LIGHTHOUSE ENGINEERING LLC

The lead engineer, mike, came to my home and inspected the property. He measured everything and prepared a report. This is a great company. He is very efficient and knowledgeable in the field of foundation inspection and engineering. The report was completed and returned to us within 48 hours.

When I called to have someone come out to give me an estimate. I spoke with a receptionist after my fourth phone call. She wanted to get all of my information before we were even able to talk and have a conversation. She ended up hanging up on me when I started asking questions about why their price was higher.

From the first contact with Lighthouse Engineering they were helpful and accommodating. Mike Gandy, PE, spoke with my husband, answered his questions, and stated what would be provided in the inspection. Report was thorough and gave us the information we needed to make decisions. We would definitely use them again and would highly recommend them.

Lighthouse set up the appointment and handled the scheduling through CSS. The engineer was Bill Sallade. Bill did a very thorough inspection and explained his findings in detail. He was professional and a very nice guy. E-mailed the full report to me that same evening.

The experience was excellent. They were prompt, courteous and thorough. Due to the age of the home, they even sent a second structural engineer as a second pair of eyes at no additional charge to me. They were extremely detailed and provided me with clear, concise information about the condition of the foundation and their recommendations for maintenance. Excellent job.

It confirmed what we could see already but gave us a report with precise measurements and recommendations to give to a foundation repair provider.

We LOVE Lighthouse Engineering! My sister and I were at the end of our option period and, after having one structural engineer who gave us shady results, needed an engineer in a hurry! We called Lighthouse on Friday and one of their engineers was taking appointments on Saturday. Jason Conklin was our engineer, he came out and was able to explain everything to us and give us a report to give to the sellers. At the time Jason came to the house, our option period was up in about 2 days. He knew we were under a time crunch and offered to send his report to some companies that he knew would bid directly from that. What a weight was taken off our shoulders! He did not have to offer that but he did and has won my business for as long as I'm in need of it.

Engineer was timely and effective. Subsequent report was detailed. I would highly recommend Lighthouse.

Jason came out on time and was professional and friendly. He gave us a read out of our foundation's needs, helped us understand what to expect, and gave contact information to several companies with whom to get bids from. We got a total of 5 bids (from both Jason's recommendations and others) and the company we ended up choosing, Investment Foundation Repair, was great. Jason came back out after the work was done to make sure the readings were where they needed to be. I would recommend Jason and Lighthouse Engineering to anyone. Thanks guys!

We ultimately didn't end up buying the house.

Bill arrived on time and completed the inspection on time. Total process took about 5 hours. He gave me a very thorough verbal report as soon as he was done with his inspection. We recieved the written inspection report within 48 hours. I felt that his report on the foundation was great and easy to understand as he explained it to me. He also included pictures of many of his findings in his written report. By his own admission, his report does not include pest inspection - termites or rodents. We suspected (correctly) that the house had pest issues and had to pay for that inspection separately - so if that is an issue it may be wise to ask about it in advance. But overall - we were very pleased.

A+ in every regard -- "A" for Amazing. Add an "I" for Integrity. Mike Gandy came to our house, looked at the situation, immediately diagnosed the problem and cause, and recommended a solution 80% less than the best of three other estimates. All this in less than 15 minutes. He recommended a company to contact to correct the situation, and refused to charge for his time or advice, saying he really hadn't done anything, and that his expertise wasn't needed to solve the problem. I found his advice invaluable, so insisted I at least pay for his travel and time, he flatly refused. Add to this responsiveness - contacted on on Thursday last week, here 5 days later. And then add punctuality - early by 5 minutes - and in our experience that almost never happens. Clearly very considerate of his customers and "gets it" with customer service, a rarity in our experience. Very, very highly recommend.

Lighthouse was easy to schedule. Celia in the office is great. Mike came out to the house and took measurements and walked around the interior and exterior and crawled under the house as well. We discussed his findings in detail after he reviewed the home, and he sent a written up report afterward which I was able to use when getting bids on the foundation repair. He also recommended a foundation company that has a good reputation for doing good pier & beam work, which was helpful.

We were concerned about a new wall crack not far from a place where we had done some renovation, creating an opening to our kitchen. Scheduled the appointment through his office. He wasn't able to keep the original appointment due to illness but was right on time for the reschedule and went right to work. After spending a good hour, quite busily, he gave a courteous, clear, and knowledgeable-seeming assessment and set of recommendations. I was a little concerned that we, not he, "connected the dots" between the alterations we had made and the specific new crack, that it was not actually just an age line, but he understood immediately how what we did could have led to the problem once we gave him more background. Payment was always due on the spot, which I understand. He promptly drew up plans and specs and recommended a high quality, affordable contractor, and for a reasonable additional fee, reinspected.

When speaking with the administrator in the office, I appreciated her outstanding customer service and the fact that she could get someone to our home the next day. Jason Conklin arrived on time and was sincere and professional. He said many times that he treats his jobs as if they were his own home. My husband and I really wanted an unbiased opinion. We had other foundation companies come out to give us bids and wanted to ensure we had an engineer inspect our property before making such an investment. Jason completed the inspection of our home and also took extra time to discuss our concerns and some of his recommendations. We received his detailed report the following morning. He also went of his way to send his report to a few foundation companies that he trusts so we could get bids based on his findings. In the long run, it appears that we will save thousands of dollars because of hiring Lighthouse Engineering. Money well spent!

Mr. Gandy has been an invaluable source of information and service since I moved to this area. He is professional, polite, punctual, and a pleasure to deal with. He has always been incredibly patient and honest in answering my many, many questions, and always taken the time to increase my knowledge of my home and provide reassurance when appropriate. In my opinion, he's always willingly gone above and beyond the norms provided for services such as these . I highly recommend the services provided by Lighthouse Engineering and will definitely utilize them again in the future.

