Perma-Pier Foundation Repair Company

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It was a terrible experience. They started the job over a week after it was scheduled. When they first came out, they were not prepared for the work to be performed, and wanted to add charges for things that should have been seen in the inspection. That caused the work to be delayed again. When the work was finally done, they did not provide a run-through, explain the work done, next steps, etc. They just left! After that left we realized they placed the sliding on the house wrong. We called and asked them to fix it and they came out to the house, a week later, to say they couldn't fix it. We will be staying far away from this company!

I meant to write this review 2.5 years ago when the work was performed, but forgot, and recently a friend asked for a referral for foundation work, and it jogged my memory that I should write a review.
I was considering putting my house up for sale in 2011. This was the year of the great drought in Texas. My house was recently constructed, finished in 2003, and 2011 was the first time I had movement of the piers/foundation (i.e., due to the drought). We had several doors that wouldn't open and some separation between the floors and the walls where the piers were sinking. My realtor friends told me that I needed to fix the foundation, as the market at that time was a buyer's market.
Because of the drought, foundation companies were overloaded with work. I called about a 15 companies to provide bids. Some never showed up or returned my calls. Most often I had to wait 6 weeks to get someone to come out to provide a bid.
Brian Gilcrhist showed up from Perma Pier. He was the most professional of all the reps that showed up at my house over the several weeks prior. He took the necessary digital measurements around the house and examined the engineering blueprints for the house. But with most foundation settlement, you really don't need to take measurements, as it's obvious where the house is sinking from the cracks in the house. Brian quickly pointed out which piers were sinking and how many piers we would need to replace. He gave me a bid the same day and the amount was very reasonable. I had a couple of lower bids, but didn't really trust those companies. I had quite a few higher bids, including a couple of well known companies that wanted to do a lot more work than was necessary (I'm a civil engineer, so I challenged the companies on this point; they quickly backed off the amount of work that needed to be done when I informed them I was a civil engineer).
Brian's crew showed up a couple weeks later as he promised. It took about 2 full days to install the piers (I don't recall exactly how many, but my recollection is that they bidded out to install 15 piers). When they finished installing the piers, it was clear that there needed to be about 3 additional piers installed, as one corner of my house still had some separation between the floors and walls. My only nitpick is that they should have informed me at the bid stage that additional piers may be necessary. I think they wanted to charge me an additional $1800 or so. After I objected and explained that I felt surprised by the extra charge to level the house, they did these three piers for free. I would have paid for them, as even with the additional $1800, the total price would have been less than most of the competitors. Obviously, the decision to install them for free is indicative of the great customer service from Brian and Perma Pier. They left no mess around the house. The cracks around the house had all disappeared. I would not hesitate to call Perma Pier again for foundation work.

This is how it all started: A thorough examination of the damaged (sunken) foundation to be lifted and the estimation of the fee by extremely professional and knowledgeable Brian Gilchriest (who's presentation of the offer, actually, was the determining factor, at the end, for me to accept his company - instead one of the other two companies, whose offers I had received). The communication
with the head quoters of PERMA-PIER, before the work assignment and after, was a great pleasure - and I do not say that lightly!
The crew arrived promptly at the scheduled time lead by Travis, who throughout the entire process of the work to be done was and quot;in situand quot;observing his men closely to make sure everything was done properly and never left the work site during the long day. I was extremely interested in seeing what was being done and Travis was very kind to point out the different stages of preparing for the actual installation of the piers. Then enter John, the master. He was there to supervise the actual and very intricate lifting of the foundation process. He made sure, that the lifting did not happen too fast or abruptly, etc. This to protect the structure of the house, the walls from cracking, for the doors to remain closable, etc. He had the patience of Jobe; he was very respectful of his crew, he was utterly thorough with everything he did with his crew, particularly with all the finishing detail: filling the dug-out holes - with no earth left over, with repairing the concrete surface of patio (5 or 6 holes for piers), cleaning everything affected by this big job on the property and he had a great sense of humour. What a pleasure it was to have him and his jolly crew there. I shall recommend Perma-Pier to all my friends and whoever will need or want information about this of sort work to be done! Absolutely love this company and I wish them great continued success!

I will say that they corrected the problem so make sure you read the whole review.
I just bought the house and during the inspection three beams on the house were off. Had these guys come in and give me an estimate and go over what they were going to do. So they come in the morning and stop work by noon because they were not prepared. They had to get a custom steam beam that they could have measured weeks ago to have ready. The guy keeps saying it will be in on Monday. I'm fine with that. after they leave I notice all the doors in my house are off. One door I got to open now well not close. So I had to get them to come back and fix that. They obviously didn't measure anything. So Monday comes around and I don't get a call. I call the main office and they thought my job was done. It wasn't until the next Thursday that they finally come and put in this steal beam. But they completely left my place a mess. They didn't take their time to put back my lattice and somehow broke my house connection so it sprayed water everywhere. One piece of lattice they couldn't remember where it went so they just threw it in the grass with the nails sticking up. I took several pictures and sent it to the email I had when the estimate was done. They did get back to me within a day or two and fix all of it and buy me a new hose. But honestly in about a year I'm going to get another inspector because I'm not sure i trust the work they did. If the people that did the work were that lazy I can't imagen the job was done that well.

AMAZING PEOPLE. Not only did they lift the entire left side of my home 3and quot;, but they went out of their way to fix some small stuff that they had absolutely no obligation to do (such as clean up the area around a fallen out brick in an arch way and put it back in flush with the arch while adjusting piers, and remove some old big bushes we were tired of.) They were prompt, honored our warranty on three breakouts that had become unstable, and explained everything in detail while watching our antique hard wood floors to make sure they didn't raise the home too fast and pop any of them out of the floor. (they had some people working for them three years ago who did a bad job and now have a whole new crew promptly fixing everything that was done poorly) The company and their workers are extremely dedicated and They have gone above and beyond to fix the problems caused by the old crew! They charged roughly $233 per pier and even though its more than some of these other companies, you get the quality you pay for! The $2250 included all piers, reshim, AND all 5 breakouts that has to be redone. Rey was there 24/7 to answer questions the week leading up to service and was there the whole day supervising and making sure our 1940 home was taken care of.