Structured Foundation Repairs and Roofing Systems

Structured Foundation Repairs, Inc. ("Structured") is the worst foundation company in the Dallas area. Here is a list of my complaints; my story is below: (1) Price: Structured charged me for over $3k worth of work on my porch that, after discussing with both Structured, after the work was completed, and other companies, was not necessary. In that sense, the price was at least $3390 more than what I should have paid. (2) Quality: The quality of work was terrible. After engaging Structured to install piers in January 2011, Structured had to come back out to the house in August 2011, September 2011, October 2011, February 2012, March 2012, April 2012 (3 times), August 2012, and January 2013. When a company needs to come out, on average, every 2-3 months, that is strong evidence that the quality of work is extremely poor. (3) Responsiveness: While Structured's main office was somewhat responsive, the quality of communication was terrible. The company did not explain why certain services needed to be done, why the quality of services was so poor that they had to come out every 2-3 months, or if there was anything unusual with the installation/repair. In fact, miscommunication was one of their defenses to not performing completely with our oral agreement. (4) Professionalism: Structured is the antithesis of professional. They sent an extremely inexperienced individual to head the installation of my allegedly required porch piers. This individual attempted to back out of what was originally orally agreed and took two full days to perform a job he told me would take one day. In addition, because of the amount of time and money I had already spent with Structured, when they told me I had to spend an additional $2500 to repair my house, I asked if I could speak with a manager. They sent the owner, Tom Kidd, out to speak with me and look at my house. Mr. Kidd had the audacity to tell me "their profit margin was essentially zero" on my house because of all the work. Any company that talks to a distressed customer about the company's lack of profit is extremely unprofessional. I don't care about Structured's profit. I care about Structed leveling my house as promised. (5) Punctuality: The crews were never punctual. The employees were never punctual. The owner, Mr. Kidd, was not even punctual. My Story: I purchased my house in July 2010. The house is pier and beam and was built in 1921. The previous owners had used Structured to level the house and install approximately 20 piers in 2007. This work was under a lifetime warranty. Structured had also done some shim work, which was under a one-year warranty. The inspector I had out before purchasing the house had noted that foundation work had been done, but said the foundation appeared structurally sound. Shortly after I closed on my house, I filled out the appropriate paperwork to transfer the lifetime warranty and contacted Structured to inspect the house for good measure. I had not noticed any cracks or shifting, but wanted them to have a look since I had just transferred the warranty. They sent out BT. BT took measurements and said that while the house looked fine now, I should call them in November/December because I might need to havesome work done then. In hindsight, I realize it was quite convenient that the work did not need to be done during the busy season (summer) but might need to be done in the slow season (winter). When I called Structured in the winter, they told me I needed to have 6 additional piers installed on the east side of my house for $2570. After this addition, the entire perimeter of my house had piers; however, no corresponding adjustments on the west side of the house or the shims were done (which I've been told goes against conventional wisdom). Structured did not provide any additional communication other than the cost and setting a date for the work. The summer after this pier installation, I had extreme cracking and movement. I called Structured to take a look; however, it was over a month before they would look at my house. Finally, in late August 2011, Structured sent AQ out to my house. I later learned AQ had only recently been in charge of making repair recommendations and had little to no experience with older houses. AQ recommended installing 7 additional piers on the porch because "the porch was pulling the house down as it separated from the house." He also said he would make adjustments to the middle of the house to fix some of the doors that were not latching completely. When the engineer came out to review the measurements, he mentioned that the middle of the house needed to be adjusted as well as the piers because the house was "sloping in." Structured called to schedule the actual pier installment and adjustments, and I told Structured what the engineer had said. I asked if she would confirm that the crew would be both installing the piers and adjusting the middle of the house because the agreement only mentioned the 7 piers. Structured confirmed that the crew would be making adjustments as well as installing additional piers. The work was scheduled for Friday, September 16, 2011, and when the crew arrived (late) they began working on the porch piers. The work was not finished by the end of the day, as originally promised, and the crew had to come back out on Saturday (I had to cancel my plans of visiting with family that had come in from out of town that day). At the end of the day, the crew had not yet made any adjustments on the inside of the house. After a heated conversation with AQ, the crew made a few slight adjustments to the shimming in the back of the house but did not make the complete adjustments that had been agreed upon. When the main office called to discuss payment for the work done, I told them the work had not been completed as promised and I would pay after the work was completed. There was some dispute as to whether the adjustments to the middle of the house were actually included (the miscommunication referenced in my list). Eventually, Structured sent out another crew in October (with someone other than AQ) to make a few additional adjustments. I was told AQ had been approaching my house as one would a newer house, not one built in 1921, because instead of trying to level the house he had been trying to superficially make things look straight. I later learned foundation companies should consider the house as a whole instead of just adjusting it piecemeal like Structured always did. Once again, extreme cracking and movement occurred as early as January (3 months later). Structured came back out in February 2012. Notably, many of the cracks were the same (just worse) than the ones that appeared back in August 2011. When I asked whether the porch piers might need to be adjusted, Structured responded that the porch does not affect the house and they never take actual measurements of porches to determine whether it would need to be adjusted. That would have been nice to know before handing over $3k to Structured to install porch piers. Structured came back out in March 2012, April 2012, and August 2012. All of the work done was adjustments on teh permimeter piers. After meeting with Mr. Kidd, I learned there might have been some minor work done to the shims at those times; however, substantial work was never done to the shims in correspondence with the permimeter work. In January 2013, Structured told me I needed 17 piers adjusted and I needed to pay them $2290 to reset/reshim. At this point, extremely frustrated with my experience with the company, the fact that my house was still not leveled, and that I would now have to pay an additional $2290, I asked to speak with a manager. Tom Kidd, the owner, scheduled a meeting with me at my house. Mr. Kidd showed up late. I described my experiences up until that point. Mr. Kidd never apologized for the negative experience I had with his company. He blamed everything except his company. He said the cracks were "old" because they had tape over them as a "cheap repair," all the problems with the house were caused by the drought, and implied my house was a lemon (interesting, because the house did not have any major issues between 2007 when the previous owners had work done and when Structured recommended I pay for additional piers in 2011). I showed him some cracks that did not have tape over them and had not be previously repaired, but he still said they were old cracks. At one especially bad crack where the plaster was separating from the wall, he pulled the plaster even further away from the wall and down (making it significantly worse) and simply stated that it was old as well. Mr. Kidd explained that according to the notes he had on each of my repairs/installations (which I had never seen before and had never been told about) they had often done small amounts of work to my shims without charging me. While blaming my problems on the drought, he also mentioned they had noticed an excess amount of water in the pier holes during one of the prior adjustments (a problem that had never been brought to my attention). Then, he complained that his profit margin on the house was essentially zero and stated that I needed to have the shims repaird at the $2290 quote. When I mentioned that I was extremely unhappy with the company's performance and it was frustrating because I could not look to another company without breaking my warranty, Mr. Kidd basically shrugged my comment off and told me to call their main office to schedule the $2290 work. This was the last straw. I decided I would rather spend additional money on a new company than give more money to structured. Structured Foundation is a terrible company that has bad communication, punctuality, professionalism, quality, responsiveness, most likely recommends work that is not needed, and refuses to take responsibility for its mistakes.