They came to my house in conjunction with my foundation repairs. The young lady came before the foundation work was done to verify what the foundation company had drawn up. Then back again after the work was done to confirm all had been corrected. She explained what she had found as to the foundation company and they both had been very close prior and showed me that they did a great job bringing the foundation up to where it should be. I was very happy both times she came to my home.

Very professional. We were in a time crunch to get the foundation inspected prior to closing, and he was able to accomodate our need. In previous reviews I had read that timeliness had been a problem, so I was not surprised that he was running a tad bit late, but overall a great experience.

Bill arrived on time. He was very knowledgeable and provided detailed explanation of all the doubts. Wrote a comprehensive report. He was very upfront about existing and foreseeable issues.

Hired based upon mainly positive reviews and generally positive comments made towards the owner Mr Gandy. Very fast in responding and flexible with meeting my tight schedule - most others that I contacted were backed up for weeks, but Lighthouse said they could come next week. They said they would send Mr Conklin who I assumed was also a fully qualified engineer. Price was $400. Everyone else I called was asking for $300 or less, but this was the only one I called who could meet my deadline and was a company not affiliated with a foundation repair company. (wanted non bias opinion). Mr Conklin arrived on time, was courteous and spent about an hour gathering information and performing the inspection. I was not able to be there in person due to my travel schedule, but my wife gave him my notes and questions on paper. Report was delivered two days later. A little shorter on detail than I expected (two pages in total with a lot of that being boiler plate material). Other than the drawing and elevation recordings, the report was pretty skimpy on analysis details and did not address specific questions that I had left for the inspector. I was disappointed however to find out that Mr Conklin is infact a trainee and not a qualified engineer. While I can understand the need to hire extra hands to keep up with work, if I'm paying $400 I expect a fully qualified engineer to be doing the work and not a trainee. How do I know that his assessment was accurate unless a qualified engineer was there in person to perform the inspection? A follow up email to the company to request an explanation and express my disappointment went unanswered. I reminded the company in that email that I would post an unfavorable review, but I assume that since they didn't engage in further communication, that they don't care. That's too bad. An EIT is an "Engineer In Training". It is one step towards a PE "Professional Engineer".. but there is a difference between a PE and an EIT. If he was fully qualified, why was it not his professional stamp on the drawings? Only two months after performing this "expert evaluation" and claiming that nothing was amiss I can now see significant cracks developing in my brick work across an area of concern that I pointed out to Jason. I do not believe this work was well performed and that I've wasted $400.

After we encountered the issue in the master bathroom we contacted Lighthouse Engineering to ask if they had taken any steps to ensure photos contained in the inspection report might not possibly have been something worse than what was referenced in the inspection report. To date we still have not received a satisfactory explanation. The contact listed with this company came back out to the house to relook at the area and completely tried to down play the whole issue into a minor repair. We had 6 estimates at what it would take to remedy the issue and none came in less than $10,000 so not sure what Lighthouse Engineering definition of minor repair would be but I definitely would not refer anyone to this company. Their was no sign of sympathizing with the issue we had to deal with so definitely not satisfied with the inspection that was done on the house we purchased.

The engineer was very professional, showed me precisely where the areas of concern were and communicated his suggested repairs to me in a way I could understand.

Let me start by saying this, I spent a lot of time having several foundation companies come to my house (they were all large companies and all top rated on Angie's list) from the end of July 2012 through the middle of August 2012. They were all very nice salespeople and their quotes ranged from $6800 - $8500 and piers ranged from 21 - 24. With the difference in the amount of piers and in the quotes, we decided to pay an independent structural engineer to come in and tell us exactly what we needed. We asked around and several people who work with my ex-husband highly recommended Lighthouse Engineering as they had used them and were very happy with their service. I contacted Celia at Lighthouse and set up an appointment for Jason Conklin to come over on August 13th. Jason arrived about 10 minutes early and after introducing himself he went through my house and measured thoroughly. When he was done, he sat with us and explained what he found and that we needed 16 piers. We told him that we had quotes from 21 - 24 piers and he explained to us why we didn't need that many and we felt comfortable with his explanation and it made a lot of sense too. He discussed the different types of piers with us and that helped us to decide which type we were going to go with for our area. He took his time to answer all of our questions. Dealing with a foundation repair is a major cost and not something I ever had to do before and having Jason to help us gain knowledge from his expertise took a lot of stress off of us. Jason said he would have his report to us that night and he did. We received our formal report the next day. He also asked if we would like for him to send out his report to companies whose work he has seen and found to be of high quality and we said yes! We were so confused at this point as to who to use and felt such a relief having him to help us. We found a great company through Jason and they came out yesterday and repaired the foundation. Their pricing was very reasonable, their warranty was very good and the owner and his crew are professional, polite and hard working. I would have never found them without Jason. I am sure that all the companies he emailed would have been excellent to use. This evening Jason came over to do his final inspection and everything is good. I highly recommend Lighthouse Engineering.

We scheduled our appointment with Lighthouse a week in advance. On the day of the inspection (around 9am), Lighthouse didn't show up. We called them and they apologized for forgetting to add our appointment to their schedule. Fortunately (as this was the last day of our inspection period), they sent an engineer out that afternoon to look at the foundation and rafters. They delivered their report the next morning and it was obvious that it was a bit rushed (typos, omitted words, etc.), which is understandable given they were typing it up at 10PM the night before (as evidenced by their e-mails to me). They also neglected to comment on the sagging eaves we specifically asked for an evaluation of. Aside from missing about our appointment and forgetting one of our requests, we are generally happy with the inspection performed, it did the job and discussed the major areas of concern (rafters and foundation).

Timely, thorough, professional and personable! Love these guys!!