GEOPACIFIC ENGINEERING INC

Sent Geopacific a request for pricing based on the County?s' request for Geotech letter and site evaluation.  Received a T&M bid with a budget for work for $300 to $500.  Received a letter from the Count describing exactly what they wanted and forwarded on to Geopacific requesting price adjustments if needed.  Received the same bid proposal back for a budgeted amount of $300 to $500.  Jim Imbrea with Geopacific came out on a Friday and spent about an hour on site looking around.  The following week I received the Geotech letter describing my site conditions and validating that the structural design soil assumptions are correct.  Couple weeks later received a bill for a little over $600.  Paid the bill in full assuming that the visits during excavation had been lumped into this bill.  Jim Imbrea then came out two more times time during excavation and then provided me a letter that conditions did not change from original letter.  I then received a second bill for his last two visits for a little over $600 again.  This made his price over double what he had budgeted.  When I questioned Jim Imbrea on it he told me that he had informed me on his first visit that his initial budget was for a different type of service and that the service I need would be a lot more.  Jim never did inform me of this and never provided the requested additional in writing.  He then went on to tell me that the services that he provided for the cost normally would be around $1500 to $2500.  I had a second bid for $1700 that included them coming out and taking core samples and providing lab analysis of the core samples along with echo sampling to give me an empirical data and a report giving me actual load bearing values of the soil and not just a visual assessment.  Jim Imbrea refused to reduce his price for his services so I sent a partial payment on his last billing notifying Geopacific this will be the final payment on my account.  Jim Imbrea also stated that being that I am an owner builder that I do not understand the cost of changes during a project and that all general contractors understand the escalation of scope.  I know that no general contractor will except a 250% increase in pricing when they requested that they get a revised proposal and then never be informed during the process that the price would go up.  I would not recommend this company to anyone.

Everything went very well. The company was very responsive in providing a quotation/proposal. They scheduled the work and provided the report well within the timeframe on their proposal.