“Gary just pulled out of my driveway, after completion of my basement waterproofing job, and I felt compelled to take a moment before digging back into the mess of my storm ravaged home to sing his praises.
To begin with, Gary came out for a free estimate already familiar with my home because he took the time in advance to pull up the details (age, construction type, etc). He inspected and measured while we told him the issues we were having with our new-to-us home. He explained in great detail what exactly was happening, and what makes his approach to waterproofing different from the competitors. I will not deny that Gary knows how to sell his service, which I normally feel skeptical of, however this time, having some base knowledge of building and construction, I just genuinely felt he was an exceptional sales person because he knew his stuff. During our initial visit, he was patient, and took time to answer our many questions, and gave a lot of thoughtful insight on matters that were out of the scope of his job. And even after, when I called, texted and emailed before we even signed our contract, he responded promptly and with continued patience.
We felt strongly that Gary was the guy for our job after he came out to quote, but were concerned because, after doing our due diligence and having three other companies quote, his price was considerably higher – as he said it would be – during our first meeting. We knew for something this major, it was worth the investment, but we flat out struggled to find a way to pay for it, so the project was tabled until the water came bubbling up through the basement, as well as our next level up (half level up from basement, but still below grade) during the next big storm. We managed to pull some resources to get a deposit to get on Gary’s schedule, but we were afraid that we were going to be waterproofing two levels instead of one. In our panic, Gary could have easily doubled the size of this job, but when he came out to collect our deposit, he looked around the other affected level and told us that he believed that the water was from a different source and that he thought we should start with the basement and start investigating some other sources of the water on the other level. I had had another company out to quote at that time, that was ready to sell me the job of both the basement and the other level. I appreciated Gary’s honesty and willingness to sacrifice a bigger job to help us get to the real root of our issues. And thankfully our most recent storm confirmed exactly how the water was getting into that level, and Gary was correct that it was not the hydrostatic pressure issue that his waterproofing system fixes. We could have spent twice as much if he sold us the job and still had devastating flooding. Now we can dedicate those funds to addressing the real issue.
Once the work began, Gary and his crew were nothing but respectful and considerate. This is a beast of a project and there is no way to get through it without mess and discomfort, at least in our household, but they did everything they could to make it as painless as possible. They tried to leave everything as close to original condition as possible. I was expecting it to be so much worse than it was. Gary has an exceptional crew working for him. If you have to have a group of folks tear your house apart, these are the ones to do it. They really seemed to work as a well oiled machine.
Last night, after Gary and the crew had been at my house installing the system all week, we had a torrential storm. Our system was almost entirely in place, save for replacing the cement to cover the trenches. There was so much ground water from the rain that it literally sounded like a river flowing into our new sump that could be heard throughout our house, but the main section of the basement, where we previously had small geysers during less heavy rains, seemed to stay dry. Our other level experienced such significant flooding, that it really is a testament to how well Gary’s system works!”