
Cincinnati Foundation Company
About us
Cincinnati Foundation Co. has been in business since 1983. We service the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area and also serving Indiana residents. We offer a wide variety of long term cost effective engineered solutions. Whatever your wet basement or foundation issues, we have solutions. Water at the wall or floor seam, we have a cure. Moldy walls? No problem. Don't fret another day! We're honest, considerate and stand by our work! 15 employees. No subs. No travel charges. Cost is determined by the job. Ask about Angie's List discount.
Business highlights
Services we offer
Waterproofing, foundation drainage, foundation leveling bowed walls., foundation repair
Amenities
Emergency Services
Yes
Free Estimates
Yes
Accepted Payment Methods
- CreditCard
Number of Stars | Image of Distribution | Number of Ratings |
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74% | ||
11% | ||
5% | ||
5% | ||
5% |
Here is where the story changes. They merged our downspout with the new sump pump's discharge pipe, and against our instructions, directed it into our next door neighbor's side yard instead of into our front yard (which is sloped away from the house and towards the street). We immediately mentioned this and were told if there was any problem with its configuration, they would be happy to return and relocate it.
Not long after that (mid-October) the merged downspout and sump discharge pipes disconnected. Everytime the sump pump discharged we got a fountain of water shooting up in our side yard. It didn't take long for massive amounts of erosion to take place. Weekly communications with Cincy Foundation continued until mid February with promises made each time that they would be out to fix it. After four months of weekly promises and no-shows, I fixed it myself.
On October 13, they showed up to spread some of the dirt from the 6 foot high mound to fill where the backfill had settled. They probably reduced the height of the hill by 1 foot. After waiting in vain for them to come back and finish spreading the other 5 feet, in early May I finally spent about 16 hours of my time with a shovel, wheelbarrow and rented tiller moving the now compacted clay and filling settled spots.
Meanwhile, the downspout/sump discharge continues to empty into my neighbor's yard. This spring, my neighbor complained to me that his side yard had turned into a swamp. We contacted Cinci Foundation on Apr. 29 and reminded them that the pipe still needed to be redirected into our front yard. Again, we got the weekly promises to fix it - with no appearances by them. Finally, on May 26, two workers showed up. They dug a foot deep trench to a dry well I had dug in my front yard. But, they hadn't shown up with any pipe to actually redirect with. So they promised to return in a day or two. On June 14th we told them they had one week to complete this work or we'd file a complaint. To demonstrate the lack of professionalism you can expect from this company, rather than apologize and make sure the work got done, we got the response "Just out of curiosity who would you file a complaint with". We replied the BBB and Angies list. His response? "No one uses bbb" and "Both are scams I'm just a struggling one man band". It is now over three weeks since the trench was dug, and still nobody has shown back up to install the pipe (but every few days we're still being promised someone will be here). By the way, with regards to the BBB, apparently some people do use it as there are 11 complains about this company.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the basement continues to leak. While not as bad as it had been, we paid to have it fixed, not somewhat reduced. They offered to fill the cove joint (again, no follow up from them). Googling "filling cove joints" by the way turns up almost universal agreement that it is not an acceptable solution to fix a leak.
Cinci Foundation warranties their work for life, but based on their complete lack of response, I don't consider the warranty to be worth the paper it is written on.
At this point I'd consider they finished about 80% of the job. I've had to spend my own time, money, and effort doing much of the remaining work they have been paid to do. Frankly, I don't know what to do regarding the still leaky basement. I certainly don't trust this company to fix it.
"I'm the owner and I have never had a conversation with this person…. I have no knowledge this project or this person's name. I am investigating the matter as of now I have no record of ever doing a job for this person"
I had contacted several companies to come and give me an estimate, but had a hard time getting anyone to look at it. Of the couple that did take a look, they only discussed patching the walls. But when I called Cincinnati Foundation, they came out right away and were very knowledgeable of what the problem was and how it needed to be repaired. I knew I found the right person for the job!
"Thank you for the review, and the compliment on how good our guys are. Hopefully we're the only foundation repair company you'll ever have to use, and I would never diminish the importance of your job, but we are one company to you, and on our end, we see new customers and new houses every day. That's not in any way an attempt to minimize the importance of your home or your dissatisfaction with the length of time it took to get satisfactory results. It's just to say how busy we are, and how hard it is to get back to a job site after we've moved on in the schedule. One of the things I've recently started to emphasize with customers is to be completely satisfied with the job before they hand over any money. I want all of the details accounted for before my guys leave, because it really is tough to rearrange a tight schedule to catch a few little things that slip through. I apologize that this wasn't done for you, and we'll be in contact shortly to ensure your expectations have been met and fulfill any expectations that remain unsatisfied. The tie backs we installed in your house were more appropriate for your situation and are a more expensive solution. We ate that expense. Our estimators are good, but our foremen are better and have a lot more time in the trenches, and while it doesn't happen often, sometimes things do get changed once the crew is on the job site. As for the comment about the scope of work being reduced and the work being good not great: I trust your house isn't leaking, and your walls are stabilized. I will be in contact soon to make sure there isn't anything else that needs attention. Thanks again."
