Structural Repair Company

We were looking to add an external door to our basement. This would require a fair amount of excavation. Based on a recommendation from a friend, we contacted Greg Rickstrew. Greg provided a quote and told me that his first action would be to submit a permit application. He asked for 50% of the quoted price. The 50% deposit was $7,500. After a couple weeks he came back and told me that he had the permit and would start with excavation. In mid-September 2018 he brought in a mini-excavator to begin the excavation process. He removed about 8 cubic yards of dirt and removed the window well. In the process he also damaged the water line that feeds my back yard sprinklers. He told me at that time that he would need a full size excavator to complete the excavation. He also told me that he had damaged the sprinkler line and would be by the house in a couple days to patch the line so I could blow out my sprinklers. After a couple days he did not show up. I ask him when he would be out to repair the sprinkler line and finish the excavation. He told me that he would be out tomorrow to repair the sprinkler line and that he was having trouble getting a full size excavator. This pattern continued for a few weeks. He always had an excuse for not coming out to repair the sprinkler. In mid-october I repaired the sprinkler line so I could blow out the lines. He continued to say that the excavator would be available soon. The full size excavator was delivered on October 31st 2018. On November 1st and 2nd he hauled away the 8 cubic yards of dirt and completed the excavation. I was not aware that he had removed the 8 yards because he told me that all of the dirt would remain on my property until the concrete work for the stairwell was complete. In this whole process he also damaged 16 feet of my fence. He asked for another $1,000 to cover the additional cost of the full size excavator and concrete materials. At this point I am out of pocket $8,500. He was out at the house a few times during November working on the rebar for the concrete. I had not seen the permit yet so I asked him several times for a copy of the permit during November. He kept saying he had it and that he would bring it tomorrow. At the end of November we submitted for a permit to finish our basement. The basement drawings included the external door. After the basement plans were submitted we got a call from the city asking about the external door. I told them it was another project but it wasn’t complete yet. They told me that they did not have a permit application for the external door. I immediately called Greg to find out why he told me that he had the permit. He told me that he had gotten it confused with another project and that he would apply for the permit tomorrow. He did not apply for the permit for two more weeks. He told me that his appendix had burst. At this time we are in mid-December. I called the city to confirm that he had submitted the application. They said he did, but that engineering approved drawings had several sections that had white-out on them and they would need a fresh set of approved drawings from Greg. He told me that he would have the fresh drawings in the next few days. This dragged in to early January. I talked with the city again and they told me that they still had not received anything from Greg. During that call we went through the setback requirements for my property and found that the permit would not be approved as submitted even if he had provided fresh drawings. I called Greg again and he told me that he would be applying for a variance and that the city planning commission met on February 7th, 2019. I called the city again a confirmed that the planning commission did in fact meet on February 7th. Against our better judgment we decided to wait to see what the result of the variance request would be. I called the city on February 8th and they told me that the variance was never applied for. I at that time I contacted Greg and he told me that he didn’t have time to apply for the variance. I gave him until February 18th to return the $8,500. I talked to him on February 17th and he told me that he would drop off a check tomorrow before 5pm. I have not been able to get ahold of Greg since the call on the 17th. We were left with no window well, an exposed gas main and a huge hole in our side yard from early November through most of February. We hired another company to replace the window well and fill in the hole. This cost us $4,000. This is when we discovered that Greg had removed the 8 yards of dirt. I had to spend another $600 to get 8 yards of dirt and 3 tons of river rock to undo everything he had done to our home. I am out a total of $13,100 plus the time I have spent working with Greg. Greg is associated with DC Basement Company and Structural Repair Company