CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTIONS

Only removed lead tiles and put up sheeting. Then was abusive toward the property manager and me and would not finish the job.

Do NOT use this company. I'm still dealing with this ongoing nightmare. I signed a contract with CES (Alden Sawyer) because my friend highly recommended them. But she used them many years ago and something changed drastically. The contract was for mold remediation for my rental property. It was for $3700 and it was 9 pages long. He was supposed to remove the mold, run fans, use HEPA filters and on and on. It was to take 3-5 days. It also included removing lead tile in the proper manner.

The first day of the job Alden from CES called me in the afternoon and said there was still a leak and they could not do the work. They only removed the lead tile and put down sheeting and a few other things. They worked for five hours. So I brought in a plumber immediately - first thing in the morning. I called him 10am the next day and said the tiny leak (it was a faucet leak) was found and fixed and could they come back and continue. He was belligerent and said "they are on another job." When my property manager called him to reschedule he literally said to them "you don't need a mold remediation company for this small job. You can hire anyone to do it with bleach and a wire brush." When the property manager reminded him that we had a contract and he was supposed to finish the job, he actually cursed at her and hung up the phone. And she is a very calm, easygoing, lovely person. She was nervous about speaking to him again. So I brought in our mold tester again, he certified that the two areas were still completely full of mold. I had to hire another contractor to remove the mold. I assumed Alden would only send me a bill for the lead removal - $450. But to my shock he sent me a bill for thousands of dollars. Almost the full amount! I called him to say "I don't think this can be right." Immediately, he yelled at me and said "I'll put a lien on your house" and he slammed the phone down on me! I'm not exaggerating. This was truly the most shocking experience I've ever had with a business person. I phoned him right back and he refused to answer the phone.

Alden was the only certified asbestos remover who bid on this project. I contacted another, several times, to get a competitive quote, but got no response. Alden first insured that I had had the ceiling tested, so I would not waste money on asbestos-type removal if not necessary. Alden did the original survey and quotation, and we set a start date. Because I had several other contractors who would be following the asbestos removal, to do other renovations, it was very important to me that the schedule be accurate. Alden's crews stayed right on schedule, and the final price was actually a bit lower than the original bid.
On the first day, one worker measured the furnace ducts so he could bring the new ones for installation the following day. They spent two days removing all the asbestos containing material, and installed the new ducts. Because the popcorn ceilings had been painted over a couple of times, the removal was difficult and left considerable scarring on the ceilings.
Alden subcontracted the ceiling re-surfacing to Ron Harris Painting. Ron and his crew came all the way from Lancaster to Long Beach for this job. They did an excellent job of patching, skim coating, and priming the ceiling. They rented scaffolding from Home Depot to be able to reach the high ceilings. I was really impressed with the quality of their work, as was the contractor who will do the finish painting on my home. I did not have Ron Harris do the finish painting only because I was going to have electrical work done that would require cutting new holes in several ceilings. It took Ron's crew 3 days (as estimated) to complete the work. Because they worked very late the last night, they did leave a bit of a mess, but that's the only small complaint I have. The quality of the work was very high, and I appreciated their willingness to work so late that night to finish.
The worst part of asbestos removal is that everything - yes, everything - has to be removed from the house. Alden made sure that I understood this, and stayed in touch to be sure that the move-out was on schedule. The only small glitch in communication was that I hadn't gotten Alden's cellphone number, so when the answering machine in his office failed, I had trouble reaching him for a few hours in the middle of the job.

Their prices is drastically different from other companies. He did most of the work and pretty honest. I trusted his opinion and he did everything that we need. Last year when we contacted him he didn't have the time. He was booked up at the time we needed to do it. He was good. He explained the process very well at all and we even had some pre-testing done to certify that everything was clear and the kind of stuff. We worked with the quality master control and everything was handled well. It was cheaper.

Excellent! I can't say enough great things about his team. Although I only spoke with Alden over the phone, he was professional and efficient. He knew our complex and exactly the layout of our town home garage from experience. I booked the job over the phone and his guys arrived on time and finished on schedule. When they left, the garage looked great! No evidence of dust, water or material. It was like magic it all disappeared. They showed me the hazmat bundled stuff in their van and they hauled it away. About a month later I got a letter in the mail from the disposal site in AZ confirming it was received and disposed of properly.
Alden pulled the permits and did all the necessary paperwork. He's a pro! I'd use him again and have refered him to others in our complex.

