JES Foundation Repair

This is an update to our 11/16 review of JES Foundation, which was not good, but apparently the third time was a charm. We were very frustrated after two failed attempts to schedule JES for a foundation inspection, and registered our frustration with the company. Determined to make things right, JES sent out their operations manager, Will, to conduct the inspection personally. We were immediately impressed by his expertise, courtesy and professionalism. He performed a very thorough inspection, and provided a comprehensive yet easy to understand education of all possible causes and solutions for the cracks in our basement wall. We were relieved to learn there was no problem with the foundation, and that we needed a new flashing on our doorway and some drywall work to fix the problem- a relatively simple job. This solution was not within the purview of JES's work, however Will happily recommended trusted companies that he thought might be able to complete the job. We were extremely happy for Will's thoughtfulness and determination to make up for our previous negative experience with JES, and frankly, had the work been within their purview we would have hired JES to complete the job. Thank you JES for doing right by us. It is much appreciated.

It did not go well and I would not recommend them.

I FOUND JES ON ANGIE 'S LIST. I CALLED FOR AN APPOINTMENT & THEY SENT CHRIS TESI. HE SHOWED UP ON TIME, ANSWERED ALL MY QUESTIONS & LISTENED PATIENTLY TO ME WHILE I DESCRIBED MY PROBLEM. HE MADE A RECOMENDATION THEN & QUOTED ME A PRICE THAT WAS FAIR BUT ALSO LAID OUT WHAT MY OTHER OPTIONS WERE. I HIRED THEM THE SAME DAY. THEY SENT DEMETRIUS TO PERFORM THE REPAIRS. HE ARRIVED ON TIME, PERFORMED ALL THE NECESSARY REPAIRS & EVEN STAYED EXTRA LATE TO FINISH THE JOB & LEFT MY HOUSE NEAT & CLEAN. THANKS JES FOR SENDING 2 PRO'S WHEN I NEEDED THEM. THANKS AGAIN, CHRIS & DEMETRIUS. REGARDS DON BOONE SR.

The estimater came and took measurements. He then called his manager to discuss the work and gave us a verbal estimate and said they would send a written estimate. Their policy according the an email confirming the appoint stated they would provide a written estimate on the spot. I never received the written estimate. I called them today (9 July) to find out when they were going to send the estimate. The service desk siad a manager would call. Whe the manager called he stated he would look into getting the proposal to me. I later received an email from the estimator saying they didn't want the job because it wasn't their "bread and butter" type of job and it was a rebuild instead of a fix.

Their work turned out positive. They under estimated their work and performed it in a shady manner and they were unwilling to answer the phone, to receive calls of concern. They now I have a lake in my space, calling back they are just not speedy to respond. They could have come in and tried to be nice. They billed me $3,000, that was in April of this year. I would not refer or use them again. They missed scheduled appointments. They did not reply to customer concerns.

The sales representative, Shane, was very responsive via email and phone to any questions I had and made modifications to the proposal that I had requested. After an appointment was made to perform the work I was called a few days before to confirm the date and time that had been agreed upon. They arrived as scheduled and the work was completed in one day as they had said it would probably be. Dimitrius, the person in charge of the crew was extremely helpful and polite, answered any questions I had and made sure I inspected all the work before they left. They cleaned everything up. Shane followed up with a phone call to make sure all had gone as expected. I was very happy with the entire process.

They were mixed up. I kicked them out of my house. They wanted like $30000. I ran them out. They were awful. The way they wanted to sell me was the hard sell. It was terrible.

see "what did the provider do"

The Operations Manager of JES Foundation Repair reached out to me concerning my experience with their company. He was extremely professional and compassionate. After speaking to him I feel like my experience and review matters. I trust that he will investigate my experience and correct my opinion of this company.

They arrived on time, were very respectful of us and our home during the work, and, best of all, we have no more water leakage in our basement.

The service turned out really good. My floor is sagging, and I have been looking for an engineer for that. I saw their ad, and I called them. The gentleman came, and he did a survey, and then he came with a date when the workers would come. The workers came on the day they were supposed to come, but what happened was, they put the holes in the wrong place. I came downstairs and told them where they were supposed to put them. They said they were sorry and they had made a mistake, so they filled up the holes that they had dug, and then they put the holes in the correct place, and then they put up the seal beams. Everything was fine, just that they weren't paying attention, and made the initial mistake. I would use them again, because I have another issue with the floors, because he said that we should wait a couple of years and see if it continues to sag, and now I need to get a full beam from back to front. I am going to do that next year. I should have put the beam from front to the back, and it would have solved the problem. The work that they did works perfectly, and I am happy with it, and I will do the steel beam from the front of the house to the back of the house which will solve the problem of the sagging floor. The gentleman who came out was very knowledgeable, he gave me plenty of suggestions, and the price was right. I was expecting to pay more, but I paid medium range from what I was expecting to pay. The only issue was that the workers did not look at the diagram correctly. When they come back again, I will tell them what they are supposed to do, and where the beam is supposed to go, so they don't make the same mistake again. It was a great experience, other than the small mistake, it was just a hiccup. He said he would get back to me in a year, to see if we needed the other beam, and I am going to get back to them this summer. I had heavy stuff in the living room, and the workers took it downstairs for me, so they went above and beyond the call of duty.