Professional sales guy looked at the house and took time to explain what was going on and solution. There was a little bit of a wait in between agreeing to the services and the performance there of. I guess they are a bit behind due to the good job they do and demand for their services. They showed up on time, performed the services as contracted for, and left the house in a clean shape. Great job as contracted for. Thanks.

They did great job, and behaved professionally. The rates they gave me were less than half I was expecting to pay. Every time I called, during the job and after it was done, they were responsive and called me right back if they couldn't answer the phone right then. A few months after the work was complete, they came out and measured and checked again and determined that it was stabilized, and that I could proceed with other repairs needed pending the foundation. Overall I'm very happy with them and how their work turned out.

Structured Foundation Repairs Inc. are pretty good. The only problem that their offices burnt down, and we had was some communication issues early on, but that all seems to be resolved. Where they dropped the ball, they not only apologized, but took full responsibility for and then shortly after that, I dropped the ball. So, I'm now taking full responsibility for that. All in all, they've been very, very professional. They've been very informative. They educated me on the process. It put them at the top of the list. We're going with them to start the working in May. They really took the time to just talk to me about what could go wrong. What they anticipated happening but the things that could happen that I may have additional expense. I appreciate the fact that they let me know before we did any work. I'm very, very pleased with them and I'm looking forward to them doing a really good job. I'm giving them an A, although it really wasn't an A experience, because their office burnt down. I don't even know how they were functioning. So I give them an A.

