Southland Insulators

had to request several times to get all of the firestopping done to pass inspection. Employee said it was too hard. Some of the air selant work was sloppy. extra provision on contract was to use sound attenuation insulation on ALL bathroom walls. they said that some of the bath walls adjoined to closets and didn't need attenuation. But the contract was explicit in saying all bathroom walls. I don't like to have to argue contract specifics. The proposal was vague.

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Great! A ceiling was damaged (drywall), but they very quickly had that repaired. Team was on time and finished all of the work very efficiently, leaving the workspace clean.

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While they did a good job on the insulation, on both occasions that they were supposed to come and do the work, they did not show up. The first time they were supposed to come to install wall insulation and partially finish the attic they did not show up and thus the county insulation inspection failed. After that, they finished that part of the job and it was done well. However, they forgot to blow-in insulation for the rest of the attic. After a couple of months, they were scheduled to come and finish the job, but again they did not show up, but insured us that they will on the next day. Most of the day passed, and at 4pm, they said their machine was broken, so they would do it in yet another day. That did not happen, and again a no show. Finally after a week, they came and finished the insulation. They do good work but their scheduling and organization is horrible. Thus, I would stay away form them in the future.

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I called southland insulators and got the phone number from my General contractor. My gc told me that the existing insulation on the attic was not enough. 
 The estimator came on time and gave me price with in a day. I didn't had the chance to compare the prices with any other company but price seemed ok. So we decided to hire them.
 They came with in a week after we signed the contract and completed all the work in a day. They were very professional and cleaned after them, i would recommend them to everyone. Great company.

Everyone was terrific. The work was done promptly. I thought they did a great job with the work and I would definitely recommend them to anyone that needs insulation work done.

Their ?solution? was a HORRENDOUS DISASTER:

When Southland sprayed the foam in our house they should have told us to leave the house for at least 24 hours.  This is one of the first and foremost guidelines from the EPA.  Instead, I worked in my office on the second floor keeping an eye on the installers and breathed the chemicals they sprayed.

 Southland should have provided ventilation after they sprayed the foam ? SPFs expel gasses that are very toxic as they solidify.  They never told us this and let my pregnant wife, 1 year-old child, and me sleep among the fumes they?d trapped inside my house.  My wife lost the baby three months later.

Southland denied that there could be any foam smell in my house more than a day after the installation. 
Month after month I complained but they said it would go away.  How could it when they had sprayed over any way for the smell to escape but into the second floor where we sleep?  I rented two industrial fans with wide tubing to pull the air out of the attic and out my closet window.  I had to do this throughout a very cold
winter.  My heating bill tripled and my family and I slept in the basement for seven months.

We still smell the foam especially on hot days.  What are we breathing?  An air quality specialist found several toxic and carcinogenic gases, which we are now addressing.  This has already cost us $1000.

More than one roof specialist has told us that we have now shortened the lifespan of our roof rafters by covering them with foam and by closing the airflow from our soffits.

We are remediating all of these issues to make the house habitable and safe, which has cost us time and money.

Southland, a company we thought we could trust, made terrible recommendations and installed a truly deadly product in our house.  They made no efforts to remediate the problem.  They never owned any
responsibility for not venting our house properly after installation.  The president never responded to my
questions.  Ever.  They never even offered as much as an apology.

The entire experience was a nightmare.  The sales
person, who visited twice to provide a more accurate quote, "left"
the company before the work was performed.  There were items on the
proposal that I specifically questioned and was told not to worry about
them.  Parking permits being my biggest concern given the fact we live in
the District and street parking can be tricky -- we were told not to worry
about it.
Visit one from Southland - they arrive with a 28ft box truck.  We did not
secure parking permits because the sales person told us we didn't need
them.  Southland left because there was no place to park their truck.
Visit two - the crew arrives to tell us that the rooms need to be ENTIRELY
clear of all furniture - something our sales person should have told us but
didn't.  We were also told that the sales rep quoted ceiling removal for
our garage - something outside the scope / capabilities of Southland.  
After moving as much furniture as we could and agreeing that they would need to
come back for a thrid visit after our contractor removed the garage ceiling
(that they were supposed to do), the team started their work.  About 45
minutes into spraying the foam, the Southland equipment catches fire. 
Luckily, there was no damage to our house or their crew.  After trying to
swap out the original hoses (that caught fire) with spare hoses from their
truck, they couldn't get generators/pumps in the truck restarted after they hit
the emergency shut-off switch to help stop the fire.  Visit three which was already scheduled was
necessary to finish the upstairs as well as the garage.
Visit three ? the crew arrived.  No fires. Equipment worked but in the midst
of spraying the foam in our garage ceiling the team knocked electrical wiring
loose causing us to lose power in the back half of our house.  Their field supervisor came out and informed
us that the problem was beyond their scope and we needed to have our electrician
look at the problem.  One after-hours
visit and several hundred dollars later, our electrician was able to resolve
the problem.
In all, a job that should have taken a day took over 3.5
weeks.  This entire time, the back half
of my house was without a ceiling or insulation. 
When a woman from the Southland office called to see how
things went with the job, I told her the entire saga and she promised to drive
this to resolution (she was actually pleasant and apologetic?and no longer with
Southland).  Once the electrician
provided our GC with an invoice, the only consideration given by Southland was
to deduct the cost of the electrician for the bill.  When we tried to call the office to discuss
the further consideration for our overall experience, we were routed to
Wayne.  Wayne proceeded to tell us that
the fire was an act of god. He also ?explained? that the problems with the
parking and the parts of the proposal that fell outside of Southland?s normal
scope/capabilities were our fault not theirs. 
Customer service is clearly not Wayne?s strong suit?thus this lengthy
post on Angie?s list. 
Southland came recommended to me by a friend.  Unfortunately, I didn?t realize that her GC
handled everything with Southland. 
Perhaps they?re nicer to GC?s?my experience was awful. 

