Emergency Reconstruction

After weeks of failing to get out belongings packed up (which should have taken days) and weeks of waiting for them to demo the damaged parts of the home, we fired them. Because they left our garage soaking wet for weeks it developed mold and mildew. Carolina Restoration Services came out and completed the demo in days (90% of the job). CRS managed the mold/mildew issue, had it tested and finished the work so that it was done properly. Our neighbors (who don't work outside the house) told us later that Emergency Reconstruction spent more time outside smoking and talking than they did working. When ER finally returned our property they had done over $5K in damages to it.

It did not

A week after Hurricane Matthew blew through here, we developed a leak in a sewer line in our crawl space that caused a methane gas smell throughout the house. Even though they were extremely busy handling hurricane damage, Josh was in the area and was here within an hour. He surveyed the damage and said he would be back the next day to do the cleanup and spread lime. A few hours later, he called and said he was on his way back over to do the repair work. My husband and I are retired and he did not want us to be in a dangerous situation until the next day. We are truly grateful to Josh for his speedy response.

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The water mitigation group was great! They were on site within two hours of calling them, had all the water damaged material removed and fans set up in another two hours. They also checked back in every morning to check on the progress of the drying out process. Once they were finished and everything was dry, the reconstruction group started and that is where things took a turn.
I realize there were some delays with the insurance company response but there was very little communication between the accounts manager and us. I had to call him to get him to come out to do his quote so that they could submit to insurance. This was almost a week after the mitigation group had finished up. He was there for about twenty minutes, went back to his car, drew up his quote and left. It wasn't until after he had already submitted to insurance and several phone calls and emails to him that I received his estimate for the job. I felt that I should have received a copy of their estimate before it was ever sent off to my insurance company so that I could review it as well.
Once all of that was settled it was almost another two to three weeks before the reconstruction team came in and started work on the bathroom and living room ceiling. Grant it, they do work on a two week look-ahead but the leak occurred October 15 and work on reconstructing the damaged areas did not start until the week before Thanksgiving!
The actual work took a little over a week and a half and we did upgrade to a tile floor to replace the vinyl that was there prior. The quality of the work was pretty good and the project manager leading the construction team was very good to work with and very responsive to questions about the work. The living room ceiling had to be "re-mudded" a few times because the joint between the old and new drywall kept showing through but they finally fixed that as well.
Be very careful when reviewing the original contract if you call this company. There are two sections they will ask you to sign that will bind you into two separate contracts on the same piece of paper. The first contract is for them to come in and perform the mitigation services of the damaged areas. The second area they try to get you to sign is for them to do the reconstruction part of it too. I would not hesitate to call them back for water damage but I would not sign up for them to do the reconstruction services again. You can back out of the contract at any time but it requires a 72 hour written notice prior to termination but after the length of time we had been without a fully functional master bath I felt that an additional 72 hours to terminate a contract was not worth the hassle.
If this were to happen again I would go through my insurance company and an independent contractor for the reconstruction portion. I feel that going that route would provide a little better quality in workmanship (not that it was bad but I felt if could have been a bit better) and that the job would have been finished a little sooner than it was.

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promptly came out & assessed damage; got crews in quickly with fans; worked with insurance company on estimates for repair; offered design suggestions; worked quickly & efficiently with timely communication; took out damaged flooring, wood & tile and cleaned up (only suggestion would be to vacuum a just little bit more thoroughly to remove all mold spores as noted by our mold warranty company - very picky - later.)
Josh & Brad worked with us in a friendly professional way & were efficient & quick to handle questions & communicate.  
We did not use the company for our final bathroom renovation only because we had an excellent neighbor contractor we wanted to support with his small business.   Otherwise we would have hired them for all renovations, also.  
Would recommend to others.    

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A leak under my kitchen sink prompted a call to the insurance company who recommended these people.  The SAID they'd have the job done in two weeks,  it took two MONTHS. 
They billed me initially for more than the insurance company allowed.  They billed me for work they did not do. 
The work began in September of 2014,  I'm still trying to settle up with the bill in May, 2015!!!   We've finally come to an agreement on the final balance, which I will pay when they provide a warranty for the mold remediation.
They won't provide any warranty (even though their website and this site says they will)  
DO NOT USE THESE PEOPLE.

I guess the only thing that I would say is that they also offered the capability of putting the bathroom back after they finished stopping the damage from getting any worse. They basically have two divisions, one division does the remediation which is basically stopping anything from getting any worse that leaves the bathroom half destroyed. They had to let it dry out any areas of damage by water. There is one part of the company that does that and they did an excellent job. I would have no problems going back to them or recommending them to someone else for that sort of work. But, when it came time to do repairs so they could also do repairs, they have a separate person who is responsible for that. They weren't as helpful in basically helping us come up with a design. That's basically why we ended up hiring Elizabeth for it, because they were like you go out and pick out what you want and we'll install it. But I'm like, "Well, I needed some more help in that". So, they weren't able to do design type work and that's what we really need help on.