We had a bedroom door that would not close, and over the years we started noticing cracks in walls & ceilings, a crack in the floor. The brick wall on the front patio looked like it was separating from the house. After a few years of denial, and a desire to replace the current worn out carpeting, I called for bids on repair to the foundation. It took months to decide. We got 4 bids and they all varied. I didn't know how to decide which proposed repair plan was right. Of all the repair plans, there was something about Structured that felt better than the others, but the cost was less than I expected. I called Structure to talk with the sales rep, but he was no longer with the company. Jeff came to the house to confirm the first bid and suggested a couple additional piers. Price was still reasonable and competitive. Over the Christmas holiday, I noticed that another door was starting to stick, so I called Jeff and asked if he could come back to the house. Also, I wanted my husband to talk to him because I was seriously considering using this company. Jeff rearranged his schedule and came by again. Because of the recent movement, he suggested a few more interior piers. Price was still competitive, and we made the decision to go with Structured Foundation. The crew showed up as expected, this was a 2 day job. The first day was noisy while jack hammering for the interior piers was being done. Both days were messy, lots of dust and alot of dirt was moved around during these 2 days. The crew worked hard for 2 days! They were fabulous! They interacted with my husband, explaining what to expect and showed him what they were doing throughout the process. They told him how many pilings were put into each hole, explained the lifting process, told us when they were ready to lift, measured each area when lifting, were careful not to over do it. The work was completed by 7:00pm the second day, and we had the weekend to finishing cleaning all the dust on the inside before going back to work. A few days after completion of work, a plumber came to perform the plumbing test...no leaks! We couldn't be happier with the work that Structured Foundation delivered. The bedroom door that wouldn't close for years, now closes! The shutters close easily, no gap in brick wall on front porch and other cracks are noticeably smaller. There are some cosmetic things we will fix now, and we're ready to replace the flooring now. But it is a big relief to know that the major repair was completed successfully, by a quality company with a lifetime warranty.

The decision is between stabilizing so the problem does not get worse or waiting to see what happens. As yet I have not decided what to do.

The service was fine. They cleaned up when they were finished. The job looks good.

Loved Greg - punctual, professional, courteous, efficient and knowledgeable. Checked my house and informed me that I do not have foundation issues at this time and left me a diagram that can be used as a base in case I ever have foundation problems in the future. Would definitely call this company again.

My house is part pier and beam, part garage conversion. I was experiencing cracks on the pier and beam portion and saw some separation between my quarter-boards and hardwood in the living room. I was positive I had foundation issues. I was ready to spend $7K or so as many have had to do. He came out, measured and documented things and explained that as much as he would love to sell something, there was nothing he could do. That my problem was due to last summer's drought and a natural occurrence in houses like mine. So there it is. He could have sold me for the sake of selling, but he had the honesty and integrity to refer me to completely different company and solution.

The company can out for an estimate when they said they would and were very professional and price about the same as other estimates. The work started and ended in the time frame that was indicated. The yard and the house was left clean and all work was done very well.

Structured leveled my foundation. They raised one side of the house about 2.5 inches with 13 piers. Their rep was friendly, professional and explained the process well. The work was done promptly and in one day. So far the results are good! Thanks.

When my husband and I bought this house 4 1/2 years ago, it needed foundation work. We required this work to be done by the sellers prior to purchasing the house. We chose Structured Foundation and though the sellers wanted to use a less expensive company, we insisted on Structured as we felt comfortable with them. Fast forward 4 years. We have recently noticed signs of more foundation issues. My husband pulled out the paperwork for Structured Foundation from the time of purchase. He called the company and set an appointment. Albert came out and was very professional. He spent about an hour observing our issues and taking measurements. He confirmed that we are having foundation movement. Definitely not the news I wanted, but certainly the news I expected. He was very detailed when explaining the work he recommended and why. This was last night. He is going to prepare the estimate to us via email. We don't have it yet. I am writing this review now because of a negative review I read yesterday. The review compained about the transferable warranty. I can tell you that my husband and I did not complete the paperwork for the warranty after our purchse. We didn't realize this was required, however we were not given any grief about this. Now the current issue is in a new location of the house, so it is out of warranty. However, Albert does recommend adjustment for the existing work and said that he would apply the warranty. As mentioned by the company in the previous review, they are under no obligation to do this and I can tell you that I much appreciate it.

Estimator was professional, work began on time and on the dates requested. Only took two days and all broken sprinkler pipes were repaired. Most interior cracks inside the home closed up. I am hoping this will be the end to the house movement.

Excellent experience from start to finish. All contacts were extremely professional and responded to all inquiries before, during and after the job was done. Would definitely hire them again if I require any additional work.

It was wonderful. They were professional, on time, and fast. I as very pleased with the work.

Work not yet performed ... read above.

All appointments were punctual. Estimate was given and explained within my expectation. The crew came out and did the work on the appointed date. I was surprised as to how quickly the work could get done. It took the crew only 4 hours to dig up the holes and installed the pilings, end to end for the whole job. All dirt were kept on tarps and put back cleanly.

