Deep Water Emergency Services & Restoration

I live in Omaha, Nebraska and they have a satellite office here. Hire with extreme caution. You will need to be home every step of the way. If you have been impacted by water damage I offer you my sincere empathy. I'm in the trenches with you. I hired Deep Water Emergency Services after my main water line backed up sewage into my house. I was told to file an insurance claim to get the ball rolling. I was clueless about what a restoration company actually does. I thought they had a high-powered machines that could suck up all the water and just clean and sanitize my carpet and have equipment to get everything dried out. No they basically strip your house of anything the sewage water has touched and wicked its way into. Drywall, carpet, pad, vinyl flooring, insulation, and baseboards. I met with them for a walk through and then when I arrived home to find my basement gutted per the punch list I provided. They didn't get to everything on the list, which was understandable, it was a long list. They had about 20 plus bags of debris piled in the middle of the room with rolls of wet carpet and pad tossed into the mix and no way to haul it away. This was a minor concern...the next thing is was the kicker that put me over the edge. They had swept piles of dirt, mold, insulation and drywall and just left them...and had six high-powered fans running. Dust whirling everywhere! One fan was sitting on top of a pile of drywall debris and one was sitting next to a pile. REAL NICE! Dust is now all over my entire house. In my furnace and all of my duct work. Thank goodness I had covered all of my fabric furniture that I wasn't able to move out of the space. The other problems where that they showed up hungover the day after St Patties Day and would tell me each night that they would be back between 9 & 9:30 in the morning and no show. REAL NICE when you have planned to take time off work to meet with them. They didn't have all the tools necessary for the job. They needed a scoop shovel, broom, chalk line, measuring tape, and a skill-saw. And a way to haul the debris away. They could have measured two feet up the wall, popped a chalk line, set the depth of the saw and sawed around the room. Instead they sawed it all by hand. I guess that was their penance for being hung over. :) The guys where nice, well-groomed and polite, but not trained in best practices or on how to treat a person's property or be respectful of their time. I also feel I was over sold on the extent of the damage. My basement area is approximately 600 sq feet and they charged almost $3000.00. The rest of the damage is going to cost about another $5000.00 to repair and replace.

They came in and hazmat uniforms. They both went into my crawl space and came back and said that I didn't have any black mold. They were going to get some bags to dispose of the old books and games down there. I said I have a contractor trashbag. He went down and sprayed and said now you won't have black mold either. They are an honest company. I wouldn't have known. I would have just gone with it.

I was given a card for Deep Water by a plumber I had called about a leak behind my washing machine.  Deep Water sent out a team to assess the damage.  They state that they had found mold in the walls of the closet that needed to be taken care of immediately.  After insurance approval, they sent out a crew that cut out the wet section of the walls.  They found the mold had also penetrated under the wall into the bathroom down the hallway and part of the carpet was wet.  They did not seal off the exposed mold or bring back fans and dehumidifiers as they said they needed to do immediately.  After several days, they brought fans but not the dehumidifier.  As soon as they cracked the walls open, and exposed the mold spores I began coughing and eventually got Pneumonia.  This condition developed into requiring daily breathing treatments, which will need to continue.  I was informed by employees that they had not come back right away, as they should have, because Deep Water had accepted more work than they could perform in a timely fashion.  It required pulling one of their crews from Denver to begin the job.  Although they left a very unhealthy situation unattended for a month before beginning to resolve it, the demolition crew was, at least, polite.

The same was not true of the reconstruction crew.  There was no reliable schedule; they made appointments for completing required documents that they did not keep.  They reported that they were sending tradesman to my home but no one came.  I cancelled other appointments to await their arrival at my home on many occasions without receiving any notification that plans had changed.  Once I had an appointment I could not break; they said they had notified their employee to arrive at my home after my appointment, when, in fact, there was no such notification.  When they damaged property, they attempted to deny it, and tried to disguise errors.  They did not return email, or phone calls, I was even yelled at twice by one employee.  It was clear that the job was unimportant to them, that they did not value being respectful to customers, nor did they value keeping their word.  Apparently, it was not mandatory to accept responsibility for their actions, or to do the job they were contracted to do.  It was a month between when they demolished the walls and they began the reconstruction.  They were the most unprofessional group of tradespeople I have ever encountered.

