JES Foundation Repair

Great job, JES! We were really nervous about doing this repair because it's expensive and seemed like a big deal to us. After having two engineers in our family confirm, however, that this was the right thing to do for our end-unit townhouse's issue, we proceeded, somewhat hesitantly. We are always a little skeptical about what salespeople tell us, though the JES salespeople we interacted with explained very well what they do and why they do it, as well as giving pictures and diagrams, and let us know what results could be expected. Over a couple of year period, as the cracks in our brick got worse (along with a little inside drywall cracking over the same area), we had JES come out more than once to assess and give an estimate, so we saw more than one salesperson. They were friendly and helpful each time. We did not experience any hard sell or pressure tactics. It's a big investment, so it took us awhile to decide to go ahead and "do it right" and use JES. We got other assessments by other foundation people, and not unlike going to different doctors and having them each give you a different solution, each foundation person suggested a different way to deal with our problem. Some of those approaches didn't even make sense for our issue, in our estimation. We consulted with two civil engineer in our family that live nearby, one with much structural expertise, which it made it much easier to choose JES. Both thought JES's approach was the best way to address our issue. Brian was the foreman of our crew, with Jeremy and Miguel assisting. Brian was amazing and Jeremy and Miguel were his hard-working assistants. We were able to benefit from Brian's expertise, tremendous attention to detail, and his professionalism from beginning to end, and we felt relieved and fortunate to have him leading our job. It's so nice to have someone work on our home who obviously cares about the job being done right. Have you ever seen Holmes on Holmes? We could see this quality in Brian throughout our 3 day experience, and they all worked tirelessly and had terrific attitudes. They protected our furnishings and floors where they worked inside, and made sure the job was fully completed inside and out, down to the last detail. We felt they went above and beyond the call of duty in numerous ways. Frankly, we couldn't have asked for more and felt we got a great value once we saw first-hand the amount of work that was involved. Some issues we were concerned with before the job ever started were the restoration of the waterproof coating on the foundation where it might be impacted from the job, the sealing of the cracks in the foundation before the dirt went back down, and ensuring the restoration of the drainage system around the base of the home wherever the job might disrupt it. We also had concerns about the vapor barrier being restored for the pier done from the inside of the house. Brian went beyond the call of duty to help us see that our concerns were addressed and our needs were met. He was quite thorough, and we were very satisfied with how each of these things were addressed. All through the job he put up with lots of questions, observers, and even pictures being taken! None of this phased him --or MIguel and Jeremy-- and they all kept their pleasant demeanor throughout the job. Brian continually led the team with excellence, and these guys represented JES very well. During the course of the job, the county inspector came, and a JES service manager came --twice, I think. After the job a county inspector came again. These visits further supported our sense that we were in good hands and that the job was being taken care of professionally and was monitored well. It took a day longer than originally estimated, and we were quite glad it did, because they took the necessary time to do the job so well. We also added a pier which changed the original plan. JES definitely gets an "A" for this job, and our foreman, Brian, is top of the class. We hope we never need the lifetime warranty, but it is nice to have it if we ever do.

We just couldn't jump into that boat!

We had two people come, and we chose them because we liked their solution better. It just seemed easier. They kept everything very clean, and they cleaned up after themselves.

The inspector came out twice to make sure the problem was correctly assessed. We had not removed the paneling from the wall on his first visit; after removing the paneling we discovered the problem to be more severe than we had first supposed. He willingly came back and completed a recommendation which we agreed to. The original start date had to be pushed back due to very bad weather; the crew arrived as agreed on December 10th. The scope of this work was quite large and required a tremendous amount of excavating; the crew worked well together; the foreman kept a close eye on the project as work progressed. This was the neatest crew I have ever seen. Care was taken to lessen the damage to our property.

Review Updated: 12/27/2012 based upon turn around for warranty repair. ***Updated based upon warranty repair communication and Russ communicating for warranty repair. 12/27/2012*** Initial scope of work design was performed by salesman Todd Simmons. Design was completely wrong and had to be fixed by Ray Beadles field team when they arrived onsite. One team didn't show up for a day and this prompted continuous calls to the main office. There was a lot of mis-communication and delays due to manual processes that the company needs to fix by using technology. Work was completed but required a lot of monitoring and onsite review of work completed at end of the work day. Warranty support is completed by the company upon request and it seems that they have ironed out communication problems with customer's complaints over the last few months. This warrants updating this review. Floor was starting to sag and contacted Russ Nagel and got an immediate response the day after the Christmas holiday. Bryan showed up the next day and did an excellent job correcting the issue that had come up after the repair in April 2012. No complaints. Recommendations for JES: Use Google Apps for Business to improve your communications. http://www.google.com/enterprise/apps/business/ Use Google Maps Coordinate to determine where staff are located for jobs and tracking: http://www.google.com/enterprise/mapsearth/products/coordinate.html