He measured the inside of the house and checked the outside since I had noticed some cracks in the brick and my back door was hard to open. He recommended calling a plumber to have the house checked for leaks since the measurements showed no large differences, no definitive "ups and downs" in the floor. He said to call him if I didn't like what the plumber said. I have since had my pipes checked and did find a leak under the foundation. He was very helpful and nice and certainly did not try to put a "hard sell" on me which I appreciate very much.

Excellent from start to finish

The crew who did the job had some difficulty finding the house the first day of work as it is a rural address, so start time was late. Once work was started, they worked hard in hot weather and completed the job over the next 3 to 4 days. We had a contractor we trust on the premises doing other work during this time, and he was impressed with the quality of the foundation work that was done, as we (my sister and I) were. There had been no foundation work done on the house in at least 25 years and never any work as extensive as what Structured did. We are very pleased with the work done on our property and would recommend Structured Foundation Repair without hesitation or reservation. They communicated throughout the process as to what needed to be done.

I set an appointment to have Structured Foundation Repairs, Inc. evaluate the pier & beam foundation on my 1930 home. I was beginning to think that perhaps it was moving and that I was getting a smaller front yard & a bigger backyard every year. Greg showed up right on time and was very friendly. He set about his work and then we talked. He assured me all was well and advised that the foundation was just fine - nothing needed to be done. Remarkable after 82 years. I think it would have been very easy to convince me otherwise. Though I cannot report on the quality of their work, if Greg's professionalism is any guide, I would certainly call them again.

Mr. Bailey showed up about an hour early. My realtor was late. He spent the time with me before the realtor arrived essentially attacking competitors from whom I had previously received quotes. It would have been more professional if he would have simply done a better job of justifying his quote compared to theirs. Even though he could not access the crawlspace on the pier and beam house I was considering, he completed an estimate anyways. The quote was nearly double the price of the next most expensive quote I received and included a large quantity of work that others did not include. I went with another company, excavated the crawlspace to examine it, and have since concluded that a large portion of the work he quoted was not necessary. It's OK to quote unnecessary work, but only if you allow your customers to pare down your quote and use your service for only particular jobs included in the larger quote. Mr. Bailey expressly disallowed that option. I won't waste my time with Structured Foundation Repairs again.