The service turned out great. They delivered what they said they were going to deliver, and they gave me a lifetime guarantee.

The salesperson arrived on time, and then inspected our crawlspace. Afterwards, instead of discussing our project, we were shown four movies while he wrote up the quote for repairs -- we did not ask to see them. The movies were actually infomercials for more services the company provided, and were unnecessary for our house. During the meeting the salesperson became defensive and slightly beligerant when we told him that the pricing was astronomical. Then, he offered to lower the price using a "corporate discount". (Why wasn't this price the number presented initially??) He asked us what we thought a fair price might be, and then tried to defend his pricing by telling us about the longevity of their company. We finally had to tell him to pack up and get out of our home. As a comparison, if I were to go and buy the parts for this job, the total cost would be around $3k (that is being generous and using IRC approved permanent steel support columns). I estimate the job would take 4 men 2 days to complete. So, even with my numbers, and a labor rate of 1500/day ($47/hr per laborer -- that's $97.7k/year for each guy -- which should be WAY over what they're getting paid for real), our quote should not have been more than $6k. There was no justification on how the rest of the bill was substantiated -- I assume the company just takes home 65-80% profit on jobs like this. The pricing quoted was so high that if we had selected all of their services, we would have spent nearly $30k to install the jacks, install a vapor barrier, and a dehumifier. Plus, the sleazy sales tactics were offensive to my wife and I.

. UPDATE 3.15.2016: I had an inspector out to check the sump pump and in doing so, 2.5 years later that the sump pump was dry and not installed correctly after examining it.

So while I am on the beach other work was being done on the house. The technician then says that the back sump pump is not working. I said OK, but what about the front, there appears to be some leaking. He said it looks like there is some leaking in the front corner near the front sump pump. He says that the rear sump pump needs to be replaced. I asked how much he said $600.00. I told him that I had just had the front sump replaced the week before for $425 off of an Angie List deal. He said since I have to charge you $200 for a service call, the sump pump would be the same price if you minus the service call. I said...wait I have a lifetime warranty on the back waterproofing and was looking for an estimate on the front. He said the warranty is not applicable to the sump pump and that the service call was $200. Since rain was expected, I had him replace the back sump pump and then asked for a written estimate for the front. Several days later I get the written estimate via e-mail. I asked several questions. 1) when could the work be done 2) why was the proposed waterproofing solution the best solution to the problem (an Angies list recommended question), 3) why did the solution include installation of 16 ft of waterguard along a wall that connects to the adjacent townhouse and 4) why did the solution include a 16 ft of a vapor lock system that connected to the wall that connects to the adjacent townhouse for 16 ft. At no time was there any water entering the basement through the side wall, and I can understand a vapor lock system and the water guard for the front and maybe a small part of the side wall, but why for a wall that on the other side is a townhouse basement of the house next door. I asked these questions starting on Saturday. I followed up on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. In addition, there were also other charges such as a transportation fee of $500.00 (which I was told was added to all quotes for Maryland residents) and nearly $2,000 for a dehumifier, even though sitting right next to the sump pump was a 90 pt whole house dehumidifier. The only response I ever got to any of these e-mails was that they would have to consult the technician. Not clear to me why the technician would need to be consulted when someone else is providing the quote. Since I have not gotten a response to these relatively easy questions to answer, I have no choice to assume that the quote was massively inflated and that the 16 ft added to the side wall was just a way to increase the costs of the job. You shouldn't have to repeadetly write/call a company over an over again to get answers to questions.

It took a while to schedule, due to all the permits. The person I was dealing with was apparently having a personal crisis of some sort, because they started the work and neglected to tell me that the permits weren't complete. They dug up my yard and THEN told me the permits weren't completed. I wouldn't let them complete work without the valid permits, so my yard sat for two months looking like a construction zone. Overall, the quality of work was fine.

He came and gave an estimate but the work was never done.

Contacted for an estimate and very quickly a response was received that someone would be contacting me. 3 weeks later have not heard back at all and that is after writing again to see if someone would be contacting me.

