ALASKA FOUNDATION COATING

The company owner and assistant came for a site visit on 5/8 and performed the work on 5/13. I don't have the expertise to assess the quality of the work performed (that is, how well sealed the wall is), but they appeared to choose appropriate materials and apply them properly. The negative experience I had with the company concerns pricing. I asked them to itemize their bid of $4500, and they broke it down by $1500 labor, $1000 equipment, $1000 materials, $500 mobilization, $500 GO/A. During the site visit, they mentioned many possibilities for needed work that might be identified during the job, and the job was characterized as taking at least one very long day, or very likely two days. In that scenario, the pricing seemed like it might be reasonable. As it turned out, when they arrived on the job, it was clear that they intended to be in and out by 5 pm, because they had another job that evening. They spent about 4 hours actually working on-site, with additional time for transit, lunch, and swapping out faulty equipment. The excavator that they rented turns out to have cost them $350, so they marked this up by about 3x--ouch. Also, the materials that they used were about $300--again, about a 3x mark-up. Of course, I had already agreed to the bid price, so it's my fault for committing to what turned out to be very overpriced work. I do find fault with the owner for misrepresenting the cost of the equipment. He looked me in the eye and said it cost them $1000 to rent the excavator, a John Deere 50G from Airport Equipment Rentals--not true, hence the D for professionalism. I hope that the sealing job will hold up, but I certainly would not hire this company again as my experience tells me that they will overprice a bid and then minimize the work done and time spent. I respect the need of a company to make money, but the mark-up on equipment and materials here is quite excessive, considering the other line-item values in the bid. I approached the company about the possibility of a partial refund, due to the job having turned about to be short and the actual equipment and materials cost low, but they were not interested--they pointed out that I accepted the price of the bid, which I did...my mistake in being too trusting!