Inside to prevent concrete dust from going into the home, they hung up plastic and sealed the area. They then cut and removed the concrete and installed the sump pump.
All work was performed in one day.
I am very happy!
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The project went really well from the time that I made the first call to the time they finished. They were quick and very nice. They showed me some things in the basement and foundation and gave me information about things to look out for. I had other companies come out and look at the problems I had and realized they were lying to me.
These guys were really smart, had a lot of experience, and were highly mechanical. They finished everything in a timely manner. I was really happy with the way it all turned out. They cleaned up after everything was done really well.
I would highly recommend them to my neighbors and friends. Definitely!
"Nice working for you .... your house was super nice thanks for trusting us on such beautiful home ....cheers"
The house continued to settle some after the pier installation as the house distributed load onto the new piers, however, the piers are now functioning as promised. The initial job-site cleanup and sloping of the lawn away from the house was very poor (it was after dark on a Saturday night) and Chris's crew had to return the next day to redo the cleanup and re-slope the dirt away from the foundation. They applied straw and grass-seed, but this was not evenly distributed and resulted in grass on only about 1/3 of the disturbed ground (they are foundation guys, not lawn pros). I've since applied grass-seed myself to try and rebuild the lawn.
The repair worked as promised for the first year and a half after completion, however, we have recently observed the same water intrusion that the work was meant to correct. The work has a "lifetime warranty" that supposedly covers the workmanship. We have attempted to contact the company repeatedly, in different manners, during the last two weeks and have received no response back. Throughout our previous communication in setting up the work, I found their professionalism and communication to be poor at best. Because of all this, I anticipate they will continue to ignore my requests for them to fulfill their warranty.
Be warned that their workmanship is poor, their business practices are shaky and their warranty is not worth the paper it is written on.
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"We loved working for you thanks for the work ....Cheers :-)"
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"Great people to work for .....one of the best yet!!! :-) cheers"
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"Another lovely lady who was super cool :-j Cheers"
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Part of the contract with them was to seal up the exterior and interior of the house where we were experiencing drafts. This part of the job was completed on March 23rd to my satisfaction. The primary reason why they had to wait to finish the job was because of weather You can't seal and caulk when it's too cold, and we finally got a little break here in March. The same team, Mike and Mike, came out and sealed up what they could and gave sound advice on areas that were out of their reach.
Overall, I was extremely satisfied with my service from Cincinnati Foundation Company.
After several days, I never received an email. I spent the next few weeks following up with Chris via telephone and text politely requesting the document be mailed. Chris repeatedly assured me he had emailed and would Fedex and promised on several occassions to text tracking info. At this point, I wasn?t convinced any document had been sent and was sure I was not being told the truth. I was finally told it was Fedex?d on Sunday 3/10. By Wed 3/13, still no document or tracking info. and I again asked for tracking info. Chris assured me the document had been sent. On Thurs 3/14, I received a condescending text with tracking info. for a package finally sent out that same morning. I received a one page hastily-prepared and unprofessional ?sketch? (no company letterhead, no project address, no project date, etc.).
It is obvious that the company had no intention of providing the follow up request, continued to lie about sending it, and seemed to become irritated that I continued to press for the information. I would have gladly paid additional if this document was an issue for the company to prepare. As I was repeatedly ?misled? (both via phone and in writing) about providing simple paperwork, I have little faith in the overall honesty of work and guarantee promoted by the company and am disappointed in their lack of integrity. Based on all the positive reviews, I sincerely hope my experience is the exception as I much prefer to provide positive feedback to companies that I work with.
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Philip Brown met with my husband and explained what would happen and their work scope seemed to match two other estimates we had, but at a better price. Plus they could get to us to do the work sooner. So we signed the contract. They showed up a day and a half later than we expected, but stayed with the work until finished. The work was done in a professional manner. They said they would remove their trailer the next day...but I had to call two more times on two more days so we could regain use of our driveway.
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"Wonderful people to work for.... please let us know if you need anything at all we would love to be of service... cheers ~ Curt"
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