Groundworks

BQ Basement Systems Inc's service went good and very well. If I needed to, sure, I would consider using this provider again, but hopefully I won't.

BQ Basement's rep surveyed the site to identify and quantify the work requirements. They provided a fixed-price proposal and schedule. I checked two references who were very enthusiastic. The crew chief called the day prior to confirm the work and schedule. I notified the unit owners to clear the work area. The crews were very adaptable, safely working around vehicles left near the work area. The technology is nearly surgical: the injection holes are dime-size vs. beer-can size for cement injection (mud-jacking); the polymer expands to compress and stabilize the sub-base, as cement cannot. The accuracy is outstanding, with surfaces sloped (imperceptibly) to drain water away from the units and protect the stucco. The team worked skillfully and quickly. A manager visited to check quality and progress. They attended to details I pointed out; however, they have an eye for detail, with tools and skills to match. We are looking at additional work sealing stucco around windows and along paving seams. The value for money - we completed 13 units for the cost of replacing the walk, steps and stoop of our worst unit. We're ahead of the curve and can now repair cosmetic cracks to stucco and stone finishes and move on to other priorities for the association.

It didn't. BQ had me apply for the financing, get approved, scheduled me 2 months out for service. They then show up on an unscheduled day to do the work, I rush home and take the afternoon off only to get home and find out the hose/truck they brought wasn't going to reach. They said they would send a different truck out on the originally scheduled day to perform the work. So that day comes and a different truck shows up... again the hose is too short and they are unable to get into the driveway without damaging it. So the worker on site says they have a portable unit they can try to get but it would have to be a different day. So now we are at 2 days wasted and a total of 3 people from BQ have been onsite. I work with their office in PA to maybe get permission from a neighbor behind me to allow them to use the property to grant them easier access to my yard. According to them they haven't been able to contact the company that owns it and that the mobile cart isn't an option because my job is too small to warrant the work needed to get the equipment. So here we are a total of 2.5 months after the salesman was onsite, 2.5 months after getting their financing, and now its on my credit report, and their home office tells me they decided to NOT do the job. One of the worst companies I have had to deal with, total of 3 people were onsite and knew the challenges of the property... 3!!! Their excuse is they couldn't predict this.... 3 people onsite, what is there to predict!! The only way I was able to get answers from them is to call them, they NEVER called me with an update. I really thought this place would come through but I see its just another "Sales" pitch, promise the world and then leave you with nothing.

I can't say if the final product will work because I hope our basement doesn't have flooding problems. I am giving 3 stars because I am really hoping the quality of the final finish isn't indicative of its function. The total amount of time (not man-hours) spent was about 15 hours and it cost about $9000 ($900 for the 3 windows). So you are looking at about $600 / hour being paid. The finish of the job made me feel like they were more interested in getting it done quickly and get out of there to maximize profits more than to do a quality job to maximize customer satisfaction. The details are below. First thing I noticed after day one was that they used a jack hammer to make the trench around the perimeter instead of a concrete saw. This gives an very jagged appearance to the final product and an incredibly thin layer of concrete along the jagged edge. It doesn't save them any more time and would have looked much nicer. Second: Of course it is dusty and they put plastic over some quite a few things but they could have spent an extra 30 minutes to staple plastic around the perimeter to seal it up much better then it was. Third: Their cleanup of the dust was pretty weak. Yeah, they swept it up but the entire floor still had a layer of grit along with the steps going up from the basement the path to the outside upstairs. Another 30 minutes of vacuuming the floor and steps and at least wiping down the upstairs dust would have been nice. Heck, I even had my own shop vac right there. Fourth: They use bagster for the debris which is totally fine but they left one of my trash cans 1/3 filled with construction fill in my driveway that I had to empty. Fifth: From doing the windows, I now have mortar coating my dryer vent, water lines and some wires that were below the windows. The outside window wells are also still full of mortar and block making for a nice swimming pool effect. Finally: I emailed my complaints to my sales guy and didn't at least get a "Sorry to hear that, let me send a guy back" or any acknowledgement. Like I said, I think the system will work as advertised but the final finish does not fill me with sense of confidence that quality work was done when they could have spent another 1-2 hours to just clean things up a bit more. I mean, they wrapped up around 2:30 in the afternoon.