After a particularly frustrating day and evening of having my requests for service being met with an obvious lack of concern I spoke with an employee who just happened to be on phone duty that evening.  Previously, when I needed assistance with situations that were within her job responsibilities she handled my concerns, professionally, appropriately, and quickly,

Although it was not her responsibility, she said she would do everything she could ensure that I received appropriate services.  I had confidence she would do her best.to see that happened, although those actually responsible to do so, did not.  I believe that she may have informed the business owner of the situation.  Her obvious genuine concern, professional attitude, and intervention produced a noticeable change immediately.  I was now listened to, where I had previously been ignored.  A schedule for accomplishing the required work was made, and there was an attempt to follow the schedule when possible.  Her assistance was only required once more to have the job completed in an acceptable manner.  Although she handled the same issues, she was able to resolve issues calmly, with respect for all involved.  This employee made "all the difference" in providing a positive experience.

They let me know that I didn't have structural damage from earlier water in my basement.

Deep water showed up within an hour of my plumber calling them after the city sewer line had backed up into my basement and flooded it. It was late in the evening and the crew still took the time to explain the mitigation process to me and do initial clean up. They did not quote prices and ended up charging excessive fees. Be warey.

They are fabulous! They are an emergency service and they come right away, within the hour! We've had to call them twice now. They take care of everything. If you have a flood, they carry everything out and get it out as soon as they can. They come with several people. They do everything they can to preserve possessions. They put fans up. They know what they're doing. The owner is extremely compassionate with you which is nice because they come during a very distressful time. They are good people.

We found there was a water leak in our basement and the carpet and padding was soaked. After we contacted our insurance company, we contacted Deep Water. Deep Water arrived the same day to inspect the damage. They were able to start drying the carpet and padding within hours of their inspection. They did a great job.

The two workers were polite. Because I was concerned about the insulation I accepted the quote I was given. I also trusted the plumber who recommended them. I will not not take anymore recommendations from this particular plumbing company. I definetly am more informed about drying and crawl spaces.

I will never recommend this company to any of my neighbors or friends. I believe they took advantage of someone who was concerned about the house and how the weather might affect things (plumbing, pipes, etc).

They did restoration work for us. They are wonderful. They went ahead and called our insurance company for us and got us a claim number. We didn't even know that insurance would cover having our sewer back up. The owner came and visited with us himself. Their team was wonderful. They were very efficient.

Excellent! Timely, professional and thorough. They carefully discovered all the damaged areas - most of which couldn't be seen and we didn't know were damaged. They showed us the damage using their high-tech radar/sonar/somehting tv/laser like device which clearly showed the water damaged areas. They did a fantastic job in mitigating the damage.

The restoration for our house has not been accomplished though this project has been going on since February 7th, 2012. The cost in total renovations has accumulated to above $15,000, and we have finally received an overall invoice of the amounts for Deep Water. We were sent numerous different invoices; one concerning asbestos testing, one for counter-top removal, and another with the overall total cost of repairs.

Deep Water sent an invoice for the asbestos testing, $411, and stated that we should pay the bill because our insurance company would be transferring the amount to our account. This would have been true if Deep Water had actually sent the invoice to our insurance company. Before paying the charged amount, we contacted our insurance company, and found that they were not aware of the invoice at all. The invoice they had submitted to the insurance company did not have an asbestos testing expense in it. In fact, Deep Water wasn't the company who did the testing. They paid the outside company $370 for the test so they could turn around and charge us a higher amount per invoice.

Deep Water sent us another invoice concerning the removal of a granite counter top for the amount of $500, however their invoice sent into the insurance company was only approved for $491 which included both the Removal and Replacement of the counter top.

On the final invoice for the repair work, Deep Water charged us for work that was not done by their employees, claiming costs for moving items, marking up costs for working after hour work, embellishing the amount of equipment brought in and the time frame in which it was used, and claiming the water damage done was a lot worse than the actual problem. This overcharging has amounted to $1,667.32 by manipulated the numbers and pricing for several items.

Deep Water management has dodged our phone calls continuously to work out the matter. They have even argued that they have pictures of their being property on the damaged floor and that their employees claim they moved everything out of the areas. My family worked together to remove the items before the workers began, and Deep Water has no pictures of their employees moving any of the items they are claiming. After playing phone tag and speaking to the Manager, we paid out for only the correct and accurate charges.