EARTHWISE EXCAVATION

Albert and I immediately hit it off as we started discussing permaculture and other natural gardening and food cultivation topics (swales, food forests, hugelkultur). He is extremely knowledgeable about not only septic systems in general, but also about how it might affect the surroundings, placement of future fruit trees and gardens, etc. He suggested a genius idea about something unrelated to the septic that had my wife and I scratching our heads with, 'why didn't we think of that?' Steve the foreman and crew came out on the scheduled day and immediately began the excavation work. He and the other operator were *arteeeests*. Amazing control of that heavy machinery. Everything went very smoothly and all the while they were very open about any questions I had and about the process, maintenance steps, etc. Albert did upsell the final soil type but he only suggested it after I expressed interest in planting fruit trees in between the drainfield pipes (apparently this is fine to do with LPD systems) and was very upfront on what that would do to the final price. I found Albert and Earthwise Excavation to be very reasonable, upfront, and professional throughout the entire process. I have no qualms about recommending them, and am actually speaking with them now about some unrelated excavation/permaculture work. I also can't imagine them giving anyone anything other than an A+ experience. Highly recommended.

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Steve, the foreman, and Victor, his assistant were great, very professional and hard working and they paid a lot of attention to fine details. We have worked with Earthwise before and had no doubt that they would be the crew we would ask to do the finish work after our yard settled from the construction. They recontoured the yard and it looks GREAT!!!! The grass seed is sprouting and the yard looks even better than it did before we did the construction.

Albert knew a lot about our very complex septic system, and was able to offer suggested design alternatives that the prior installer (and the design engineer) hadn't known about. The two employees were very courteous and professional and did a good job. Albert was a little slow to return phone calls and stay in communication, but the work happened as scheduled and turned out well.

Project went well, we were pleased with the work. But we were surprised by the final bill. We had agreed upon a lot of job change requests, but we (and Albert) had glossed over the estimated cost of those items, and they were more than we were expecting, and we probably would not have added them if we understood the full cost. We should know to put all change orders in writing, to be sure everyone is on the same page with the add'l cost, and we'll manage that more carefully in the future. We were going to ask for a discount, until a few days later a break was discovered in our septic line. We had originally instructed the crew to dig near where we knew the tite line was located, and they did hit it and repair it then, but none of us were aware of a 2nd break in the line, which manifested days later. The repair for that was about 2 man days of work and an extra trip with a mini-excavator, and they did not charge us for this, and handle it with a calm, can-do attitude on a couple of late evenings after their regular workdays. So, we ended up figuring we were even and paid the bill. We would definitely manage and supervise more carefully in the future, but they did do good work and we'd hire them again.

Non responsive, non punctual, non professional., over budget. The county health department put him on probation as a result of his botched work. And he blamed others for this (general contractor, engineers, designer, etc). Come to find out that this person has been involved in numerous law suits in the last decade. Steer clear.

Two guys came out to do the work and I was amazed how quickly it went. They finished the work in a day and I liked that. They use biodiesel in their tractors which was one of the reasons I picked them. We ended up paying more than we expected.

THIS WAS A REGULARLY SCHEDULED CLEANING OF THE SEPTIC TANK. THEY ADVISED THAT IT REALLY WASN'T READY AND WE COULD WAIT A LITTLE LONGER UNTIL NEXT TIME.