We had water in our basement and had crack doctor out for an estimate. They felt they found the crack on the outside, and quoted us $1200 for a 4' repair or $2000 for a 10' repair. Being responsible home owners we decided to do the 10' repair and scheduled them to come out at their first available appointment. They arrived on time and started digging the giant hole around our foundation at a 10' wide by 7' deep could not find the crack and determined that there was no proper drainage at the back of our home. At that point Michael was called to come out and determine a fix. He came out and said that it was $700 for them to walk away right now or $3200 for the whole fix which included installing another sump pump in our basement as well as sealing the walls. My husband told them he had to speak with me (I was at work) and I felt I needed to talk with a couple of people about whether or not this was the best solution. Michael told my husband his crew would not leave without getting paid the $700, I felt pressured and rushed to make a decision, my husband gave him the credit card number and they left - hole still open in the backyard. We decided to go ahead with this option and called I hour later to schedule and were told they would call back with a time. The next morning my husband called to follow up and we were told the next available date was 3 weeks away. I called and spoke to Michael explaining that I didn't feel comfortable with this hole in my backyard, and expressed how pressured I was to make the decision and that I wasn't sure why we had to pay right then instead of being billed as they were coming back to do the work anyway. Michael told me that was the cost of doing business, and then proceeded to be very rude on the phone and finally hung up on me. We will never use or recommend Crack doctor again. This is Canada, if I don't pay my bill take me to small claims court that is what our collections and judicial system is for. People shouldn't be pressured into make 5 second decisions about the welfare of their home and last time I check (as I work in A customer service industry) this is not they way to treat your customer.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $700.00
- Company Response
Hello Stephanie,
I will tell you our side of the story, since you were not present when the job was being done, and you did leave out some facts about what actually happen.
As you have stated, you had originally contracted us to come out and do 10ft of exterior waterproofing. When we arrived, our guys got to work and effectively dug out the section of the wall that needed to be repaired.
Once they were at the bottom of the footing approximately 7-8ft down they noticed that the hole kept quickly filling with water. It was discovered that your weeping tiles were not present in some parts of the house and the rest of the weeping tile present was not draining the water because they were blocked.
As waterproofing experts we know that this is a problem that will cause further water issues that are not solved by simply waterproofing the 10ft section of the wall.We advised your husband about it and provided a solution by installing a sump pump in the area to connect new weeping tiles to it which we would provide and install in order to pump the water away from the foundation.
This is the most cost effective solution, as the other option would have been to replace all the weeping tile around the house. This would require extensive excavation and an average cost of $20,000+. Much larger than the cost for the sump pump.
At this point your husband stopped our workers from doing any further work while a new price was being discussed the new task at hand.
After our operations manager (Denny not Michael) arrived at the scene, they discussed the problem and the new total price of $3195+tax was given for all the work to be done. This is an increase of only $1200 to not only install a sump pump but also for an additional 4-6ft of further excavation.
At this point, your husband thought the price was too much so he asked Denny how much it would be to walk away from the job and not finish it.
There were four (4) workers working that day and it was already past 12pm. So the price of $700 was concluded to be a more than reasonable price for the effort that was already put forth in completely excavating the area that needed to be waterproofed originally. (10ft long, 7-8ft deep)
Again your husband believed this was too much so he called Michael to further discuss the price. Meanwhile our workers were standing by waiting to see if your husband wanted to go through with the work or not.After about 1hr he came out and advised us that at that present time he did not want us to do the work. He asked us to write him up an invoice and estimate for all the work to be done and for the $700 charge for walking away without finishing.
We wrote the $700 as a deposit for the total cost of $3195+tax job to be done because he told us that he was most likely going to go through with it. We had no problem with this and did so. This means that you would not “lose” any money for the extra day we spent working at your house if the work was completed by us.
Before we left, our guys started to fill the hole back in but your husband stopped us and told us to leave it open because he would most likely have us come back to finished the job anyways. So they left it open as per his request.
This is a very busy time of the year for us, so our schedule is booked up weeks in advance. Unfortunately it happen that the next available date to do the work was a couple of weeks later, and the earliest available date was given to your husband when he called in.
We are sorry that you felt pressured in this decision, but all the dealings in the day in question happen with your husband James who did not express the pressure that you were feeling. Our workers left that day on good terms with your husband. In fact he even offered our workers beer before they left.
At the present time we still have you in our schedule for Oct. 9th, 2013 to come back and do the work. We were a bit shocked to see this review, especially when we tried to accommodate your needs.