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Posted by stans27@optonline.net on February 10, 2005, 7:24 pm
I recently had Mid Atlantic come to my house for an estimate. I live
in Westchester county NY, north east of Manhattan. I have a typical 4
bedroom two story colonial house, 40 yrs old, on top of a large hill,
good drainage, etc. The basement is cinder block, and shows some signs
of efflorescense on all walls about 6-10in from the floor up. One wall
in particular will leak water onto the floor after a heavy ground
soaking rain for many days. Normally the basement is dry, but some
moisture is present in the spring-summer time.
So I was at a home show recently and accepted their free, no hassle in
home inspection. I am an engineer by trade and am fairly knowledgeable
concerning home improvements and projects.
I expected the sales pitch, but was curious.
I got the usual pre visit pitch where they insisted both home owners be
present ( ie my wife and I) other wise they would reschedule. So i
complied.
A gentlemen shows up, sits down in the kitchen and goes through a 3
inch binder of who they are, how great they are, where they have been
written up, etc. and the great companies they have done work for. One
interesting item I noticed was he kept bragging about how they wre
written up in Consumer Reports, the article he showed me was from 1974
! Also a bunch of pictures and fancy graphics about different
solutions.
OK, now the fun part begins, we go into the basement with a flashlight,
and he does a quick 1 minute inspection. Takes out a rubber mallet,
and starts hitting the walls and floors, and each time he gets a slight
hollow sound, he would go " wow, hear that? thats a big water gap that
has created a huge hole in the ground". Then he wants to walk outside.
Now, its 8 PM at night, dark, several inches of snow on the ground,
and I have a deer fence around the perimeter of my house for the
winter. He looks quickly and says "Now I see the problem! Lets go
inside, I have just the solution for you."
So i get the standard pitch about the large drainage ditch that must be
dug and two sump pumps, etc. the custom pipe, etc.
Tallies up a price of $20,000 for 165 linear feet. Before I could
throw him out, he notices that I am not going to shell out 20 grand,
comes up with the best story yet. " I have a crew of guys that are
stuck now at a large site, and they dont have work for the next two
weeks, and let me make a call to see what I can do on the price." He
makes a call to someone, seemed like a great acting job to me, and
whamo, drops the price to $14,800 with a free $1000 pump!
I have since hired an engineer, and states my problem is nothing more
than the ouside needing to be re-graded and re route the drainage
pipes.
I also had another company in today, similar pitch, but more honest,
and a price of $6500 for the same basic job.
I found way too many complaints on the internet concerning these guys.
Be careful, and I hope this helps someone in the future.
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Posted by JA on February 10, 2005, 11:52 pm
>I recently had Mid Atlantic come to my house for an estimate. I live
> in Westchester county NY, north east of Manhattan. I have a typical 4
> bedroom two story colonial house, 40 yrs old, on top of a large hill,
> good drainage, etc. The basement is cinder block, and shows some signs
> of efflorescense on all walls about 6-10in from the floor up. One wall
> in particular will leak water onto the floor after a heavy ground
> soaking rain for many days. Normally the basement is dry, but some
> moisture is present in the spring-summer time.
> So I was at a home show recently and accepted their free, no hassle in
> home inspection. I am an engineer by trade and am fairly knowledgeable
> concerning home improvements and projects.
> I expected the sales pitch, but was curious.
> I got the usual pre visit pitch where they insisted both home owners be
> present ( ie my wife and I) other wise they would reschedule. So i
> complied.
> A gentlemen shows up, sits down in the kitchen and goes through a 3
> inch binder of who they are, how great they are, where they have been
> written up, etc. and the great companies they have done work for. One
> interesting item I noticed was he kept bragging about how they wre
> written up in Consumer Reports, the article he showed me was from 1974
> ! Also a bunch of pictures and fancy graphics about different
> solutions.