I have used LPR in the past and very much appreciate their responsiveness. Yes, they do cost a bit more, but the company is small, well-managed and very easy to contact. The service is catered to your needs and the owner always takes the time to walk through available options without pressure to take one option over another. I have never had to wait for more than a day to get a response to an inquiry. It's a family run business and the way they handle clients shows such. They are very organized and professional. LPR showed up exactly on time for both the estimate and the service. The extra cost is well worth the piece of mind for using the company.

My contact from the company spent several hours at my home when providing an estimate. He showed videos on relevant topics and my overall impression was that he and the company had expertise in the field. I felt pressured into signing the contract on the first contact and looking back regret doing so. Soon after, I realized I wanted to alter the plan we agreed to but my contact/sales person was difficult to get a hold of and admitted that he could not remember my specific situation and therefore could not make recommendations as to how to remedy the additional slant in the floor I had discovered. Despite several months between having the estimate and the work scheduled, he did not return to my home to further investigate and did not ever go into the crawlspace where the work was to be performed. He agreed to come back the first day the crew would begin work. He was slow to respond to emails and I had difficulty requesting the time off work to meet him with such short notice. Despite several emails on my part detailing my additional questions/concerns, when he showed up he said, "Now why am I here?" He often did not answer questions directly and was vague and ambiguous. The crew had reservations about the changes but the salesperson who I assumed had greater expertise did not. I was told there was not a guarantee that the floor would be level but was told it would improve. Upon the completion of the work the floor was noticeably worse in one section. In addition, my walls cracked in 6 places, marble in the bathroom cracked in two places, and my toilet, which was very close to one of the jacks, began leaking waste into my newly insulated and lined crawlspace. I emailed the production manager with my concerns and received no response. From researching the company, I was aware that they employ engineers and train others on their services. While I do believe there may be a level of expertise contained in the company, I do not think I was exposed to or benefited from it. I do not believe my problem was investigated properly by a person who either had, or consulted with someone with the proper knowledge, or cared to provide proper services. If this had been the case I think I would have had a better result, or at least would have been told that the smart jack(s) were unlikely to help and therefore would have saved thousands of dollars. I feel that I was taken advantage of given I had signed the contract and since there is no guarantee that the service will remedy the problem, there is no accountability. The crew was professional and well-meaning although provided significant conflicting information from my salesman/contact. The vapor barrier was installed well and the insulation mediocre, with a section missing and few areas bunched up and/or hanging down. There were a few aspects of the work that seemed to contradict common practice in the field and I was unable to obtain a sufficient explanation of the discrepancy. Given the expense and importance to the structure of the home I would suggest using a great deal of caution when dealing with JES.

It took me forever to get them to do the work. On one wall they were supposed to put up wall anchors 10, they put up 12, they were suppposed to up 7 on another wall and only put up 5. It was not until I got the county involved in order to get them to come back and fix this. They told me they were put down sod. I am still trying to get the grass to grow on my lawn. They would arrive around noon, work 30 minutes take lunch and only work a 3-4 additional hours. This was a horrible job that took months, from start to finish it took 7 months.

The JES rep showed up on time. We asked about a sinking front porch slab to see if it was causing structural damage. He indicated that it was likely the backfill soil settling and that the slab would sink until the backfill was compacted. We could remove and repour, jack it up with piers, or leave it alone. While looking in our basement he noticed a horizontal crack in the wall. Our inspector had noted the crack and told us to keep an eye on it. The JES engineer said that the wall was already in failure and needed to be repaired immediately. He said the best way was to install five wall anchors for $9300. I asked about other methods and was told that, "the wall is in failure and requires immediate attention". Obviously, that didn't answer my question, so I asked about carbon fiber. I was told that carbon would project against bulging (which we don't have) but not against tipping. He also said it would be the same price. But again, we recieved not estimate. I looked around online and found that a horizontal crack at the midline usually was indicative of construction vehicle traffic or impropery backfilling during construction. The problem may be exacerbated by water. The JES salesperson mentioned none of this. Nor did he recommend that we just inject the crack with epoxy and wait to see if it re-cracked, which would indicate wall movement. Instead we were provided with the most expensive option save for rebuilding the wall. Foundation wall anchors are meant to help a bulging cracked wall. Our wall isn't bulging and I see no current indication of movement. He also recommended a sump pump and edge drains even though we have never had water infiltration. Crazy. . .