We had a broken pipe in our laundry room on the second floor while we were gone for a couple of days.  The water not only damaged the walls and floors upstairs, it also leaked through to our dining room on the first floor.  Emergency Reconstruction responded very quickly and were extremely professional.  My personal items were treated delicately and their staff made me feel very comfortable with the process and their ability to make everything right again.  The damage looked awful and the finished product looked wonderful!  I was pleasantly surprised by the final result and would definitely recommend this company to others.

They were prompt and did a fantastic job.  We were pleased with the outcome.

This is in response to ER's response to my review.  Regarding ER's statement that no fans were placed in my bathroom, my terminology may be incorrect but a piece of equipment was placed in my bathroom that I was told was to help get the moisture out.  And their comment about my bathroom floors being unsalvageable is totally untrue, my bathroom floors were not redone -- a sample was taken from the floor to check for asbestos, and the results were negative.  It was my kitchen floor that had to be replaced due to asbestos. 

Regarding the paint job of the subcontractor, the work was very sloppy...paint on the walls, on the ceiling (and the ceiling wasn't even supposed to be painted!).

Regarding the cabinets, I was not told this was the reason the work was discontinued.  When I called to let ER know that the paint job was not satisfactory I was told that they would take care of it.  ER then called back about 10 minutes later and told me that I should get someone else to do the work, and there was no mention at all that it was because of the cabinets.  As a matter of fact, I was not told why at all even though I asked several times.  Futhermore, I had told the project manager that I was willing to pay for any extra costs for anything I selected that was above what my insurance company was paying.  As a matter of fact I paid out of my pocket to have a section of my kithcen floor repaired that needed to be replaced but was not part of the work my insurance company was paying for.

It turned out fine. The project took 6 weeks and it was constant turmoil, displacement, and construction. The experience was horrible and the results were good. They did good work. They worked 12 hour days essentially to get it done faster for us, but it was a slight inconvenience. I would have preferred 8 hour work days. There are a few things that we have noticed since then, but at the time we were overwhelmed and didn’t notice. I would use them again, but hopefully don’t have to. Everyone was nice and easy to get along with. There was some confusion at the start, but it all worked out. In the end, I would recommend them to anyone unlucky enough to be in that situation.

They did a good job. They were very timely in coming out to us. They were here three days completing the work. They came the next day after we called. $1,000 was our deductible for the work.

This is my first-ever negative review in 10 years of using Angie's list.  Emergency Reconstruction did about $1500 of work -- bringing in huge fans and removing some wet flooring -- in the initial response to the flooding, and did an excellent job in every respect.  I would have given them an "A" for that.  But there's more.  At the end of the job, they asked if I wanted to also have ER install the new hardwood floor.  ER was a preferred contractor with our insurance company, and ER had done an excellent job on the first project, so I said yes.  ER brought us hardwood floor samples.  We wanted natural oak.  We inquired about the quality of the flooring offered and the ER representative assured us that they were all high-quality floors and we should just pick whichever sample looked best to us.  We asked if there were any other, higher-quality natural oak floor options, even at a higher price, beyond what the insurer would cover.  I was willing to pay extra myself if needed, but we were told no, those were the only options.  ER only offered one natural oak from Bruce, so we picked that.  They did offer natural oak from one other manufacturer, but both samples looked about the same to us -- natural unstained oak with a moderate amount of color variation --  and we recognized the Bruce brand, so we went with that.  It was called "rustic natural oak".  The word "rustic" puzzled us but we figured it was just a name.  However, when the flooring was installed, about 70 of the boards had some degree of black in them.  On the darkest boards, 50% of the surface was black.  There was no hint of black in the sample that we had been shown, and no mention of it from the ER rep.  We were expecting light flooring, certainly not black.  The people from ER were polite and agreed with us that what they installed was very different than the sample that we were shown.  However, they showed us a copy of the flooring selection form that I had signed for "Bruce rustic natural oak" flooring.  They said that they would replace it for us, but that we would have to make some sacrifices:  paying $700 towards the new flooring and giving up painting the bathroom.  We agreed to that, since it seemed to be our only option.  Then I learned two important things.  First, that this rustic flooring is the lowest grade of the several grades of flooring that Bruce sells.  This exact flooring was advertised by Home Depot at $2.57 per square foot, and presumably ER got it at even lower cost wholesale.  According to the warranty information on Bruce's official Web site, any flooring labeled "rustic" is sold by Bruce "AS IS" without warranty.  Second, I learned from the insurance company that the insurance company had evaluated our damaged flooring as being worth $6.26 per square foot, and they were going to pay that much to ER for flooring material, regardless of what ER actually spent.  Once I got the insurance company involved, ER quickly agreed to replace the floor at no cost, and to do everything that they had originally agreed to do.  From that point forward, things went well, and the job was completed to my satisfaction.  From start to finish, it took ER more than 2 months to install the floor, counting the initial install and the reinstall.  During most of that time our living room/dining room furniture was stashed in the garage and our bathroom was unusable.  Also, we experienced double the inconvenience, noise, and dust from having our flooring torn up twice and installed twice.  My main disappointment, however, was the fact that ER initially steered us to the cheapest possible flooring when we were entitled to much better, and when they were being paid by the insurer to give us much better.  Had it not been for this major failing, I would have focused this review on the positives:  the people were pleasant to work with and the various teams that came into our house were efficient and professional.  ER excels at the basics.  The painting and touch-up was very good, and the cleaning crew is amazing.  They not only cleaned up the sawdust from the flooring installation, but the crew of six people cleaned every leaf of the artificial trees, the inside of every window, and every hanging lamp and the chandelier.  Our house is cleaner than it has ever been, I think.  I would trust ER to clean my home after a disaster; the flooring is the only way they disappointed us, but that eclipsed everything else.

