Evolution In Action Remodeling & Foundation Repair

I contacted Evolution In Action and had $5600 of work done in September, 2011. I want everyone to know that Henry Benton?s warranty along with his word is meaningless. Mr. Benton was very responsive when I first called. I thought he was very professional in scheduling his inspection and providing me with a written estimate and a diagram showing the scope of work needed. I explained to him that I needed him to be my eyes because I could not crawl under the house to see for myself. Again, he was very nice and promised to provide pictures after his inspection of the compromised areas in the crawlspace to support his evaluation. He explained that since he was in between jobs and had a truck in the shop he could give me a ?good price? and even spread out my payments if I agreed to let him start right away. I agreed. He supervised the work mostly via cell phone. He did show up at the end of the last day, went under the house only to come out with a problem. They had removed a rotten beam that had drilled holes in it for bathroom plumbing and realized too late that they couldn't replace it because of the pipes. This missing beam was needed to tie into and now they couldn't. This left whole areas unsupported. I never quite understood what the problem was except that it was going to cost me more money. I wanted to know how I would be credited for the uncompleted work. He explained that the expense was marginal and therefore resulted in no credit. A few weeks later Mr. Benton came by with an idea about how to fix that and I did wind up paying an additional $600 to, I thought, remedy this situation but, I learned only recently that it had nothing to do with that problem. Now I don?t really know what the $600 was supposed to be for because I never received any additional paperwork. The pictures he provided to me at the end did not show the entire crawlspace only some areas were shot. Apparently I only saw what he wanted me to see. Before EIA left, I remember questioning Mr. Benton about the buckling in the sheet rock in the kitchen and bathroom while in other areas, where the flooring had dropped, there was no change. His stock answer was not to worry. He had 15-20 years of experience and knew best. I needed to give him the benefit of the doubt and wait and see. I did as he advised and waited to see. It took almost a year later, after taping, plastering and painting inside I observed that the flooring in previously unaffected areas was dropping. Seals on tile grouting and caulking were broken and old and new cracks in walls and ceilings are back. In some areas there is over an inch between the floor and wall. I realized that the situation was getting worse the more the house settled but, I wasn?t worried because he had warranted his work. When I contacted Mr. Benton this past September regarding all this he was quick to tell me it had nothing to do with the work that was done. It was most likely new settlement problems. I wondered how he knew that without crawling under the house. Two weeks later he came out alone and crawled under the house. He offered to install two more piers and tweek some other areas. He wasn't under there long enough to check everything but, he would be back next week to take care of everything. That was the middle of September, 2012 and I?ve been chasing him ever since. When he does call me back it?s to explain how busy he is. Every time he calls he apologizes and promises to come next week. While I was waiting I had two independent inspections done, one from a home inspector and the other from another foundation expert. Both referred to the work done as shoddy. They both reported that the house had not been leveled properly. The new installed beams were not making contact in many areas and more than a few areas were left unsupported altogether and three or more additional piers would be needed. The last call from Mr. Benton was a week or so before Christmas. He wanted me to know that he would be working in my area and would be able to send his guys over to take care of things. I have called and left messages since then and haven?t heard back. Meanwhile my home is broken and the $5600 I spent to fix it is gone. I don?t know what the remedy is for this situation even if he agrees to make amends he can?t be trusted. Can someone please advise me of what my next step should be? June 27th, 2013 Update Re: Provider Response My pictures don't lie-taken 1 yr after he finished. I tried weekly, over 6 months, to schedule the cosmetic work he refers to before filing my complaint with BBB and AngiesList. I have used other contractors on AngiesList and have given them A's. I don't think I have a problem giving credit where and when due. Buyer Beware is all I can say. I'm done.

We were not pleased with them. They did not use all treated lumber and some of the piers do not touch the house. They were very fast and we should have known that they were too fast. Some of the work was okay.

They did not use all treated lumber and some of the piers do not touch the bottom of the house. They were fast and we should have known that they were too fast. They came when they said they would.

