Eco Clean Inc

.

I was very impressed. Matt from Eco?Clean arrived promptly at 7:35AM, and the work was completed about 11 hours later. I watched most of it, and I don?t think any of them even took a lunch break. They were very relaxed about me observing their work, which I found fascinating. Despite the use of heavy equipment, there was a fair amount of manual labor in the trench. At one point I told them that they were certainly earning their pay, and Matt gave me a very amusing rejoinder. He was a delightful young man and I enjoyed chatting with him while we observed the initial trenching.
The sewer laterals are laid almost seven feet deep in this section of Portland; my understanding is that that this is deeper than other municipalities. The pavement sections pulled up by excavator were visibly thick. Matt said that this was unusual - he?d worked on an excavation a short distance up the street, and the pavement was thinner, an inch is typical. The lateral was in a slightly different place than indicated on the City of Portland?s records (the pipe was laid in the 1940s), so they had to excavate another, smaller section. When they found the current ?tap? to the main line they had to replace it because the sewer line is clay tile, and the lateral was Orangeberg (paper saturated with tar); what was done in the 1940s to tie them together and seal the join was to dump concrete over the join. That was effective but tough to reopen. The cost was $785 higher than the agreed upon estimate because of the new tap and extra excavation required; however, the estimate that I signed did clearly indicate that unforeseen issues could cause an increase in the cost. I witnessed all the work and accepted the extra cost as necessary. This type of work is akin to exploratory surgery ? they don?t know what they?ll find until they open up the ground.
The team worked exceptionally well together. They had to excavate the sidewalk and a small portion of my lawn. After they completed bedding the pipe in gravel, the trench was closed and hot topping was applied to the roadway. It was not an
inexpensive repair; however it had to be done, and the price was competitive: Dig Safe notification was required; trenching was required; sidewalk opening and road opening permits were required; a flagger was required (I live on a street that experiences a lot of traffic daily); the City of Portland had to approve the work before the trench could be closed.  
One thing was difficult: the initial sewer backup occurred 10/31/15, I received the initial estimate on 11/02/2015, and the replacement was done on 11/19/2015. There were delays while Eco-Clean handled an emergency request for the Maine DOT in another town. It?s great to get serviced by a company that the MDOT thinks highly of, but I wasn?t aware of why there was a delay, the communication from the owner simply stopped for a while. There was some confusion when I asked for a copy of the televising of the line that occurred when Keith burrowed the line. I didn?t realize that they can?t video the line while it?s still plugged. I think as a residential customer I needed a little more explaining than a commercial customer would need; also I?m the type of person who asks lots of questions because in the end I?m responsible for what occurs at my property. These
things are my only caveat; I didn?t know what was going on, so I began contacting other companies who might be able to do the work. Also there was a shorter delay for the revised estimate to reflect the 24 feet of PVC pipe the previous owners had installed from the house to the property line. On the positive side, because of the delays and technical problems in regards to getting a faxed/signed estimate to the owner, he pulled the permits on faith after talking with me. The permit cost was $1,450 so that was a big leap of faith on his part. I was able to use the water facilities at my parent?s house during this period, so in the end it all worked out fine. It?s amazing how pleasing it is to be able to use the facilities!
The houses in our small post WWII development have an out of code sub surface drainage pit [SSDP] and house trap in the sewer pipe area in the cellar. When there are heavy rains, I have a tiny burbling brook in that area of my cellar as the rain water percolates from the ground into the SSDP, up into the cellar, and out to the sewer pipe. I?m concerned about moisture issues so I showed it to Matt and he provided some thoughts on how it could fixed. I?ll probably ask Eco-Clean to address that issue in 2016.

unknown

Awesome!

They did excellent work and it was very cost effective. They were ready when I needed them to be and the quality exceeded expectations. The items looked brand new and it was much cheaper than buying new ones.