The present ion was over the top. The items they were trying to sell wasn't needed. Example: I never have power outage due to weather, but he kept pushing a sump pump with a battery back-up.

The service went well. The products work great and thankfully, I haven't had any more leaks in my basement. One thing I was a little disappointed about was that I found out at the last minute about this plastic cover used to cover the walls to block any leaking water on the wall and ensure it drains down into the Waterguard and doesn?t get the drywall. They wanted to charge a very high price for this product that I don?t think should cost that much and I really thought it should have come with the price I was already paying. However; overall, their price was competitive, the service was good, the products are high quality and work very well and I haven't had any issues since. I think they did a great job and I would still definitely recommend them.

BQ provides a unique service to level concrete pads. The job was done clean and professionally. Most important, they stand behind their work and will stay on the job until the customer is satisfied. Highly recommend!!

It was great and they are great! I can't say enough about their professionalism both with the person that gave me the quote and the guys who performed the work. Very knowledgeable about the process and took great care to be sure nothing was damaged. They came in, drilled holes in the concrete, and pumped a polymer-type product, PolyLevel, in through special attachments that were removed after the process. There were 4 holes in the concrete that they patched and you have to look for them to see them now. I imagine by spring when we open the pool they will be practically unnoticeable. We decided to use BQ Basement Systems because they were the only ones that used the PolyLevel. I really did not want to have someone digging, chipping and pouring concrete that close to the pool wall. This system was quick and safe. It cured almost immediately and we were not inconvenience in the least. I can't imaging the nightmare of the other way, the dirt, the concrete truck on the driveway, the time to dry. Glad we picked the best company. Thank you Angie's List and Thank you BQ Basement Systems. You have restored my faith in getting good contractors.

SALES EXPERIENCE: Really nice experience. The company is very slick with selling & marketing, which made me initially skeptical - in particular I was expecting this to result in a premium price. I got multiple quotes for this project, however, and BQ's quote was in the middle. This, combined with positive reviews online, convinced me of the value of using BQ. The sales guy was really nice, really professional, and extremely accessible, answering my follow-up calls and responding rapidly to emails. INSTALLATION EXPERIENCE: Terrible overall. Biggest issue was with cleanup or lack thereof. While the crew laid down paper in the ground floor and thin plastic covering over my belongings in the basement, you would think this didn't happen at all? in the end, my basement had a thick coat of concrete dust on the floor, and some of this dust carried up to the ground floor and second floor (I'm assuming through vents). All of my belongings that were under plastic wrap had a coating of dust. My heat-pump water heater, furnace, and dehumidified were not protected and were full of concrete dust. My floors on the ground level were covered in dirty foot prints. I have spent weeks trying to clean up the aftermath, and now considering hiring professionals to come and help with this. Second issue was that mid-way through the job, they told me there was an issue that they had to jack-hammer part of my front walkway in order to install proper drainage pipe from the sump pump. Regardless of my opinion, I had little choice in this matter, as they had already done all of the work leading up to this point, so couldn't say no. It wasn't a hugh deal, but disappointed that they couldn't foresee this and tell me during the sales quote process? If you've been in such a business for several years, I believe that they knew this would happen and decided to not divulge until after the sale/project initiation. OVERALL: The finished product should keep my basement dry as promised, but the experience left a really bad taste in my mouth. I wish I'd chosen one of the competitors who use wet-jackhammering, air pressure/ fans, and other techniques to reduce the amount of concrete dust that circulates through the house. Way too messy and I don't like the idea of carcinogens everywhere in my house. The peace of mind of a dry basement is there now, but now I will second guess whether any respiratory issues in my household are due to allergies or the filth from this project.