I checked around to get the best price. CES certainly had it, though later I found a few companies that may have beaten them. That being said, it was still a very competitive price. They showed up on time, and completed the job. I was very pleased with the results, and I received the air test results within a few days.
I tried calling for another service, but never heard back.
Overall, very happy.

They had reasonable prices. I was very pleased with the work they performed. He was very straight forward with providing information. He understood our situation.

Acoustic ceiling/Popcorn ceiling is a major nuisance, especially when it comes back positive for asbestos(I had to send in a couple of samples to Western Analytical Laboratories in Arleta to be tested). I called Controlled Environmental Solutions and talked to Alden Sawyer. He came over to measure all the rooms, hallways, closets, etc. with a measuring wheel. After a few days, he emailed me a work proposal and contract. Alden needed a couple of weeks to pull all the necessary permits before the work started. Which was fine because I needed all the time I could get to plan things out - and that's when the fun started. Alden had instructed me to remove all the furniture and all furnishings from the walls - everything had to be removed from the house. A lot of work. I took us a week to get most of the things out. I called Alden and told him that a few large and heavy items like dresser drawers and the TV entertainment center were too heavy for us to move, and he said that that was okay.
Art and his two helpers were here for a couple of days to get the work completed. They brought with them heavy-duty rolls of plastic sheeting, rolls of super-sticky duct tape, and staple guns. All the walls and floors were covered with plastic sheets. I had removed some the ceiling light fixtures, and they removed the rest. They also removed a ceiling fan. When they were done after two days, I looked at the work they had done. It was a lot of hard work and it seemed that they had done a good job. All the ceilings had been scraped clean.
Some things to keep in mind -
- Obviously, quite a bit of planning is needed - where to put the furniture, where to stay during the project.
- When the crew finally leaves, you still cannot enter your home until the next morning. They leave some plastic sheeting in place (they call them critical barriers). They said that they were taking air samples with them and it will be okay for us to enter the home if the samples came back negative for asbestos. The next morning, I called Alden Sawyer to make sure that the labs were okay and then took down all the plastic sheeting myself.
- When the ceilings are scraped, there will be plenty of gouges in the ceiling and plenty of tiny holes from the staples, especially along the top and bottom edge of the walls. A painting contractor will be needed to fix the mess.
- They will remove electrical and other ceiling fixtures to get a good scrape. Whatever comes down has to go back up. That means that you might have to hire an electrician if you are not comfortable handling electrical fixtures. In my case, it took me about half a day to put back the ceiling fan Art had removed.
Popcorn ceiling is a pain. Good riddance!

Alden promptly responded to my email and immediately offered to come and see the apartment.He arrived punctually and took measures of the ceiling to be treated.
The joint compound tested also positive for asbestos but was below the 1% threshold, he advised doing a 1000-point count to determine the exact amount. We did that and it resulted containing less than 0.1% and so we decided to do nothing about it and remove only the acoustic ceiling.
We were able to store all our furniture in the kitchen and bathrooms and left the apartment on Sunday night, The work was done on Monday and on Tuesday morning i called Alden to get the air monitoring result to see if we could go back. Everything was fine and we moved back in on Tuesday afternoon.
Some tape and staples were left on the walls and some paint had been removed, all of this was mentioned in the quote and expected from the type of work done.The work itself surpassed our expectation, the acoustic ceiling was perfectly removed and all fixtures attached to the ceiling had been removed to properly clean the asbestos underneath them.

Alden was great in setting everything up and on schedule. Was recommended by Property Manager and was best quote out of four and was willing to work with all the residents schedules. Finished the work in one day.

He got very detailed on how he would handle the situation, but discouraged us to extent not to spend the money on our problem, as it didn't look bad and actually encouraged us to fix/prevent the problem through another manner.

