Tall Basements

These guys did a great job for us.

My wife and I had to repair, waterproof, and underpin our basement, which had been incorrectly excavated and then covered up by a previous home owner.
It was a huge project for us, and we were pretty nervous, but the job went better than planned.

The results have been fantastic.
It’s now the bar by which we measure all our other contractors.

DETAILS:

Price:
They were in the middle of 4 quotes. Not the highest, not the lowest.
Pricing remained exactly as per quot e – they absorbed small, unexpected increases in cost.

Expertise:
They were the most informative of the 4 companies we interviewed, and were clearly go-to experts in the field. They readily answered technical questions that some other contractors couldn’t.

Advice:
Their advice on building a separate walkout through the front basement wall turned our expensive repair into an income- generating rental. We now have a bright condo-style apartment that pays for half our mortgage.

Documentation:
They sent us all documents we asked for, including insurance papers, WSIB docs, references, etc. They also took care of permit applications for us.

Quality of work:
They paid a lot of attention to the quality of their work and the results were excellent. Other contractors have often commented on the work they did.
We have an underground stream percolating past our house, and our basement apartment has been warm and dry as a bone since the work was done.

Timing:
They were on the job 8-10 hrs every day from project start until completion. Engineering company was late with drawings, but otherwise everything was on time. When unexpected events happened (like a 2 ton boulder discovered under our old foundation), they just sweated it out and worked until it was dealt with.

General:
Their team were friendly and considerate to our neighbours and kept an immaculately clean worksite. We lived in the house while the job was on, and the guys were so particular about setting up dust baffles that we had hardly any dust in the house. Most of the time, we didn’t even cover the furniture.

Above and beyond:
There were a few things that really stuck out in my mind about this job:
• Kevin and Tony spent hours talking to us answering questions about parts of our reno that they weren’t working on or getting paid for.
• When the workers discovered errors made by previous contractors, they often fixed them without charge while they were working.
• Two nights after our beautiful rental space was finished, we got hit by a 100 year storm and the city sewers backed up before our auxiliary sump pump had been delivered. Tony (who is a licenced plumber) got out of his PJs and into his work clothes and drove down to reroute the surging storm water into the street. Many other homes got flooded that night, but our new basement apartment was saved.