I am adding two points of clarification in response to Emergency Reconstruction's reply.  First, the price of $6.26 per square foot that was paid by the insurance company to Emergency Reconstruction was only for the wood flooring itself, and was not for installation or for anything else, such as installation or glue.  The total bill from ER to the insurance company was $11,370 for 480 sq. ft. of installed flooring.  Subtracting out taxes and some plumbing, painting, and carpentry work in the bathroom lowers it to about $10,000 for the installed flooring alone, which is over $20 per square foot.  Second, Emergency Response states that I was "encouraged to view other options online".  This is not true.

This  was a very long process, to put our hmome back together.
Damage done in October,2012
They came and did all of the repairs they could prior to the holidays. Water in vents and duct work that need toi be cut ceiling damage to garage, and  checking for mold.
Project started 2/4/13   they coordinated with all the sub contractors to  tare up all the hard wood floors on the first  floor.
Brad and his crew  did  the pack out with evtra care to all of our belonging and fuirniture.  We had many delays due to sub contractors.  Brad was always responsive, understanding and did a amazing job coordinating our  move back in  with painting  cleaning.  I would  definately recomment everyone at Emergency Reconstruction.

On July 1, 2012, my wife Linda and my four sons
lost our home to a fire. We barely escaped with our lives that morning.
We stood there helpless as our belongings and our memories were taken
from us.
To bring things into perspective, I had served in
the military and Linda and our four sons were required to move from
military base to military base approximately every three years. Upon
finally settling down in Raleigh North Carolina, this was our first real
home. Once again I had enlisted shortly after 9/11 and after a yearlong
deployment to Iraq, it was a welcome site to return to my family and
once again walk through the doors of the home we had struggled so hard
to finally obtain.
That morning for us was a blur, there were several
pushy construction representatives and 'ambulance chasing private
insurance adjusters' that were happy to pay us a visit. I was simply not
in any shape or emotional state to discuss anything with anyone at that
point. One person, Troy Townsend, did stand out though and after
consulting with our Insurance Agent, we were given a vote of confidence
in the quality and integrity of Emergency Reconstruction.
For me I was not hiring someone to simply rebuild
our house, I was hiring people that were tasked with bringing us back to
some sense of normalcy and by the end of it all would hand over the
keys to not just our house but our HOME.
My sincere apologies if you ever find yourself in a
similar situation, but if you do, ABSOLUTELY give Emergency
Reconstruction the opportunity. We were lucky enough to have Rob work as
our foreman and Troy to orchaestrate the administrative requirements. I
was even pleased and surprised to see Mike Palmer, one of the owners
come out to meet with us.
I can't say enough about the entire Emergency Reconstruction team, they
were all brilliant. We have recently moved home and what they have done,
the craftsmanship, the care, the quality... I could go on and on. They
are a company that truly goes above and beyond, when we walked through
the door as they neared completion, we were speechless. Thank you
doesn't begin to describe our feelings, the special touches around the
house and the attention to detail is truly incredible.
To Mike and the rest of the team at Emergency Reconstruction, thank you for bringing us home. We'll never forget what
you've done.