Southland Insulators were great.  I have been in the energy efficiency industry for 15 years in New England and I've hired and overseen insulation contractors for large multifamily properties.  However, our family is new to Virginia and I didn't know any insulators in this area.  My friend had used them on her house and I decided to give Southland Insulators a try when insulating my attic on our 1950s house.  I was very pleased with the job and they really stand out compared to some of the insulation/air sealing contractors I've worked with.   A huge part of energy savings is air sealing and Southland Insulators team did an incredible job air sealing all the gaps in our attic.  They did all the air sealing by the book.  Their air sealing equipment actually broke during the job, so they needed to come back an extra day.  I think many insulation contractors would probably just skip the air sealing piece (because most homeowners don't realize how inmportant it is) and just go onto the insulation in a situation like this.  Instead, their team came back  an extra day to get the work done right.   Our house is much cooler this summer as compared to last summer, because of the insulation and air sealing.  
I would definitely recommend them.

The crew arrived just after 8 AM on the date specified and proceeded to put down plastic sheeting everywhere their various hoses would be placed. I really appreciated that. They worked all day and left the house neat. The next day they worked outside in spite of the rain and finished up on the third day. I am impressed by the professionalism of our whole experience with Southland. I expect to have a much cooker house this summer and a much warmer one next winter.

After thoroughly researching insulation companies and methods, I decided Southland was the right company to insulate our house because they helped me through the process and explained their lingo and methods and gave me options and time to consider what made sense. Our salesman Adam was very friendly and helpful through the whole process. I ultimately chose Southland because I knew they would be honest, responsive, and clear with what we would be getting and would be flexible and reasonable if we needed to change something. Shopping around for insulation is not straightforward because the methods are complicated, the industry lingo is confusing, and each company has a different opinion on which method to use, especially in the crawlspace. When we talked with , I couldn't follow what they were talking about (e.g., "foam" can mean that fancy purple spray foam insulation or "rigid foam board" or just those gap sealing stuff that comes in spray-paint cans.). It was hard prying these details out from other companies because other companies weren't patient explaining the choices. Very good work by Southland.

Two young men arrived at 8:00 a.m. and started work.  All was completed by 10:30.  They additionally installed weatherstripping around my back door, and included a sweep at the bottom to seal doorway from air leakage.  Together, the work performed has made a big difference in the temperature of the downstairs area.  While still cool, it is much warmer than before the work was completed.  I would definitely use this company again.

Great- very professional.  both sales and execution teams.  fast, very neat and most importantly my home is warmer.  Thanks.

Great, no real issues

It took two days to complete the job.  They were on time, used their time wisely and cleaned up the work area.  Insulation that was done looks great.  We would definitely recommend this company.

When was the last time you went down under your house and REALLY looked at the condition it was in?

We did an energy audit in July 2011.  Expectations were we'd need to replace some weatherstripping.  This was my introduction to and the beginning of my nine-month study and application of the theories of "encapsulation".  Rather than my going into this, please visit some websites re: encapsulation.  Think "total sealing of the house" and you are on the right track. 

However, theory and practice are two different animals when it comes to old construction and new construction. Inspecting our crawl space we discovered sitting water, mold, and sodden insulation.  Once that was removed it was discovered drainage pipes from the slab adjacent to the crawl space had broken and were leaking sewage into the crawl space. In other words, we were living over a sewer. 

The encapsulation theorists will suggest that 80-90% of the air you breathe in your home has circulated through the crawl space.  We had wondered why we had drain flies, coughed constantly and had runny eyes.

