United Structural Systems

unknown

The work was done when the weather was below freezing with blowing snow. Due to this the workers tracked mud on my driveway and in my garage. They did not clean this up. The lifting of the foundation caused cracks in the mortar in multiple places. Additionally, the workers did not repair the mortar they cracked or the cracked mortar which was the reason for raising the foundation.  My contract specified that the the cracked mortar would be repointed which is the old mortar removed and new mortar place in the area to be repaired. They did attempt to fix one area of cracked mortar with NP1 caulk. The manufacture on its website states that the area must be try. The day of the repair it had been snowing. Due to this that area has cracked after 3 weeks. Multiple calls to the representative lead to one visit to my home two weeks after the work was done. He stated that they would use NP1 to repair the area. I contacted the representative via email and phone and listed my concerns with an email. That was over one and half weeks ago. I have not heard from this representative since then. I have contracted with a mason to repointed the cracked mortar when the weather is warm enough for the work.
I am disappointment in the quality and professionism of this company. I would not recommend them to anyone as 4 weeks after the pier placement no one has addressed my concerns.

unknown

Job was performed as scheduled and results were good/as expected

I'm going to include a lot of details so my issues with the company will be apparent.  First of all, Michelle came to my home to do an initial consultation on 4-15-14 at 10:00 am.  She was courteous and professional and seemed knowledgeable about foundation problems.  She recommended I have "benchmarking" done, which is a process that involves placing markers at various places around my house and noting their exact placement with some sophisticated equipment; three months later- and possibly additional times later- the position of the markers would be checked again with the equipment to see if they had shifted at all.  The idea was to see whether my foundation was moving to determine whether I needed to have piers placed to stabilize my house.  I agreed to have the benchmarking done, at a cost of $480 for the initial placement/reading of the markers, and $65/hour for the follow-up reading(s).  It was my understanding that the initial work would be done within about 2 weeks.  Michelle said she would email a contract to me later that same day.  When I hadn't received anything by the middle of the next afternoon I became concerned that she didn't have my correct email address and I emailed her to ask about the contract.  She emailed the contract to me later that evening, with a note that said (among other things) "Please sign contract and send in order to get into service schedule."  When I looked over the contract I thought of some questions I hadn't before, so I called and spoke to Michelle on 4-18-14.  She answered all my questions and indicated I should send a check for $480 with my contract, and would pay the additional $65/hour when the follow-up reading was done.  She estimated it might take 3 hours for the follow-up.  I mailed the signed contract, along with a check for $480, on 4-21-14.
I then waited for a call to schedule the benchmarking.  When I hadn't heard anything by 4-29-14 (by which time they should have had my contract and payment for about 6 days), I called the office and spoke to Karen.  She said Chris Taylor does the scheduling and she would have him call me.  Chris Taylor did call me but said it was Chris Caudill who schedules benchmarking and he would have Chris Caudill call me.  I waited another week, until 5-6-14, and still no one called me to schedule my work.  I called the office and spoke to Karen again and said I needed someone to call me that day.  Chris Caudill did call me then and scheduled the benchmarking for 5-9-14.  As it was raining on that day, he rescheduled for 5-16-14; he said he wasn't sure of the time yet so I asked him to call and let me know.  When 5-16-14 arrived and I still hadn't been informed of a time I had to call Chris to ask when he would arrive.  Unfortunately, it was either raining or threatening to rain again on 5-16-14 so we once again had to reschedule.  Having learned my lesson previously, I tried to pin him down as to a day and time for the reschedule.  He would have preferred to just call me a day or two before the job was to be done, but agreed to schedule it for 5-20-14.  (I had asked not to have to wait another week before rescheduling.)  However, he could not give me a time.  This conversation took place early in the afternoon on a Friday, so I asked if he could call me that afternoon after he checked with the office to give me a time on 5-20-14.  He agreed, and I asked him specifically to call me BEFORE 5:00 that same day.  He agreed to do so.  When I had not received a call by 5:00 pm I was pretty livid.  I tried to call Brian Lockhart, who seemed to be the main person in charge on the company's website.  I got an answering service and left a message that I wanted Mr. Lockhart to call me back regarding canceling my contract.  I then called Chris Caudill again and delivered a long very irate lecture on the importance of communication, doing what you say you will do, the company's reputation, etc.  He was very apologetic and assured me the company was reputable, etc.  Given that, and the fact that the company had already deposited my $480 check, I agreed to continue with the contract.  (By the way, Mr. Lockhart has never called me back to this day.)  Chris did actually do the benchmarking on 5-20-14.  He seemed knowledgeable and I trusted that he knew what he was doing.
In all fairness to Chris, I eventually realized that the scheduling difficulties were apparently mostly due to company issues rather than his.  Even though he is the only person in the company who does benchmarking, he is apparently required to go with the crew to other kinds of jobs and only do benchmarking when he has no other jobs to go to.  That would make it difficult to schedule benchmarking jobs.
Chris DID call to schedule the first reading 3 months later, as agreed.  He came on 8-29-14.  It took him less than an hour and I gave him a check for $65 per my contract.  He was courteous and professional.  I again trusted that he knew what he was doing.  Fortunately, the readings indicated I don't need any additional work done at this time.
On another front, during all this time, the company sent me two bills I didn't owe.  An invoice dated 6-5-14 said I owed $195 (for the estimated 3 hour follow-up reading).  I called and spoke to Evelyn and told her I was not supposed to pay for follow-up until the work was done- I was to give Chris a check for $65/hour at that time.  She said the invoice was sent by mistake and I should disregard it.  I was sent another invoice dated 9-2-14 (after I had paid Chris the $65 for the follow-up reading) for $130.  I again called the office and spoke to Karen.  She said Evelyn might call me back.  Evelyn did call me back and said to disregard this invoice and offered to send me another one indicating I was "paid in full."  I did receive a correct, paid in full invoice, dated 9-5-14.