Overall the rep. was very professional and polite. They may not want to do business with me but If the need arises I would.

Update 6/11/12: Inspection was rejected, the ground in front of the house is sinking after being filled in 3 times, no one from JES has ever called to follow up. Summary: The finished product is anything but. The floor was never leveled (or even moved), there was poor to almost no communication. The finished concrete is rough and full of imperfections. It is a lottery if you will get a competent crew or not. The system should work (it hasn't rained yet so who knows) but after $17k and 4 months I expected it to at least look finished. I would not recommend them, or use them again. This project was one mess after another. It started last year when mud started coming in under the walls of my finished basement. Turns out a previous contractor who put in a main sewer line hit the outside wall and knocked a block 0.5" into the house. This prompted me to call numerous engineers and basement experts. JES was the last contractor to put in their bid as it took over a month to schedule their sales guy to come out (the other contractors took 2 weeks to a month, it was a very wet fall). I liked what Nick Feaster had to say, and explained to me what they were going to do to fix my problems. They were going to install 8 wall anchors thru the basement wall that was bowing in and attach them to plates placed in a trench approximately 10' out in the front yard (this is known as a dead man) This solution has the potential to actually straighten the wall. All others wanted to put in either steel or fiberglass reinforcement to hold the wall in place. Next they were going to dig down against the foundation of the house on the outside and uncover the knocked in block, try and knock it back into place and re-tar the area so mud would stop leaking in. Last they were going to install their preferred drain tile system (every company has their own best system, but they all basically do the same thing) and sump pump. This was to cost me $12k (about average for the other estimates I got) I signed a contract and put down a deposit on November 26. Work was scheduled for 3 days to start JANUARY 19th A week before work starts I give them a call to make sure we are still on schedule, and to emphasize that they need to call MISS Utility as the gas company has installed new gaslines. They assure me that everything is on schedule and called in. On the day of scheduled work, a JES crew showed up and began to get to work laying drop clothes and putting up plastic everywhere to take care of the dust they were about to make. I pointed out to the lead that MISS Utility had not been out yet and again reminded them of the two gas lines buried in the front yard. He apologized and said that the office should have taken care of that, but he would get an emergency call in to get the lines marked (which they did). While they are waiting on MISS Utility, they begin to break the concrete for the sump well. Here they discovered the the concrete slab was "floating". All of the soil that was supposed to be holding up the floor had washed out (probably thru the broken sewer line that was replaced the year before), and the only thing holding up the floor was the footers. (I would like to note at this time that the basement floor was very cracked and pitched due to the settling of the slab previous to JES doing any work, something I would have thought any one of the 4 basement contractors that I had look at the place would have noted). Now work in the basement is stopped and the office is called to figure out a solution to the floating slab (they cant continue removing concrete as eventually the whole slab would just collapse). By the end of day one the trench is dug, the concrete that was dug up was replaced, and calls were made to the front office who is supposed to call me to discuss solutions (job foreman tells me about "mud jacking") January 20: The JES crew begins installing the wall anchors, while I am frantically trying to find other contractors to bid this mud jacking. Eventually the JES office contacts me and explains to me that they have a sub contractor that will come in and pump a slurry or grout under the slab, eventually building up enough pressure that the slab will lift, and has the potential (no guarantee of how much movement) of leveling out my current floor. He says it will take approximately 2 trucks to do the job, and they can only deliver one truck per day at the cost of $1800 per truck). After a few more phone calls on my part, I conclude that this is the best solution, and the cost is reasonable.