Emergency Restoration were extremely fast to get to our home and soon had everything packed up and removed. I cannot explain just how relieved we were to have someone else take control of this aspect because when you have just experienced a disaster like a house fire, rooting through what's left is not your main priority.
The employees of E.R. are all amazingly friendly and understanding and are quick to offer a kind hand when you need it the most. We only ended up using their services to remove items from the home as our landlady's friend was a contractor and offered to take the rest of the job on himself. In hindsight I really wish we had used Emergency Restoration for the whole reconstruction project because they were fast, friendly and didn't take short cuts at any point in the process.
While you may be tempted to cut costs and go with another company, I strongly urge you to use Emergency Restoration for all of your emergency needs. We were very satisfied with the service they offered and wish we'd used them for the entire restoration and reconstruction project!

I called my insurance company at 2:45 on a Monday afternoon. By 5:30 that evening Emergency Reconstruction (ER) was on the scene to assess the situation, and by 6:15 there were two workers setting up drying equipment.  ER assigned a project manager (Nathan) who oversaw the whole operation that followed.  The water technicians showed up every morning about 8:30 to check on progress of the drying, and when it appeared we'd gotten as far as we were going to that way, they set in motion the process of getting the damage repaired.  They were completely flexible in terms of timing issues (we needed to postpone initiation of the repairs for a couple of weeks).  When it came time to repair the floor, they arranged temporary accommodations for us, took great care with all items on the first floor (the whole first floor had to be re-done), packing them out, storing them safely, and bringing them back when the job was done.  The floor job itself was beautifully accomplished.  It looks better now than it did when we had it put in new some years ago.  Throughout the process, ER were responsive to phone calls, e-mails and on-site questions about process, progress, etc.   In all cases the were absolutely professional, courteous and competent.  Though it seems odd to say so considering the situation, it was a pleasure doing business with them.

Company employees were very professional and nice to deal with. They answered all my questions and performed all work on time with attention to detail. Emergency Reconstruction responded quickly and very professional to my water damage and replacement of my hardwood floors. I am so happy with the their results. Thank you!

They were here within 30 minutes of me calling them. They did a super job. I was so impressed with them because everyone they brought in here was so professional. No one left any messes. I did not have to do any cleaning up. Everything was spotless when they left. I had a new commode installed and they also provided a person to do that. If you don't want the hassle and headache of calling all different companies to do what you need they can help. They can do anything you need. It is a one stop shop and I had a wonderful experience. They had everyone lined up for me to get everything taken care of. Jake Aaron and Chris Parrish were the two project managers I worked with. The finished product is superior.

We had a leak in our upstairs bathroom.  The water flowed through the ceilings, down the stairs, and even traveled around in our crown molding downstairs leaking into everything.  My first call was to my plumber and my second to my insurance agent, both who recommended Emergency Reconstruction.  The remediation team was at my house within an hour of my call.  They came with tons of supplies, fans, dehumidifiers, and boxes.  They packed up my stuff to keep it safe.  They dried out what could be dried.  They cut out trim that was ruined, removed closet doors, etc.  They made very quick work of things.  The remediation team was great about telling us what to expect, the schedule of what would happen, and they even helped us with a little insurance hiccup that came up but was soon resolved.

After they confirmed things were dried out, we then started the repair phase.  We had walls, ceilings, and floors repaired and some sections replaced.  They worked with us on what work we wanted done and we were allowed to pick our light fixtures, paint colors, floor colors, tiles, etc.  They helped us stay within the insurance company's budget.  They also did extra work for us on the side and gave us a very reasonable price for it.

They were respectful of our time and our belongings and our pets.  They packed up our things before the floors had to be done and unpacked most of them for us.  They even had a cleaning crew come in to ensure there was no drywall dust, etc. lingering around before we moved back in.  There were very few hiccups for such a large and involved project.  I was very pleased with the quality of the work.  We were provided two walk-throughs to ensure nothing was left unfinished.  The crew was very good about not leaving work materials/ tools/ scrap, etc. behind. 

We would NOT like to have another leak emergency, but if we did, we'd definitely call on Emergency Reconstruction.

I have been a facility and property manager for 30 years. I have done this sort of work myself in the management of various contractors to do remodels, repairs, new work,  as well as emergency repairs such as those done to my own home. I can honestly say, without reservation what-so-ever, that this company performs in a professional, knowledgeable and courteous manner, from the senior manager Todd who arrived within an hour, to the board up crew who closed the hole in my house up that first day, to the estimators, the structural mechanics, brick masons, floor installers, plumbers, electricians and the painters, ALL were timely, expert and courteous. Without exception! Special thanks to Sean, the site supervisor for his daily attention, work coordination and constant communication with me. If this excellent group of professionals were available when I was actively managing facilities or properties, they would have been my first and only phone call. It has been a pleasure to watch their operation and be able to get to know them on a daily basis. Do not hesitate to use this company for emergency repairs or any service they may offer. If they perform for you half as well as they did for me, you will be 100% satisfied.