In summary, I trust the work that was finally completed.  However, given all the difficulties with communication, scheduling, and erroneous billing, I can not recommend this company.

UPDATE: 10-2-14: (Please see Provider Response below.)  Mr. Lockhart called me on 9-29-14 after having seen my review over the weekend.  He seemed genuinely surprised and upset over the series of missteps that I experienced with the company.  I do believe that the reason he never called me back (before) was he had not received my message.  I also got the overall impression that my negative experience was not typical and not at all how he wants the company to do business.  He was extremely apologetic and said the company would be refunding the cost of my work-no strings attached.  I said that wasn't necessary, but he insisted, and indeed I received a check for the entire amount the next day.  Given Mr. Lockhart's sincere and serious response to my compaints, I would be willing to use this company again.  If you use the company and have difficulties, I suggest contacting Mr. Lockhart directly; I'm confident that he would do everything in his power to resolve the problem.

Brian was very knowledgable and was the only structural person (we had 4 different estimates) that discovered the actual problem!  We hired an independent strutural engineer to evaluate all the plans and he only agreed with Brian's as a solution instead of a bandaid.  Incredibly prompt and professional, and eager to ensure all needs were met.  Highest possible recommendation!

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Once we got things straight regarding the location, everything went smoothly!

The job was excellent from start to finish.  They were courteous, on time and took the time too make sure the job was done right.
I would hire this company again.

They arrived on time and started work even though it was freezing cold that day! These guys didn't stop except for a short lunch break and again at the end of the day. I couldn't stay out there and watch them because it was so cold. Even my husband had to come in and warm up occasionally. They did a great job of digging out all seven holes and started placing piers on the first day! These holes were big! They had to remove some overgrown bushes to dig out two of them.
When day two came around they finished the remaining piers and started back filling the completed piers. One corner of our garage was not cooperating with them and wouldn't go back into place or these guys would have been done a lot sooner. There was a large gap in the bricks and the previous owner of our house filled in the gap with some type of bonding agent (instead of having piers put in),  and that "stuff" was keeping the bricks from sliding back in place. They were digging, drilling, and sawing trying to get that stuff out of there.
They had to pour concrete to replace a walk way to our front porch that they unfortunately had to dig up. The one section of garage had a very small area of dirt and the rest was concrete and bushes. They tried not to dig it out, but a man needed to get in that hole and without removing the bush, he wasn't getting in the hole. No pun intended. :)
There was some tuck point work they had to do on the cracks between the bricks and they put out some grass seed and hay and they were gone! I was amazed the entire project only took two days!
Great job guys!
Thank you, and I hope I never have to see you again, under those circumstances.

We chose United Structural Systems based on the recommendation from a local radio program.  They came highly recommended as a long time family owned business who stands behind their work.  When I called to have the damage accessed they were prompt and professional.  After we decided to go ahead with the work and scheduled it, we had to postpone the digging twice because of the weather (ground was frozen-January 2010).  As soon as the weather broke the outside work was completed and the foundation repaired.  The workers did a good job replacing the dirt and covering it with straw so that the grass would grow back.   After the foundation was finished we decided to go ahead with leveling the floor because some of the doors in the hallway would not close properly.  The engineer came back out and drew a map of what we wanted and scheduled a crew to come and pour the pads in the crawlspace to hold the new I-beams under the floor.  We requested that the "lowest" side of the floor be raised first and then we would see if the other side needed to be raised.  He (engineer) said he didn't think it would be necessary.  Unfortunately the "crew" poured the pads on the wrong side of the crawlspace the first time around.  We contacted the salesperson and he came back out to check the work.  We explained that we didn't not want that side done becuase it wasn't recommended.  He offered to do the second side at cost ($700.00 savings) so we ended up getting both sides done anyway.  Considering the difficulty level of maneuvering huge steel beams under a not so huge crawlspace I am surprised we didn't have more problems than a broken water pipe ($90.00 - which I paid for and the contractor subtracted from my final bill).  The three foundation jacks come with a lifetime guarantee and were approx. $1000.00 each.  The pads and beams under the crawlspace were also around $1000.00 each with materials, labor and concrete.  Overall I think they did a good job and I would recommend them.  I would call them again but my foundation is so solid now that they will probably never have to come back!