Overall I had a very good experience with these guys. The rep who I dealt with was Bud, and he was very friendly and seems to know the business very well. He gave me an estimate over the phone based on square footage, then came over to the house to see the job in more detail. Originally I was just going to have the tile taken out of the kitchen, but it turned out not to be too much more money to have it removed from beneath the carpet in the living room and bedroom as well, so I had them do it all for what seemed like a very reasonable price. They came and covered the walls in plastic and built a protective entrance to the place, got to work and were done that afternoon. The concrete underneath the tile looks better than I expected. There were a few depressions where the gooey neutralized mastic had puddled up when they washed the floor, and I let Bud know and they were out that afternoon to clean up any of these areas. Overall I was very happy with this company, and very pleased they were willing to come out and fix anything I wasn't happy with.

Controlled Environmental Solutions' Representative Alden Sawyer visited my home and described in detail what is required for removal and the best means to do it. Very knowledgeable and professional, not only about my home, but about the industry. His estimates were in line with others (a little better, in fact) and he was the most knowledgeable and experienced. I needed to await insurance company approvals, and he held his estimate when the time came to do the work. The workers also were very professional, knew exactly what they were doing, did a complete, thorough and knowledgeable completion of the work in one day!

Worked with Bud Snyder and he was great. They are very interested in making sure the job is done thoroughly and correctly. The workers are trustworthy and clean up after themselves.

They did a really good job from what I could tell. The only thing I had a question about was that they were going to do a final air quality testing and I'm not sure if they did it. I didn't get a chance to ask the worker.

They did a decent job, and they were on time and everything like that, they were prompt and they got the job done pretty fast. They were professional and friendly.

My contact was Alden S. He was extremely accommodating and flexible in scheduling the services. The work was completed in a timely and professional manner. The work area was left very clean.

They did a very nice job.

It went so well; I hired him on the spot to do some more work in my house. They came, set up, and I didn't even see them. I barely even heard them except when sounds would come through the vent. They were so fast. They were in and set up by 9:00 am, and were done, clean and ready to go by 1:30 pm. I thought this was the worst possible job for us to get started and had no idea what to do. I really felt lucky choosing CES as Bud made it so easy and he explained everything very well.

This is the second time I have hired this company to do work. I did this job 1 week after the first job. If they did more, I would hire them to do more. That's how easy they are to work with and how good of a job they do. They came in and sealed the whole area they were working on. Imagine one of those "clean room" areas, only this was in reverse so the gross stuff couldn't get out. They removed bags and bags of plaster, cleaned the whole area, vacuumed and HEPA cleaned the whole space, and then encapsulated the exposed wood areas. They really did a great job. The part of the room that they didn't have to work on was completely unaffected. The job was about a 100 sq foot area in the ceiling. Not easy. They were quiet. As about as unobtrusive and you could hope. Again, they made a job I have been putting off getting started so easy, I don't know why we waited. But thankfully we found CES.

From start to finish the service was well done. Refreshingly, the estimate was done quickly and fairly. They came personally to the house, as the asbestos ceiling (popcorn ceiling) had been painted and that can complicate the job. They warned me that the ceiling, after the asbestos removal, would look rough. It ended up looking better than I expected. The removal was done quickly and cleanly, just as they had promised. The rooms were completely sealed. All debris was then removed, except for the plastic taped over the windows, which I was to remove only once I was given the ok by CES (the next day). Luckily for me, as far as the mold goes, once we opened the drywall we saw only very minor mold, and that was taken care of easily. Great job.

Good experience. They came on time and were finished very quickly.

The work performed was very professional (as far as I could tell). This was the first time we had anything like this done). The workers showed up on time and left when they said they would. They were very courteous and hard working. Everything was done per the contract and there were no costly surprises. Bud Snyder, the Van Nuys rep, was also very professional. He arranged everything and had the contracts to me in a timely fashion. A note to first-time asbestos removers: Be sure to ask questions and read the contract! (common sense advice for any job) While I thought I had a handle on what the job would entail, there was a slight misunderstanding about how long the rooms would have to be sealed off. (I should note here, that this was covered in their contract) If this is your first time, make sure the rep lays it out for you as though you were four years old. All in all, good work for a decent price (in my first-time opinion)

Removed ducts with minimal disruptions and cleaned up site. Crew was on time and kept us informed of what they were doing throughout the job.