Drain- Pro Inc

The company was very customer service-oriented. They could have easily charge us with the response but they didn't. So they were very considerate of our finances, and I would recommend them.

unknown

This could have been a nightmare from H***, and came very close to it. From the outset I should say I was dealing with a person named Paul, located in their Portland, Oregon office of Drain-Pro, Inc, and not their main office in Tacoma, Washington area, although they supported everything I was told by Paul. Paul came out to give me a free estimate on a front and backyard storm drainage problem. Several trips were made to come up with a solution, and he decided that 400 ft of coring in the front, and a French drain in the back would solve 90%+ of the problem. He finally came up with an proposal of approximately $17,500. When I asked him why it was so expensive, he said the materials were more than half the cost and that it was a very special type of drain pipe material. I did some fast calculating in my head and said that the pipe came to $25 a foot. He said that was about right (Lie #1) and I could check the price online at Home Depot. I wrote him a check for half of the proposal amount. That evening I checked things out, and the most expensive pipe of that type at Home Depot was $1.46 per foot. The next day I stopped payment on the check. I then asked where the pipe was made. He said he would send all of the information (Lie #2) and never got it. Then I asked him if he had measured off the distances, because I had walked them off and came up with less than 300 feet. He said he had (Lie #3), but didn't do so until AFTER I had mentioned the discrepancy. When I asked for a somewhat more detailed breakdown of costs, I finally got one several weeks later for $4,000 more than the original proposal - go figure! .When I showed some concern about their being adequate gradient for drainage, Paul assured me there was no problem (Lie #4) and it could drain even if there was zero gradient (probably also a lie). At no time was the storm drainage system checked for integrity or damage. The actual amount of gradient drop was never measured or verified. I was also told their company would do the drilling (Lie #5 - the company doing the coring called me at a later date) and the project would take several days (Lie #6 - another company did it less than a day). Finally I got recommendation about another company, who also happened to be on Angie's List, These people were totally the opposite. Somewhat at my own insistence, this company did what Paul insisted would work, although the new company had serious doubts about it. Their proposal was $6600, about 1/3 of Drain-Pro's. Unfortunately the 2nd company's doubts proved correct, as the water from the pipe would have been more than 2 feet below the bottom of the culvert, and in heavy Pacific Northwest rains, the culvert water would actually have drained in reverse, back to the house. It also turned out there were several root clogs in the existing drain pipes, and the pipe in front of the house was severely fractured and the drainage water had to be re-routed. Had I done business with Drain-Pro in Portland, I would have spent over $17,000 for absolutely nothing, and would have still had the exact same problems. As it turned out, the other company did all kinds of repairs, did open trenching (far more time consuming and expensive than simple core drilling) to the street street, plus an extra 130 feet of trenching and routing new pipe around the damaged areas for about 2/3s of Drain-Pro's failed plan, AND THIS 2ND PLAN BY APOLLO DRAIN AND ROOTER SERVICE WORKED AND SOLVED OUR STORM DRAIN PROBLEM. Thus by the skin of our teeth, we were spared the nightmare from h***, and saved ourselves $17,500 in the process. The unsuspecting public should be aware there are numerous dishonest contractors, subcontractors and service providers. I think the moral of the story should be: Let your fingers do the walking through Angie's List rather than the phone books. Almost forgot the punchline. After I decided on using the recommended company, Paul pulled into our driveway and announced he didn't want to do the job after all, and handed me a bill for $526.65 for the 4 times he came out to come up with his "free estimate" (Lie #6) plan which was impossible to succeed!!!