who would be working on the job (Carmen and Jose), and helped them get started. They installed the scaffolding and got to work. They worked quickly and efficiently being polite, careful, and friendly as they went along. They always confirmed my chosen options before acting. They never left at the end of the day without tidying up. They were also obviously proud of the work they were doing. On the last day, Mr. Ronchetti himself put in many hours of hard labor reworking the fireplace from the inside. He took the time and care to get the details right, even when it was obvious it would be lots easier to do other things. They finished ahead of schedule and under budget. I was actually sorry to see them go. (And Mr. Ronchetti plays a great jazz piano. If you have a keyboard nearby, insist on a few minutes of his improvisation.)

He was much more thorough than another company from the list. He told me that before he gave me any prices, he wanted to look around. He went outside, looked at the foundation, looked in the chimney, and finally discovered that the leak was from a broken pipe under the floor. He suggested I call a plumber to test the water pressure. Sure enough, he was right! He didn't charge me anything for his service, and saved me the $2500 I would have spent with the other company that misdiagnosed the problem. Throughout my interaction with him I really got the feeling that he was trying to help me, not just make money off of me. He never tried to push me and gave me straight facts. I will definitely call this company for future projects.

arrive on time and complete work in good order in time specified. Work was done completely and correctly and basement has been dry since including during spring when problems have occured in the past

Overall experience was fine. Initial conversation with office representative was unenthusiastic. Scheduled appointment was delayed about an hour. Conversation was laid-back and professional. Estimate was higher than competition. $5500.00 for indoor perimeter work and pump.

They came and gave the estimate and started the work in 2 or 3 weeks after that. They took the water out and that was important. They were pretty faster. The owner came and spoke to us before they started the work and also followed up after words to make sure we understood how everything was working.

Charlie is awesome! We called him out because we had wet carpet in our basement and thought it was coming from outside. Charlie diagnosed the problem as a plumbing problem from inside the house, which we hadn't suspected because the floor didn't seem wet near the wall. He was instrumental in helping us figure out what was going on. We had to call a plumber and discovered that our waste water pipe was leaking within the wall of our finished basement. Charlie was here for 45 min and didn't charge us a dime. One of those rare instances where you actually feel guilty because you got way more than you paid for (in this case $0)!

First rate job from start to finish. Charlie separately priced different pieces of the work to provide me with options on how I would like to proceed. Unique among the waterproofers I talked to, Ronchetti goes beyond simply installing a french drain -- he also creates a slit in the floor next to the wall to allow any wall condensation to drain to the french drain. Within a month after install, we had extremely heavy rains that flooded several neighbors' basements -- ours remained perfectly dry.

I have a crawl space with an approximately 3 foot deep depressed area, over which my furnace is installed. Once or twice a year this depressed area fills with water, which I have been pumping manually to make sure it does not reach the level of the furnace. I also have a larger crawl space (connected but on the other side of the house) which gets a small amount of water, just enough to make it not useful for storage. I called Charles Ronchetti and another contractor to propose an automated solution. The first contractor was unable to propose a solution at all (separate report). Mr. Ronchetti returned my call promptly, and was able to propose a creative solution. He proposed (and installed) a sump pump in the lowered area, cutting into the cement floor of the larger crawl space to install a drainage trench leading to the area with the sump pump, and running the waste water pipe back through that trench to discharge in the back yard (without requiring a pipe above the floor level). It took a little over a week to schedule the work because of the holidays, but the crew arrived right on time on the day scheduled. The work was completed exactly as proposed, in under two days. They were very careful to restrict dust during the time they were cutting through the cement floor, and cleaned up thoroughly. Because the work went very smoothly and took less time than estimated I thought that the final bill might be slightly lower than the estimate, but am satisfied with the overall cost of the project and am very happy with the results (though won't know until spring how effective the system is). I am confident that Mr. Ronchetti will stand behind his guarantee should there be any problems during the spring thaw.

Great! Charlie and his guys were great to work with. They came in quickly and completed the job in the time frame expected.

