Safeguard Waterproofing - Ram Jack Illinois

There was a cave-in at one location outside the foundation where they had put their equipment, and they came quickly to repair it. They did not clean up very well after themselves for the interior work, and they left cracked tile. They have not come back to look at the extra cracks.

the porch was raised approximately 2", which is fine. I was also led to believe the gap between the porch and the home which had developed as a result of the porch settling would be closed as the porch was raised (and rotated back toward the house). The gap was not closed, which was my primary reason for contracting the work. While I have to believe that the porch is now completely stable based on the helical piers, the aesthetics were not improved. Furthermore, when I returned home, the gap had now been filled with a caulk (about 2" wide) across the entire length of my porch. Unfortunately, whoever put applied the caulk did an extremely poor job. After a $9000 job, I now have to have someone else come out to meticulously remove the caulk and reapply in it in congruent and professional manner. When I questioned John about this, he said "Well, caulking is not our forte'". If it is not their forte, why did they do this? I did not ask him to do it nor was it a part of our agreement. What was further irritating, after they completed the job at approximately 4pm on a Tuesday, I rec'd a call at 8am Wednesday morning demanding payment of the balance of the bill. When I let the admin know that I was about ready to get in a cab to the airport, she got nasty and said "The Contract states that full payment is due upon completion!". While that is technically true, it wasn't more than 16 hours after the fact. Understandably, this left a bad taste in my mouth and feel that the professionalism and courtesy that drew me to RamJack was dissolved as soon as $$ was in the picture. For the record, I provided her my credit card number and paid them during the phone call. In the end, I'm not sure whether another firm would have 'closed the gap' or not, but the point is that John all-but-promised me that it would be closed. I of course didn't anticipate it being flush with the house once more, but certainly expected some progress and I would not have expected a botched caulk job to cover it up. I am neutral on my rating, but the test of time will determine whether they stabilized the porch.

Came out promptly and took a few weeks for an estimate. The estimate given was not what I asked them to quote. It took another few weeks of phone calls and emails to get a response back. In the end, they never ended up giving me the quote I requested. Therefore, this job was given to another company

Their solution fixed the problem and was much cheaper than other alternatives

We had been having problems with leaks in our sunken living room for quite a while. The leaks started last year and we had PermaSeal come out and do a "repair" which ended up not working. (The amount of water was reduced, but it still kept coming in, even after PermaSeal did a wrap seal of our foundation.) Frustrated, especially after PermaSeal did not guarantee their last job and wanted to charge us 1000s of dollars for a redo, we consulted with our neighbor across the street who had a similar problem that arose right when ours did. They said Safeguard had IDd and fixed their leak issue (same spot as ours) for a third of what PermaSeal charged, so we called Safeguard. Phil from Safeguard came out very promptly (actually early! He asked permission to come a full 2 hours early if it was convenient for me, and I said yes). He looked at the area where we suspected the leak occurred and commented that PermaSeal (his former employer!) had done a poor job. He also remarked that the leak might not even be a foundation leak, but rather an above-grade leak like a mortar problem or chimney problem that was then dripping down behind the drywall. He conducted a series of tests using water from our hose to see where water might seep in depending on where the water was pointed. He did a "flood" test of the ground near the foundation---no leak. Then he pointed to some spots where there was missing caulk on our chimney seams, and said that the water could be getting in there instead. He had me go inside and look inside the fireplace while he trained the hose on these side seams, and BINGO! That's where the water was getting in. He found the exact leak location when PermaSeal could not (they just "guessed") Phil then said, "Well, we don't fix that since it's above-grade, so I recommend you contact a siding or chimney company to make those repairs. I'm not going to sell you something that won't fix the real problem just to make my commission." Phil spent nearly 2 hours identifying the true source of our water problem, even when it would not benefit him or his company. Very honest and decent guy, and we WILL use this company when we do have a foundation problem. Great!

Safeguard gave me a quote, told me it will take two days for the work, took my deposit and locked in a date. Few days before the date they called and told me that the work could be done in 1 day. The day of the job they came out and started doing the work then 1 hr in, they took off saying the job was misquoted. Unreliable! Took over 3 weeks to get my deposit back.

Phil was great, professional and reliable; provided his cell phone just in case any questions came up. Also wanted to make sure he understood the job so came back for second visit to ensure alignment. Great customer service and quality of work, no need to look further. No pressure sales pitch and understood what we wanted and injected opinion based on experience. Job well done. UPDATE: following the winter we turned on our sprinkler system and had a lead where the drainage pipe goes, after removing the rocks I noticed that the sprinkler pipe was bent *probably to fit the drainage under the bent. The bent was so bad that it disconnected that sprinkler pipe from main connection underground and had a hole due to the bend. I am disappointed that not only this was not communicated during install but was not fixed *it is right above the drainage pipe covered by gravel was installed and the soil that was put back on the side of the house is higher then the "normal" ground.

It was suggested by another trusted service provider that I call Ram Jack for my structural repair work. They charged me $250 to provide the estimate for services needed (support a load-bearing post and weld repairs underneath to tie it to a structural beam and then weld in beam web stiffeners), which seemed fine as I was planning on using them and the $250 gets credited to the cost of the work to be done. The estimator spent 15 minutes looking at the repair site and then we discussed what needed to be done for another 10 minutes or so. I waited a few days and ultimately needed to chase him down for the estimate. The price was reasonable and, based on the recommendation, I engaged them to do the work. The welder arrived promptly on the scheduled day (a day I took off of work), along with the person that estimated the job. I was shocked when the welder asked ME what HE was supposed to be doing when he looked at the repair site, especially since I had provided a drawing by my structural engineer to the estimator. The welder indicated he hadn't seen the drawing until that moment. After looking at the repair, the welder indicated that he was not prepared to do the work as he did not have adequate support for the post to safely do what was drawn up. The estimator has not responded to me ever since a phone call indicating that they were working on a solution (the day after the original appointment). I have tried other routes to try to get the work done, but the company is now unresponsive. At this point, I've paid $250 for roughly 30 minutes of an estimators time (this is over 1/3 the total cost of the repair, by the way). I have requested a refund, since they have not performed under the contract. I have yet to hear back from them, let alone see my money again. I might understand keeping my money if I cancelled on them, but I have been waiting for them to do the work and no one responds. This is no way to do business.

It went fine. They did a nice job. I got them off Angie’s List. It was the best price.

Job completed in 2 days. Over 2 month wait from time contract signed; but other providers were almost as long and were booked solid due to many request for foundation repair due to dry summers. Technician showed up on time for our initial consultantion/ appointment and was very knowledgable. Signed contract same day to get on the job list and have repair done before end of summer. Would use them again. Only company with warranty that will transfer to new owner that I talked with.