It got worse and one thing led to another.  Let me say however that we decided we wanted to do it all right and not half-ssd...since we plan to stay here.  (However should we decide to sell it, we have a leg up on every other home of this kind due to the upgrades we've installed.) 

The entire drainage system all the way to the street was replaced including jack hammering 35 feet of tiled floor in the slab area of the house.  After removing decks, fences and a hot tub and 20 devoted and extensive years of landscaping we trenched around the entire house and rebuilt the foundation, waterproofed it and added french drains.  Then everything was back filled and most of the lot regraded.  There has been and still is a good deal of landscaping to be done. The house has four attics due to numerous additions.  All had loose fill insulation of virtually no R value and all of it was removed by Southland.  There's a lot more...but enough for now.

Now, to my point and how it involves Southland Insulators.  At the very outset of this project, Doug Elliot from Southland came out to give me an estimate for "encapsulating" the crawl space and insulating the rest of the house.  Doug did more than that.  He have me an overview of all that would need to be done to accomplish this.  He was specific and detailed and had me numb with the realization of how much work was ahead of us to restore our home to a healthy and safe living environment.  I being a skeptic, took all of this with a grain of salt.  I listened to Doug but was determined to get many other opinions rather than just take his word for what I was facing.It would be months before Southland would be able to actually do the work of encapsulation. 

Prior to that time I would deal with craftsmen from nearly all the trades - plumbers, electricians, tree removal, heavy equipment operators, foundation restorers, mold remediation, etc.  What I found was that nearly all of the craftspeople, as well as County inspectors and engineers, all have different takes on "encapsulation".  There is a lot of disagreement and all kinds of variations on the theme.  I spent months on-line and on the phone and in talking to anyone I thought might have some insights into restoring an older home. 

After certain periods where I thought I'd exhausted my investigation of a particular part of the puzzle, I would contact Doug and we would talk about it.  I did this many times over a three month period and Doug Elliot never failed to respond.  He went to great lengths to make sure I understood the why and how of all his responses.   In the end, I found that all he had provided at the very outset had been dead on target.  When we finally got the property prepared well enough that we knew the crawl space wouldn't flood, we were able to install the encapsulation system provided by Southland Insulators.  We then went' on the install Icynene spray insulation in all the attics. 

I wouldn't wish the past nine months on anyone...,but if you want to bring your 1950s crawl spaced home into the modern world, there isn't anybody better than Southland Insulators to have on your side.  They won't do the work until the property is in the proper condition to have it done.

It is important to have an overall view of a project like this.  For most, their only concern is the small part they play in the overall picture.  Finding someone who took in the whole picture and tied all the elements together cogently was a lifesaver.  That wasn't Southland's job by the way...it's just that is what Doug did.  We are breathing much more easily now and are snug as can be in our fully encapsulated older home.

It should be noted that our circumstances may have been extreme.  The actual cost for Southland's part of this was around $10,000.  Worth every cent and I think a more than reasonable amount to pay for the kind of service they provide and the superior improvement to the dwelling that results.

Excellent work.   Took only one and one half days to complete all of the above work with only two workers in the house.

.Southland insulators did a great job. I was afraid there would  dust due to the insulation and it would leave my house messy. There was no dust. They cleaned up after themselves and even put down plastic to protect my floors. I would definately use them again.

The Angie’s list reviews impressed me with the satisfaction with the execution of the proposed work and called to schedule an appointment for an inspection and proposal. Michelle Johnson was my first point of contact that took my information and stated that I should get a telephone call within three days of my call and provided me with Doug Elliot's contact information should, I not receive a call - Southland proactively took steps to resolve the Angie's list only negative of scheduling with the shared contact. Doug called in the AM on the third day to schedule the appointment. The day of the appointment, Doug asked me about my concerns and observations related to the heat loss I experience. He and I walked through the townhome while he inspected and noted the interior and exterior areas for potential insulation. He explained what causes the circulation of cold air and pressure requirements in a home. Per discussion, I received a proposal for the entire townhome and committed to the attic area because of the southern exposure the top floor is difficult to cool in the summer. The workers showed up ready to work as they entered the townhome they put down wide sheet of plastic throughout the townhome for their work shoes and created a plastic wall to capture any loose insulation and ran a hose through a top bedroom window. Upon completion of the work, they rolled up the plastic and took away 99% of the blown insulation from the upstairs hallway and the bedroom had no debris. The workers are polite and just talk amongst themselves to coordinate the work.

Southland's install team covered everything with plastic drop cloth and performed the install work quickly.  They were in and out quickly.  The temperature of my basement is much more consistent with the rest of house and I am looking forward to seeing my energy bills.