Overall, everything went very well and I would highly recommend BQ Basements. I received two other quotes, but this was the best solution for my basement. Also, BQ?s price was highly competitive with the other companies. The other two companies suggested painting/sealing the walls, but this was not the best idea because over time, water would penetrate the wall again and remove the paint. The ?clean space? system is like a white shower curtain that keeps water out of the basement. It allows water to seep through the walls, but then the water runs down the ?curtain? to the drain, and finally out via the sump pump. The salesperson was friendly and knowledgeable. He was patient and answered all of my questions. The foreman was very communicative during the project with progress updates. He and his crew took two days to complete the work. However, there was a minor detail that I wanted corrected, and this took 2 hours on an additional day. When I notified the company about this detail, they were very professional, sympathetic, and prompt about assigning a foreman to fix the issue. When the new foreman came, he asked me what I would like done, and did it that day ? this was a pleasant surprise because I thought he was just there to assess the situation. He was also very friendly and communicative. When he came, there was no judgement or argument, he just did it ? and very well, it was exactly what I had envisioned. Since I heard that this renovation by itself could lower the humidity in the basement, I opted not to go with their suggested dehumidifier, which was an extra $ 2000 and has a capacity for an area 5 times that of my basement. Not to mention that I didn?t want another large piece of equipment down there. It is now ~ 1 month after this installation and my basement is very dry (hovers around 50%), even after a few days of significant rain fall. I have one dehumidifier running, and it is keeping the basement at a lower humidity than it ever was before.

They were able to get the job done in time for our settlement.

End result was OK as leakage issue seems to be resolved. However, after first day of work, we discovered that one of the two people on the job had vomited in our basement toilet. Obviously they had not cleaned up after themselves. When I complained to company, they sent someone else out to finish the job, apologized for what had happened, and promised me one year of free "maintenance" on the new sump pump. As if "free maintenance" for the first year of a new sump pump is actually worth anything to me. Was expecting some type of discount for the disgusting "present" left behind by the first two laborers(which we had the pleasure of cleaning up!). Plenty of other qualified basement people out there that I would use instead of these guys.

Came on schedule and finished the job on time.

We had a situation where BQ sold us an expensive dehumidifier less than 5 years ago and the compressor broke, much sooner than we would have expected for such an expensive unit (we paid $1500 at the time). The factory warranty only covered 30 months. The issue was what role should BQ Basement have in fixing the situation. Service tech Jody was up front with us and worked to get a fair solution to replace, at a discount, our broken machine, with a new one, and letting us know that expensive repairs to the old machine, at a cost of up to $400, would not be a good investment because this old machine had some design problems and life expectancy on repaired units might be only a 12 to 18 months. I have only good things to say about Jody, the service technician, who advised us of best course of action. It took Jody 6 days to finally get approval from management for us to purchase a better designed unit that they discounted by something like 15% to 18%. And we appreciate that management finally agreed to this too. Our only beefs are that it took 6 days and incessant follow up, rather than their offering right away to make good on what amounted to their having sold us a lemon the first time around. But they did make good, we have a new unit that is much better suited to our needs, and everyone in the organization we spoke with was always courteous and professional. The new unit has the same 30 month factory warranty as the old one did, and if it breaks, we're assured that spare parts will be available that we can buy and have BQ Basement use to repair, or use our own independent licensed HVAC person to repair, and we won't have to send the unit back to the manufacturer, as was required with the old unit.

Setting aside the type of work they do, this was by far the best company I've ever dealt with. Their customer service is top notch. I reached out through their website and got a quick response. The woman I spoke with was polite and accommodating. They mailed out information about the specialist and two books, yes books, about the type of systems they install and why before my scheduled appointment. The dude that came out was knowledgeable, clean-cut, on time, and very professional. These guys really set the bar high. The quote was a lot higher than I was expecting. Not saying their prices are high, in fact I expect them to be somewhere in the middle, I just underestimated how much the type of work needed would cost.

He was friendly, and it was largely pressure-free (unlike other contractors I've worked with in the past). He determined the lowest point in the room, where the pump pit should go, and then described all of the work that would be done to keep the water out of my basement (had a floating slab that the water would come in when the water table would rise). In the end, I went with another company for the "traditional" french drain and sump pump system for around $6000, lifetime guarantee. I didn't try to negotiate the price down as I figured a $3000 difference would be a lot for BQ to match, especially given the technical difference with their system. However, overall, I had a good experience with them, and if the price was more comparable, I might have gone with them.

