Martin's House Leveling & Remodeling

I hired Martin and his crew to level my older pier and beam home. We have a unique set up with a cellar/basement that needed leveling and support in the cracking concrete walls. He was very confident about what could and needed to be done and offered a “lifetime” guarantee. The work was done quickly and sloppily. During the work they cut electricity to my water heater, leaving a swath of burned cable and only offered a “sorry.” He did not complete a large chunk of the project, voiding his contract, and just told me I didn’t need it in the first place. When I pointed out problems with his work or inconsistencies with my expectations, he just gave me excuses, backpedaled on his own comments, or told me it would be fine and never offered to fix it. It was only when I made it clear that I would be firing him from the project that he offered to fix it, but at that point I did not have faith that he could complete the project in a quality manner. The house was slightly sturdier, but certainly not level afterwards. Other companies, both big and small, came out after to assess his work and were quite appalled at the quality of work. When asked to clean up his work site, his worker, a 16 year old wearing house slippers, swept/kicked large chunks of mud and rock off the sidewalk and into my yard. Tools were left throughout the site as well as some boards they had taken out that were sharp and full of nails. They broke a lawn statue. I asked them to try and preserve my landscaping where they were working, but they made no attempt to do so and killed a large part of our garden and then just threw the plants away in our recycling bin. I told them I would like them to salvage the plants and they said ok but left them in the bin. After all said and done, the house is sturdier as he added piers, but is more out of level than we started, my landscaping is destroyed, electricity needs repair, and I will need to spend several weekends cleaning up after him. Worst of all, when I let him know that I was firing him from the job, he threatened me, told me that “I better watch out” and told me that he “knows people and knows judges.” He was unprofessional, dishonest, disrespectful to property, and work was subpar. My experience echoes others around the internet. I recommend that you strongly avoid this contractor/house leveler.

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I took pictures of the work they did because something did not look right with way they supported the home's foundation. I talked to several contractors and this company does really bad work. Anytime two support beams meet you should put your support piers underneath the area where these two places meet. If you don't one beam will sag. They did not put support under several areas like this. What is more they used all sorts of items to "level" things that I am sure are not suppose to be there. I would not suggest using this company to anyone. I had a tenant call this week and tell me that the door won't lock because the house has settled. Now I have to pay someone else to fix the problem. Martin's House Leveling should not be in business. I thank Angie's List for having a service that will allow people to share experiences like this. I talked to my maintenance guy and he says another lady that he knows had a similar experience so I know this is not isolated and just me.

I had been having trouble getting my leveling done. I hired another person, who took the money but didn't complete the job, and also emailed a few businesses off this site who were really out of my area, but they didn't even bother to reply to me to say it was too far away. I then saw an ad in the newspaper for leveling so decided to call, and Mr. Mendoza came to the house the same day to look at it. His estimate was higher than the one I had who didn't finish the job, but lower than other bids I received. It was Friday, and he planned to come Monday to start the work. He then called Saturday morning and asked if it would be okay to start then. We agreed, and he and his crew came out and finished it all by Saturday afternoon. He was very pleasant and professional, and guaranteed his work and said he would relevel if necessary. It has only been a few weeks, but so far so good. The back room was lifted several inches and looks great, and now we can move ahead with more remodeling we have planned... finally!