(I only found one other contractor that would even think about doing the job and was going to charge about the same). The mud jacking is scheduled to happen FEBRUARY 6 and 7. By now all the wall anchors are in, and I was informed that the County Inspector is not going to show up today, so they are going to take pictures of the excavation work that they did and finish back filling their trench, and that will be enough for the inspector. As of April 11, 2012 the permit is still open (not signed off by the inspector). February 6: The mud jacking contractors show up sometime after 11am. They begin drilling holes every 3 feet making a swiss cheese pattern on the floor, the are also telling me that they need the rest of the basement cleared as they need to drill EVERYWHERE. This would have been great information to have in the preceding 3 weeks before they showed up. With a little bit of shuffling of stuff, they are able to drill enough holes to begin pumping what turns out to be just powdered limestone. Unlike grout or concrete slurry which I was led to believe that they would pumping, this stuff will never truly harden, just dry out. They leave after their truck is empty, concerned that they did not get very far on the first truck, and may need a third. February 7: Holes are continued to be drilled and limestone is pumped. By mid day they inform me that they will need at least one more truck, can they come back tomorrow. JES office calls me and basically tells me the same thing, they will need a third truck, and quite possibly a 4th. The third and fourth truck will be delivered at $800 a truck. February 8: continue drilling and filling, 4th truck will be necessary. That evening they call me and tell me that their truck has broken down, and they will not be able to finish the job until February 10. February 10: Unfortunately I am out of the country the rest of that week, so I am no able to observe the final day of mud jacking. The drain tile is scheduled to be installed MARCH 10. March 10: A different JES crew shows up and begins the demolition of the concrete to put in the drain system. They use NO drop-cloths, NO plastic, they are running their wheel barrows over the carpet, there is dust flying EVERYWHERE. They are getting ready to install the sump well, which is full of holes to collect water, and I ask them what is going to keep all the limestone slurry that is currently holding up the slab from washing into the well. They look at me like I am speaking a foreign language. Turns out none of them speak English very well. They have no idea what that gray paste (limestone slurry) is. I then ask them when they are going to drill the holes in the block wall (to drain out what ever water collects there) and they say they aren't going to drill holes. At this point I am LIVID, I call JES to find out why I don't have a competent team out here, and they inform me that my original crew was given the day off because they have to work Sunday. I continue to ask questions about how they are going to keep this slurry from washing away (the tell me they will use erosion cloth which this crew does not have), and they have no idea why the current crew will not drill holes in the block (they are having trouble communicating with them as well) Eventually the crew packs up their tools and go home. I am assured that someone will call me first thing Monday morning. I am left with a filthy basement with a trench running along the walls. March 12: I call JES in the AFTERNOON, leave a message wondering where my phone call is. I miss their call an hour later saying they will call me in the morning. March 13: I call JES in the AFTERNOON, I finally get a hold of someone. I get no apology for sending out a worthless crew or wasting my day or making a mess of the basement. We schedule the original crew to come out and finish up March 16. I now ask why there was no movement in the floor after the mud jacking. (they said there would be some movement) I am now told that, there was never any possibility that the floor would move, they were just putting material under the slab to shore it up. This is after both JES, and their sub contractors told me there would be some movement. March 16: Original JES crew comes in lays down drop cloths, and some plastic protection. They finish up the job, as well as regrading the front yard, since everything they had done had now sunk 6" below grade (I guess they didn't compact the soil like they should have) While they did rake it semi smooth (still plenty of rocks on top) they do not do any erosion control or throw down any grass seed (as written in the fine print of their contract). 20 minutes after they leave the jobsite, on a saturday, I have a bill in my email box. While the system they installed should work, they did a poor job finishing the concrete, there are bubbles, ripples, tool marks, finger prints, and marks from garbage they dropped in the wet cement. It is not feathered into the existing slab, so there is a rough transition from their concrete to the original slab. There was a thick layer of dust on everything. A couple of days later I found a pile of leftover concrete dumped over the fence onto the county property behind the house.