The work was performed well, the area cleaned, and the drain worked well when we had a heavy rain that previously would have flooded my entire basement. This time I had no water in the basement. It was all collected by the drain. My only reservation was that Mr. Ronchetti did not give me a written estimate on the day that he looked at the job. I almost hired another contractor because of the lack of a written estimate, but am glad I chose him to perform the work. When he arrived to do the job, he had not remembered that I wanted a new sump pump, so had to go out to get one. He also did not provide the sump hole cover that we discussed when he made the original estimate. Still, I am satisfied with the work.

It went great. It was wonderful. No problems at all. He came and gave us the estimate, came back to do the job and it was perfect.

Charlie came to our house and evaluated the fireplace & firebox situation. He spent about 10-15 minutes talking with us about the situation. He explained his cost structure, and that I'd be looking at between $2K - $2.5K for him to replace the structure in simple red brick as we requested. He said I could probably hire someone else to do that for less, which struck me as an odd thing for him to tell me (honest, though). His company might specialize in higher-end types of projects, I know he does beautiful work.

Absolutely excellent. Charlie's quote was pretty identical to others we compared to, but his approach was much more thorough and well thought out. Usually a company wants to sell you their services to solve your problems. It is rare you find someone who really steps into *your* shoes to look at your problem carefully from all angles and offer out-of-the-box solutions when you need them, even when they don't include his own services. Given how little money we had he offered 4 different solutions, 2 of which didn't even include his services, and explained the pros and cons of each plan. He told us things we could do to keep the price down on his estimate and how we could do some of the job now and complete it more thoroughly next year when we are back on our feet financially. He was a Godsend. Charlie and his whole crew were all extremely polite and professional, showed up on time, did top quality work, kept the area safe for my little one after their shifts, and cleaned up extremely well afterwards. They dug trenches on the hardest hit parts of the house and put in a pump to relieve the pressure of water build up as the water comes down the hill and the lake level rises. They even put the old dirt from the trenches to good use and used it to shore up the grade level on the sides of the house that we couldn't afford to trench, so as to reduce the chance of them holding water and save us money on hauling the dirt away. This arrangement seems to have even relieved the parts of the house we weren't able to trench, because we had 18 hours of horrible rain 1 week later, downtown had flooded streets that had to be closed off to traffic, and yet our basement stayed dry as a bone. What a pleasure to see a job so well-done!

They responded quickly and were very efficient about their work time it only took them one day to finish the job. The job looks wonderful and we are very pleased.

Charles Ronchetti explained carefully and patiently the project. He answered all questions and responded by phone ASAP when not in person. His crew had to jack hammer the perimeter of the concrete basement floor in order to install the French Drain. At the the end of the day, coming home from work, you would not have known such dusty and messy work went on - the work area was so clean. They completed the work on time and Charles went over in detail every aspect of the job and what we should watch for. So far, we haven't had a prolonged rain storm to threaten the basement floor and really test the system, but we've had enough rain where in the past the old sump pump would come on. So far the new French Drain system seems to absorb the water enough so that the sump pump system hasn't engaged. I got estimates from 2 other basement waterproofing companies (more national in scope), and while Charles' estimate was not the lowest, it was close. The additional benefits of working with someone who was so accessible, straight forward, and competent more than made up for the extra cost.

Mr. Ronchetti examined the area in the spring and gave an estimate of time required and money involved ($6000-$6500). It took approximately six weeks to get a work slot, which we scheduled. Once they started, the team took about 4 days to finish all work, including the new stairs, bulkhead, and custom-sized door. Prior to work starting, we got a detailed list of what they planned to do. After finishing, the team cleaned up almost all debris and stacked the extra bricks in out-of-the way areas. We had one minor issue after the work. The team didn't tell us how long it would take the concrete to cure, so we accidentally marred the new steps. Mr. Ronchetti sent someone back to repair the step damage within 24 hours at no additional cost.

Charlie came out quickly to do an estimate and talked us through the steps involved in the work and how he came to his estimate. He stated up front that he would likely be more expensive than other estimates but that it was because he did top quality work. After his visit he followed up with a written estimate. When we agreed to his price it was then a bit of a wait to see when he could fit us in. He ended up calling on a Sunday to see if he could start that Monday. Once on site, he completed the work quickly and the quality was excellent. He answered our questions throughout the process and was in touch to keep us updated about progress and any concerns he had.

I thought they did a very good high quality job. They did exactly what they said they were going to do. They were very polite. They were flexible, and so far there has been no water in the basement.