> OK, now the fun part begins, we go into the basement with a flashlight,
> and he does a quick 1 minute inspection. Takes out a rubber mallet,
> and starts hitting the walls and floors, and each time he gets a slight
> hollow sound, he would go " wow, hear that? thats a big water gap that
> has created a huge hole in the ground". Then he wants to walk outside.
> Now, its 8 PM at night, dark, several inches of snow on the ground,
> and I have a deer fence around the perimeter of my house for the
> winter. He looks quickly and says "Now I see the problem! Lets go
> inside, I have just the solution for you."
> So i get the standard pitch about the large drainage ditch that must be
> dug and two sump pumps, etc. the custom pipe, etc.
> Tallies up a price of $20,000 for 165 linear feet. Before I could
> throw him out, he notices that I am not going to shell out 20 grand,
> comes up with the best story yet. " I have a crew of guys that are
> stuck now at a large site, and they dont have work for the next two
> weeks, and let me make a call to see what I can do on the price." He
> makes a call to someone, seemed like a great acting job to me, and
> whamo, drops the price to $14,800 with a free $1000 pump!
> I have since hired an engineer, and states my problem is nothing more
> than the ouside needing to be re-graded and re route the drainage
> pipes.
> I also had another company in today, similar pitch, but more honest,
> and a price of $6500 for the same basic job.
> I found way too many complaints on the internet concerning these guys.
> Be careful, and I hope this helps someone in the future.
>
Yep--sounds very familiar, except that we also got Polaroid pictures of
the "problems." MidAtlantic in my area (DC suburb) has one solution to all
problems: dig a drainage ditch on the inside of the house, connect it
to two sump pumps, let water pour in, pump it out. They do not do
any work involving re-directing water away from your house.
We tossed the salesman out (which took effort) and got the "special
reduced price" because of a crew that just became available (wow!
imagine that!) the next day, followed by lots of voice mail messages
offering to lower the price even more. We hired MEI-Morrison to do
outside drainage and have had no problems since, even during a couple
of very bad storms that I think would have caused problems in the past.
MEI-Morrison also does inside drainage but told us we probably won't
need it so didn't recommend it for our house.
If anyone does decide to go with Mid-Atlantic, I suggest waiting for the
the third offer and bargaining them down from there.
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Posted by Betsy on February 11, 2005, 2:38 am
I had the exact same experience, right down to the fake phone call and the
"exceptional" price break. The guy was a sleaze ball and took 2 full hours
of my time. I had a really hard time getting rid of him. I wouldn't hire
that company if they paid me for the privilege of working in my house!.
>I recently had Mid Atlantic come to my house for an estimate. I live
> in Westchester county NY, north east of Manhattan. I have a typical 4
> bedroom two story colonial house, 40 yrs old, on top of a large hill,
> good drainage, etc. The basement is cinder block, and shows some signs
> of efflorescense on all walls about 6-10in from the floor up. One wall
> in particular will leak water onto the floor after a heavy ground
> soaking rain for many days. Normally the basement is dry, but some
> moisture is present in the spring-summer time.
> So I was at a home show recently and accepted their free, no hassle in
> home inspection. I am an engineer by trade and am fairly knowledgeable
> concerning home improvements and projects.
> I expected the sales pitch, but was curious.
> I got the usual pre visit pitch where they insisted both home owners be
> present ( ie my wife and I) other wise they would reschedule. So i
> complied.
> A gentlemen shows up, sits down in the kitchen and goes through a 3
> inch binder of who they are, how great they are, where they have been
> written up, etc. and the great companies they have done work for. One
> interesting item I noticed was he kept bragging about how they wre
> written up in Consumer Reports, the article he showed me was from 1974
> ! Also a bunch of pictures and fancy graphics about different
> solutions.
> OK, now the fun part begins, we go into the basement with a flashlight,
> and he does a quick 1 minute inspection. Takes out a rubber mallet,
> and starts hitting the walls and floors, and each time he gets a slight
> hollow sound, he would go " wow, hear that? thats a big water gap that
> has created a huge hole in the ground". Then he wants to walk outside.