As noted above, Larry Todd visited with us and gave us a comfortable understanding of what happens when the slab of your house shifts, flexes, and sometimes cracks. He reassured us that the damage was not likely due to anything we did or did not do, such as not water enough. The 2011 drought created very deep damage due to the clay-like soil constricting due to dehydration. We learned that one of our trees out front is close enough to the house to also draw away any moisture that was intended for the shrubs or foundation. We felt good about moving forward and were relieved to learn that our cost was only going to be $3,990 and nothing had to be torn up inside of the house. I felt comfortable with Larry and the company, as did my husband, so we scheduled the work for Friday, September 28th. ** I'd like to add a nice note of credibility and ethics here ** I referred my neighbor to contact Larry since he also had some concerns. Larry visited him, determined that everything was still within limits and nothing needed to be done at that time. Having been in sales my whole life, I know that most "service salesmen" will find some reason to work on your house, yet Larry did not. It indicated integrity in my mind, and that ensured me that we made a good decision. Manuel, the supervisor, and his crew arrived as scheduled. Manuel confirmed the work with me by describing what they were here to do. He also informed me that he would have to leave the job site for a short while but would be right back, which was fine by me. I'm assuming he needed to coordinate another team on another job. He was extremely polite, and showed a sense of confidence with the crew. It was cool - like watching a good "team" of guys. Everyone immediately went into action and I parked myself on the sofa in the back of the house. A few hours went by and I crept out front to see how things were going. I couldn't believe what I was seeing -- mountains of clay-dirt laying on top of tarps, bushes wrapped up and set aside out of the way, and DEEP holes going under the house with guys crunched up installing these concrete cylinders. His team mate is the guy who jams the rebar into the cylinder centers and then hands them down to him when they're ready. I didn't see how it all started, so I won't even pretend to know what they did, but I know it involved a hydraulic line to push these things down. The guys were all friendly and smiling as we made eye contact, and I did my best to show my appreciation of their great attitude. I don't think I'd be smiling after doing the kind of digging and lifting that they were doing! I even practiced my very limited Spanish with Manuel and a couple of the guys. They were quite kind in return. Late in the afternoon, Manuel was ready to come back inside the house and prepare for a measurement and command each of the piers to be raised. He parked his electronic measuring device (I have no idea of the concept of the device) and it showed a digital display. He then went out front and talked to the entire team of guys (he spoke in Spanish, so I'm not sure what it was that he said), and each of them proceeded to use some sort of manual jack at each of the pier locations, in perfect synchronization, and all of a sudden the house began to return to the original elevation. It was an AMAZING experience!!! My husband and I were thrilled! Manuel and I checked the closet doors and they were much, much better, but Manuel could tell that additional adjusting was still needed. My husband checked the French doors leading into his studio, which were completely out of alignment. They were also much better, but not quite perfect. Manuel checked his digital meter, went back outside and gave an additional command, the team made additional corrections, and when Manuel came back in, we could see that EVERYTHING was perfect! The closet doors opened and closed like nothing had ever been wrong. The French doors were perfectly aligned. The crack in the tile floor was now just a hairline crack in the grout that can easily be refilled or simply sealed. Most remarkably, the persistent crack in the ceiling was completely gone! If it wasn't for the horrible paint and patches of white that wound up on there, you would never know that it had ever cracked. Also -- we had a crack in several exterior bricks and mortar near a window. It was a fairly significant crack to look at. Well, Manuel said with a big smile that it was also gone! My husband and I were like kids on Christmas day! I kept opening the coat closet door and shutting it -- just because I could! Meanwhile, Manuel had gone back out to his crew to talk with them. I stepped outside to thank the crew and Manuel turned to me and said, "No mas!" (No more!) and I smiled and thanked him! The guys then went back into high gear in cleaning everything up, filling the holes with dirt, reinstalling shrubs and everything else that had to go away temporarily. And it was remarkable -- just as several other reviewers said, they put things back and no one would ever notice that they had been there. My husband and I were SO impressed with this team! You could tell they've worked together for a long time. They worked like a well-oiled machine, everyone knowing their job and being efficient at it. This was truly an exceptional experience! Paying big money for foundation repair is about as appealing as paying a lot of money for a root canal. Yet somehow, now that it's done, and I got to see what we "got" for our $3,990, I feel like it was a very good value. That team of guys worked their tails off, earned every dollar they made for the job, and I can open and close doors -- JUST because I feel like it! Everything is back to normal again, and it feels great! AND...our house is healthy again, which is the most important thing to us. Thank you to Larry Todd and the team from Structural Foundation Repairs! Very satisfied in Valley Ranch, Laurie Hunchar

Well, nothing to worry about.

We were selling our house and the buyer's inspector raised the concern of foundation movement. We had visible cracks and repaired cracks and some doors were not plumb. The house had foundation work done on it in 2000 and we were under some "out of warranty but 20% of the original cost" plan so we called the original company up to make an assessment. The Realtor brought in Structured Foundation Repairs, Inc. to do the buyer's assessment. Our guy did electronic measurements and walked around with a level doing a lot of manual measurements. His electronic measuring device was on a pole and he made sure his measurements were as close to the firm floor as possible. (We have rather thick carpet.) The original foundation company's assessment was that the house was still good. There was just standard yearly movement and due to our recent sprinkler system installation, we were doing it wrong. There were no new cracks and all visible cracks were old cracks resurfaced. No work was needed, just some cosmetic adjustments and minor door repair. He said the house was holding up great and would actually extend our warranty out to 20 years w/out doing any new work. When the SFR guy came out, he had a very similar measuring device but w/out the pole. He would casually let it drop and bounce around the floor. Like I said, we have rather thick carpet and we're dealing with fractions of an inch, so fluctuations in carpet do register. Then he pulled the "have you ever had your outgoing plumbing inspected?" card. Of course I hadn't. His final report indicated that we needed to rip out all the prior work and replace it with 25 new pylons, inside and out. It would take weeks and would also require new carpet and substantial drywall repair and repainting. It was $11.5K just for the foundation work alone, which wasn't bad considering some stories I have heard, but did not include the walls or carpet. When I looked at the diagrams, his measurements were quite different than our foundation guy. And just as I expected, he warned of outgoing plumbing leaks. Fast forward a week and we had a structural engineer come out. His findings? They pretty much exactly matched our first foundation assessment. When I showed him the assessment from SFR, he chuckled and said he sees this all over DFW. Companies come in with wild claims of damage and plumbing problems. If we had plumbing problems, there would be new movement, not just seasonal fluctuations on old existing cracks. The SFR guy was not an engineer - he was a salesman. He spent a lot of time convincing the Realtor that the old pier technology was inadequate and the house needed these pylons. I'm glad I got a third opinion. The SFR guy did seem very convincing. If this was my first and only assessment, I might have believed him.