The inspector found the source of the moisture in the wall to be a tiny leak dipping from the connector in the sewer pipe. Then he told me that 3 small puddles of water that I had found weeks earlier on the floor in the middle of the basement were NOT caused by seepage. Another company was not sure, but did not have the experience to decide for sure that it was not a seepage problem, since there was no buckling of the laminate flooring. The workmen were prompt and efficient. The did a good, neat job.

See above. At this point I would tell anyone to get an estimite from JES. The only Thing I might disagree with JES is At one from date of installation They will come out and ops check system for a 199.00 dollars. I think that is very high? I have one coment on Feb. magazine, on the changing of the Light switch, a 100 to 120 dollar to change a switch? Go to Sears and buy their wiring book, they have a step by step on how to change a switch. Turn off power before working job.

They were clean and did a good job. I am very happy.

No services were performed. Not sure if I would use this company as I have not completed my research with other companies.

Overall it went very well. Before they came, I removed everything in the basement away from the walls and removed the paneling. The walls were bare except where an interior wall intersected the block wall at a 90 degree angle. I also had two 15-Amp 120 volt circuits and outlets installed where the sump pump system would be installed. They came on the appointed day within 10 minutes of the promised arrival time. The first thing they did was to cover air vents and put up plastic dust walls covering all the "stuff" and interior walls that were not involved in the work in the basement. They also put down a heavy floor covering in the halls. Next, they dug the channel in the floor at the base of the block wall. After that, they installed the vapor barrier membrane on all the block walls, a nice wrinkle-free and tight job. The second day, they installed the sump system, the sump pump discharge pipes, and the water channel at the base of the wall. Then they back-filled all the holes and trenches with stone and covered over with cement. After that, clean up, remove plastic "walls, ' and gone. Aftermath: The basement is no dirtier than after all the work I did to tear out the paneling and old ceiling and is arguably cleaner. I will certainly be making much more of a mess moving things and refinishing the spaces. The work is done neatly. My wife tells me it already smells dryer and less musty. This is after a wet snow fall while the work was in progress. So I am happy and now confident the investment in refinishing the basement spaces will create a more comfortable and healthier living space than what we had before the work was done. I am also confident that I won't have a water problem if we see another tropical storm of the size that caused the flood in the basement that started this whole process.

I contacted this company for repair of your basement. We had issues with water on floor and foundation walls cracked/bulging. The person who came to perform the estimate was very thorough and professional and we based our decision to employ this company on this presentation. The work crew arrived as scheduled and on time. They were considerate of our property by protecting the flooring on the first level ( no outside basement access). Crew was courteous and were extremely hard working. The lead was very helpful in answering the questions I had during the work process. There was a mix up on when the crew for the foundation repair was to show up, but this was resolved so they were here in conjunction with the waterproofing crew. Overall, the work was explained very thoroughly to us prior to proceeding and there were no surprises when the work actually commenced. Their pricing was higher than other companies but we feel the final result was worth the money spent. Since this work was done, we have not had water on the basement floor ( even after 12 inches of rain in one week). We would highly recommend this company to anyone considering this type of work.

There was no "trail" of damage from the foundation to my upstairs bathroom, so I was not completely sold on the foundation being the problem. I ended up getting two other opinions from different companies and they said that I didn't have any real problems with my foundation. They discovered what they say is a compromised wooden I-beam on my upstairs floor and repairs are continuing on this area to sure-up the bathroom issues before I repair the cracks and broken glass. I also found that using a laser leveler to measure foundation problems was not acurate as there was no baseline measurement for which to compare any descrepancies. The laser leveler was simply measured against the molded-in brick pattern on my foundation walls. There is nothing to say that the molded-in pattern is prefectly level to begin with and can be used to make acurate measurements from to determine foundation sinking. I came out of the experience unsure of the truth and wonder if JES would recommend the pier system to EVERY customer, as there probably is sinking in many foundations in my area, just not sinking that is so bad it would require an expensive pier system in order to stabilize. I decided not to use JES' services. I would suggest always getting a second and probably a third opinion on anything having to do with foundation repairs as an ENORMOUS amount of money is at stake in making the repairs.

I do recommend that potential clients go through the yellow pages, talk to references, and obtain several estimates. We contacted a third company as well, but that guy only sent emails.

Ed (the tech who came out) was very knowledgeable, patient, and answered any and all questions that we had. So far they are the best price that we have had.

There were two options and we had to carefully evaluate which to use. You can raise the slab or you can stabilize the slab and we chose the latter. Both approaches are solid so we called in a third, independent engineer to get his perspective. We have a larger house and I cannot imagine jacking up the entire house. It was a free estimate and if you want a slab raised, I would go with JES. One thing that pushed us to another company is that he was an engineer and the man from JES was not. I think he did a fine job, but I think there was a disconnect between the points of contact and the actual work being done.

Excellent. responded to my email within a day. on time for estimate. Price fair for all the work. Started repair on time. Very little mess outside and they were very careful of my plants.

They were excellent. They gave us an estimate that was right on. The foreman asked us about decisions they needed to make the day before they needed to make it to make sure everything was done to our satisfaction. It looks great.

I did not go with their recommendation for waterproofing the entire basement. turns out that a deck flashing failure, not a basement foundation issue was the main problem.

They made a good first impression. With the exception of one company, they were they cheapest. They were in the Washingtonian as being one of the best basement companies. The guy that came and gave me the estimate was very professional. The crew did a great job and were very thorough. They also gave a lifetime warranty on their work. They seem to be honest. I would recommend them. They showed me on a computer where my water was coming from and how they were going to fix it. Since they've done the work, I haven't noticed any leaks.