> Now, its 8 PM at night, dark, several inches of snow on the ground,
> and I have a deer fence around the perimeter of my house for the
> winter. He looks quickly and says "Now I see the problem! Lets go
> inside, I have just the solution for you."
> So i get the standard pitch about the large drainage ditch that must be
> dug and two sump pumps, etc. the custom pipe, etc.
> Tallies up a price of $20,000 for 165 linear feet. Before I could
> throw him out, he notices that I am not going to shell out 20 grand,
> comes up with the best story yet. " I have a crew of guys that are
> stuck now at a large site, and they dont have work for the next two
> weeks, and let me make a call to see what I can do on the price." He
> makes a call to someone, seemed like a great acting job to me, and
> whamo, drops the price to $14,800 with a free $1000 pump!
> I have since hired an engineer, and states my problem is nothing more
> than the ouside needing to be re-graded and re route the drainage
> pipes.
> I also had another company in today, similar pitch, but more honest,
> and a price of $6500 for the same basic job.
> I found way too many complaints on the internet concerning these guys.
> Be careful, and I hope this helps someone in the future.
>
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Posted by Joseph Meehan on February 11, 2005, 3:32 am
stans27@optonline.net wrote:
> I recently had Mid Atlantic come to my house for an estimate. I live
> in Westchester county NY, north east of Manhattan. I have a typical 4
> bedroom two story colonial house, 40 yrs old, on top of a large hill,
> good drainage, etc. The basement is cinder block, and shows some
> signs of efflorescense on all walls about 6-10in from the floor up.
> One wall in particular will leak water onto the floor after a heavy
> ground soaking rain for many days. Normally the basement is dry, but
> some moisture is present in the spring-summer time.
> So I was at a home show recently and accepted their free, no hassle in
> home inspection. I am an engineer by trade and am fairly
> knowledgeable concerning home improvements and projects.
> I expected the sales pitch, but was curious.
> I got the usual pre visit pitch where they insisted both home owners
> be present ( ie my wife and I) other wise they would reschedule. So i
> complied.
> A gentlemen shows up, sits down in the kitchen and goes through a 3
> inch binder of who they are, how great they are, where they have been
> written up, etc. and the great companies they have done work for. One
> interesting item I noticed was he kept bragging about how they wre
> written up in Consumer Reports, the article he showed me was from 1974
> ! Also a bunch of pictures and fancy graphics about different
> solutions.
> OK, now the fun part begins, we go into the basement with a
> flashlight, and he does a quick 1 minute inspection. Takes out a
> rubber mallet, and starts hitting the walls and floors, and each time
> he gets a slight hollow sound, he would go " wow, hear that? thats a
> big water gap that has created a huge hole in the ground". Then he
> wants to walk outside. Now, its 8 PM at night, dark, several inches
> of snow on the ground, and I have a deer fence around the perimeter
> of my house for the winter. He looks quickly and says "Now I see the
> problem! Lets go inside, I have just the solution for you."
> So i get the standard pitch about the large drainage ditch that must
> be dug and two sump pumps, etc. the custom pipe, etc.
> Tallies up a price of $20,000 for 165 linear feet. Before I could
> throw him out, he notices that I am not going to shell out 20 grand,
> comes up with the best story yet. " I have a crew of guys that are
> stuck now at a large site, and they dont have work for the next two
> weeks, and let me make a call to see what I can do on the price." He
> makes a call to someone, seemed like a great acting job to me, and
> whamo, drops the price to $14,800 with a free $1000 pump!
> I have since hired an engineer, and states my problem is nothing more
> than the ouside needing to be re-graded and re route the drainage
> pipes.
Most such problems are just that.
> I also had another company in today, similar pitch, but more honest,
> and a price of $6500 for the same basic job.
> I found way too many complaints on the internet concerning these guys.
> Be careful, and I hope this helps someone in the future.
--
Joseph Meehan
26 + 6 = 1 It's Irish Math
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