Scheduled a salesperson from BQ Basements to come by, measure, and give an estimate. Starting price was $36k. This did not include installing an egress window. This is a $175k 100-year-old row house. The main pitch is that the walls are a kind of plastic water-resistant system, that is replaceable in sections if there is water damage. This price was wildly out of our range and inappropriate to the overall value of the house. It also was not suited to the style of an older brick home in our opinion, being more suited to a modern ranch with a very large concrete basement (ours is stone). We ended up hiring a local contractor to: replace a section in order to create headroom on the stairway, frameout the walls around the utilities, drywall, mudcoat the entire perimeter stone wall, framing and drywall of the ceiling, level and install the flooring, electric, doors, lighting (eight can lights), and painting for under $15k, including all materials. It looks beautiful. We also hired a specialized window installer to do an egress window in our front. This was a major job and required hand-digging out a layer of rock. It is a great and safe option for fire and also provide plenty of light. This cost about $5k. Even if the entire basement were destroyed and we had to do it over again 2x, we would still pay less than what BQ wanted for their system without including all the other bells and whistles we got from our local carpenter/contractor.

Inspector was reachable and communicated well the details of the project. Workers installed system like they said and cleaned up after the job. They were prompt and courteous.

The service was performed promptly with no surprises. I would like to use this review to share that we used BQ for other water remediation work in our basement and have been absolutely thrilled with the result. Over the last few years they have done the following: installed 2 sump pump units with battery backup; sealed cracks in the basement walls; installed 2 new window wells with drains; installed trench drains along the French drain; and installed the large dehumidifier. BQ is not cheap but you definitely get what you pay for. Professional technicians, quality products and workmanship, excellent post installation service, and, most important, no water in the basement! I highly recommend BQ Basement Systems.

the end result is very good. The windows fit perfectly and the window wells allow more light into the basement. The new windows will eliminate drafts and loss of heat. Two minor things: the salesman did not leave or send me a copy of the contract, and he assumed all three windows were the same size. In reality, one window was bigger. So the larger window had to be custom made and the job finished on Wed instead of Monday. But, I am pleased with the job and would definitely use them again.

We got an estimate on the sump pump and also on recementing the basement walls. We went only for the sump pump. This was a year ago, so I can't remember the cost, but we wouldn't have hired them if we didn't think it was fair.

We were quite pleased and they fixed any issues right away.

Showed up on time. Very professional. Protected our floors and furniture when gutting basement. We had an infant at the time and were very conscious about making sure everything was safe for him. Completed quickly. A year later and we are very satisfied with the quality of the work. We have had no water in our basement. Our sump pump is quiet (we could here the old one on the 2nd floor and it ran ALL the time) and barely runs. They hooked our downspout into our underground water evacuation line and now we don't have standing water around the house when the sump pump runs. Would definitely hire again.

This was a two day project. They: Pulled up the edges of the carpet in the basement. Ripped out the lower half of the wall sheet rock that had been stained by moisture. Cut into the concrete along the edges of the walls and installed the drainage system. Dug out the area to install the sump and installed the sump. Installed the discharge pipes for the sump. The workers (there were at least two at any given time) were very professional and courteous and explained everything. They did a pretty good job of covering up the remaining items in the basement to protect from all the dust that was produced. They really knew what they were doing. E.g. Within an hour of arrival, the head installer discovered it would not be possible to place the discharge out the wall closest to the sump pump because of a concrete pad/patio that was just outside the wall. (The estimator had not noticed the concrete pad because it was covered by a deck). The estimator came to the job and discussed the problem with the installer and I. The installer came up with a plan B to run the discharge pipe along a wall and then out the wall at a different area. So they had enough expertise to make a change to the plan and they did not charge me extra for this, which was good. Even with this unexpected problem, they completed the job in two days. If I had to do it again, I would do a better job of covering things with plastic because the fine white dust got on everything that was not covered. I had to have an electrician come in to install separate circuit for the sump pump. This is the Triple Safe: two separate outlets/circuits and a battery backup. They probably told me I would have to do this, but I forgot about it.

They did a great job and were very professional. They arrived on-time, were clean and nice to work with. They explained the needed work and their estimate was good compared to a couple others we received. We went with them as they exclusively work with basements and felt more comfortable with them.