His name is Henry Benton. He didn't do any work. He gave me an estimate. He was always vague and I didn't like that particular part. I thought initially that we had connected on what I wanted, but he came back out and he told me and my husband that he needed to look back under the house again. He had already been under there. He said that he had to go off and pray and then he would give us a price. He gave us the price. He called back and told us he needed to go back under the house. When he went under the house, he told us he needed to cut out another opening in the side of the house because he was wary of the pipes that were under the crawl space. He just completely slipped on what he told us he was going to do. That didn't sit good with my husband who thought he was wishy washy. When we told him we had a foundation problem, he said that it was because someone had put it up too high. Nobody had worked on our house. He was not addressing on where the foundation problem was. He was concentrating more on where we didn't have problems. I asked him if the doors would stop sticking. He was throwing off all kinds of different vibes to us. He told my husband that he didn't have anything to do with doors and we would probably have to shave the doors down. We knew that the reason the doors were sticking was because of the foundation problem. We were already informed of certain things on our foundation. He was originally coming out to do an estimate on the foundation repair. On the initial visit he told us he was going to run them on joists all the way through and that would lift up the other side and we were cool with it. All of a sudden he just changed direction and it really freaked my husband out. He thought it wasn't sitting right because we knew that the problem was with the foundation and he was not addressing it. He was too much in the dining room and the living room. He sounded like he knew what he was talking about. When he wanted to come back and go up under the house, he kept insisting that the pipes bothered him. I didn't want to be replacing my pipes. That is when my husband looked at me and made a sign to tell me that the guy didn't know what he was doing. We had other projects that we wanted him to do but we initially wanted him to do the foundation. We told him the different things that we wanted to do once he did that. It wasn't registering with him. I don't know what it was. He might have just had a bad day. He seems like a very nice guy. He gave me a list of some of the people he had done work for. I didn't even call the people before because I had got his name off Angie's List and his grading was good. After he did this turn-about, I decided I would just call one of the people. The first person I got told me that if I wanted him to replace the joists under the foundation, he was good. His price was very compatible. This guy is good if he didn't have to use his head like putting joists back where they were wrong or something like that but not if you need any engineering or architectural stuff done. We really wanted somebody that knew about the structure of the house. He gave us an estimate and then he changed his strategy. First it was all these joists going across the house to balance the house and then it became L-shaped and the L wasn't addressing where the house was really having the foundation problem. I know that if the door is sticking it is something that is happening with the foundation. If you correct the problem, the door is going to be back to normal. If you shave the door, all you are going to do is damage the door. He wanted to cut a hole in the side because he needed to get his equipment in and he could get it under where the crawl space was. He is a big man. My husband said he wouldn't want him to cut another hole. We have another part where if we decided to go with him, we thought we could open that up for him so that he could put his stuff through there and go under the crawl space and pull it in. He sounded good, but he flipped the script and changed the whole format of what he was saying was wrong and what he could do. Initially he told us that there was nothing too wrong with our foundation. We showed him how the floor was going down. He told us that somebody put the piers too high when they had gone down there. My husband had already decided not to go with him and asked me to call him back and tell him. He was going to pray that day and he had to leave. He came in knowing that he had to do an estimate. He had to cut it quick because he told us he went to pray every day at 2 o'clock. His mouth and his head weren't working together. Initially he sounded like what he was going to be. When he came back and talked about putting one joist one way and another joist another way, he told me that it was going to be the same amount of money. He told me that the L-shaped joist would not level the house. He said that he would let it down and shave it until the house settled and would go down to where it is at. We thought that was stupid because the house was too low. I don't know why he thought that we would want to drop it down any lower when we were trying to level our home. He called and asked me when he could call back and set the date for the project. He told us that if we didn't get back to him that week, the price would change. I hung up the phone after I spoke to him and thought that we had just dodged a big bullet. He told me that he was just in town for that one week. I couldn't understand why he was listed as a post office box and not a stationary place. The first time I called him he told me he was doing a lot of work and he had a truck problem. He was supposed to call me back. I waited and I waited and then I had to call him back. I just figured that he was from Angie's List and he would be pretty good. That's why I kept calling him back each time. I had to call him several times. I wouldn't bother with him. He could do replacing, but he wasn't good at initiating. I thought he knew his trade because he said that he was doing this work for many years until he came back the second time and he came up with a different plan completely. I told my husband that something was not right. The guy went up under there and then he came up with something else. He was shying away from what the job really entailed. We are poor people. The money that we set aside to do this job we don't want to give it up and then leave it half way to find the money to have it redone. The first time he said the truck had broken down. The second time was when he wanted to come out and look under the house. We set up an appointment for one day and the time and that morning or two days prior to the appointment he called me very early and said that he wanted to make sure I was home. I told him that we had set up an appointment and he said he would be there at the time. I didn't know whether he would have been there if I had run out at the time and looked under the house. My husband told me that he didn't want the guy here until my husband himself was here. He got me out of bed. That's how early it was. Then he was late. He was making excuses for being late because he intended to be late. He came out to go under the house dressed in nice clothes. They looked pressed. He had on a white shirt, a big gold chain and he smelled good. He went and measured the front room again and that is when my husband came out. He went under the house in his clothes. I asked him if he didn't have overalls and he told me that he had them in the truck. I didn't understand why he was doing what he was doing. All he was doing was making us more skeptical of what he could do so that's why we just decided not go with him. He didn't do any work for me. I don't know how his work is. He did know the first time and when he went under the second time, he came up with something else. I told 4 different people just what he did and they all said that he must have seen another agenda which is what we figured too. He was trying to get what he could get and not do the job and I wouldn't have had that. I just don't think he did us right because we were ready and waiting to join Angie's List to find a good contractor. He came and he specialized in what we wanted, but we were really disappointed. He just didn't come up to par for what he said he could do and how I thought he was going to do. Sometimes you get a second chance and I think that's what we did. Initially we were ready because he sounded good even with him telling us that he had to go do some soul searching. I didn't know why he was throwing out that at us. I didn't know why he said that he would go and pray before giving us the price. He seems to be good at what he does, but he needs to come over a little better with people personalities. You can't give a person an estimate and then change the whole plan. It makes the customer feel like you don't know what you are talking about. He needs to get his act together.

EIA showed up on time, and, weather permitting, worked everyday until the job was finished. This was a big job, and very physically challenging. Henry Benton and his crew did a lot of hard work in the heat of August. They actually did more than was originally planned for, but only after discovering additional things that needed to be addressed and clearing it with me. The result is a solid, level structure that I expect won't give any more problems in my lifetime. All in all, I found EIA to be a very capable company that takes on a job that not many contractors are willing to tackle, does whatever needs to be done, and completes the job in a timely manner and does it correctly. Highly recommended.