A family member recommended this company to me. I met the guy who looked at my father’s basement in September for the waterproofing. He wrote a contract. They didn’t do the work until November. At that time, I had to take all the drywall. They scheduled it on a Tuesday, just before Thanksgiving. They came out and started the work. They told me that it would take three days Tuesday and Wednesday. Thanksgiving was Thursday and they would come back Friday to finish it up. It just so happened that Tuesday, there was an eye storm and I couldn’t get down there. While I was talking to the project manager on the phone and the workers came and proceeded to do the work. The next day was Thanksgiving traffic and I couldn’t deal with that but then they told me they were finished. I didn’t go down there because I thought they would be there on Friday. I went down and found out that the job was not completed. They didn’t mention to me that the windows were left open. The windows were not on the same level as the wall. In other words, there was an opening there which had to be filled in. They just left it open like that. They could have told me that they can do it for a certain grade. When they wrote the contract, they said they were going to send it to me because we wanted to settle it and anyway I have the price but we didn’t really itemize everything. I have two sump pumps down there but I said I wanted a back up sump pumps. They put two sump pumps but one is not a back up. They said that it was not in the contract. I told them strictly that I wanted a back up sump pumps. They just gave me a sample of it and that’s all I have. The project manager said that everything was great. This June, I told them I’ll meet them down there so we could go over with the things I thought that they needed to correct. They told me that the manager got another appointment and he could be there at some point of a time. He told me that he was on his way there. He was there waiting for 5 minutes. He never called and went on to his next appointment. We didn’t get anything resolve. They didn’t return my phone calls either.

Within 24 hours of meeting with Mr. Oldham, I had the promised estimate (which agreed with what he showed me at our appointment when we discussed the problem) and a contract to sign. The scheduler called two days later with proposed dates to accomplish the work. On the day the work was scheduled (which was within two weeks of contacting JES), Juan and his helper arrived early in the morning and got right to work. Although putting in a water seepage system inside the house is a messy job, they kept the mess to a minimum and were careful with all my furniture/rugs so no collateral damage was incurred. They worked continuously all day, even through lunch time, and stayed late to get the work completed within one day (other companies had said it would take 2-3 days!). Afterwards, Phil contacted his electrician and he arrived within two days to do the required electrical work for the dedicated line needed for the new sump pump. He also recommended a Handyman to help me put the basement back together after all his work was completed. Without this additional assistance, I would have been a lot longer in getting this problem fixed and the basement back together again afterwards. I highly recommend working with JES (especially Phil) but hope I have no further need of this kind of service in the future!

The workman arrived on the day and at the approximate time as scheduled. We reviewed the job -- extend and bury a sump pump discharge line from the existing discharge to the rear of the property. He dug the ditch to extend the line and asked if it was OK. I told him at that time that it should be deeper to bury the line. He proceeded to (slightly) deepen the trench and attempted to cover it (it was raining a bit at the time). When it stopped raining I went out and inspected the work -- there were sections of pipe that weren't covered and one section that looked like he just laid the pipe on the ground and tried to cover it with dirt. I called their local Northern Virginia office and they sent him back out. He attempted to cover some of the bare spots, but the pipe is still not buried below the surface of the ground. We are now left with a ridge across our yard. The company knows, or should know as of writing this review, that we were unsatisfied with the job.

I was home to observe and asked LOTS of questions of both crews. First crew did the drilling and filling and the second crew did the precise work of raising. Interesting to watch. I have pics for anyone who wants to know what the work and finished product looks like. The reason we wanted the porch level was for possible sale of the home. That is not possible until we finish the porch; i.e., to cover it with some material to hide the concrete circles. DO ask for pics so you know what it will look like on completion. DO ask for a detailed walk-through of what the job involves. Pls do not list my address with any posting. thanks, karen

Excellent service! Friendly and personable, yet very professional, no nonsense folks. Planning to bring them back next year to work on the basement. Highly recommend.

Although they had to return twice to finish the original job, they stood by their work. Since the original install, we had service from them on two occasions. The most recent time, it appeared that one of the SaniDrys was malfunctioning. They originally scheduled a service call for May 12 between 12-2 with a technician named Alex out of the Manassas office. When he was a no show, I called and was told that they did not have us on the schedule. They were very apologetic and re-scheduled for the following Saturday, May 17. In fact, the manager, Tom, called to personally apologize for the mix up and they offered free filter replacements for my trouble. On the 17th, the technician, Miguel, arrived on time and was professional. JES replaced the SaniDry, even though it was recently out of warranty.

Although they had to return twice to finish the original job, they stood by their work. Since the original install, we had service from them on two occasions. The most recent time, it appeared that one of the SaniDrys was malfunctioning. They originally scheduled a service call for May 12 between 12-2 with a technician named Alex out of the Manassas office. When he was a no show, I called and was told that they did not have us on the schedule. They were very apologetic and re-scheduled for the following Saturday, May 17. In fact, the manager, Tom, called to personally apologize for the mix up and they offered free filter replacements for my trouble. On the 17th, the technician, Miguel, arrived on time and was professional. JES replaced the SaniDry, even though it was recently out of warranty.