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Review content:
Our basement is quite large - approximately 2,000 square feet with approximately 1,500 square feet of finished living space that was completed in 2006. During the late summer of 2011, we had back to back tropical storms begining with Irene that left thousands of homes with flooding and mold issues, including our house! Although we only had about 1/4"" of water in most places, it was enough to ruin our carpet and get into the walls of our basement. At this point, we knew we had to seek professional help to assess what was needed. We contacted 3 Waterproofing companies in the area, including ValueDry. The other 2 companies were regional or local firms. Al Dark was our ValueDry sales person for the job and he was very professional, courteous and thorough in his assessment of what was needed to permanently fix our water issues.
Our primary problem was ground water coming up from the foundation and an poorly installed, non-functioning drainage pipe and sump pump system. We were impressed with ValueDry's approach to solving our problem as well as their Warranty, which is a life-time, transferrable Warranty. While ValueDry's price was higher than the local firms we looked at, we felt their national experience, number of years in business and satisfied customers spoke volumes about what we could expect from them as our basement waterproofing contractor. We also knew we really needed the warranty for when we eventually sell our house, so that we can give the new homeowners peace of mind that they will not have any water issues. The other companies only provided a 10 year warranty for their service.Our job started on-time, as scheduled.
The foreman for the job was named Brian (sorry, I can't recall his last name). Brian was amazing! He knew what he was doing and he, along with his team, did some seriously strenuous work jackhammering our floor, bringing concrete, damaged drywall and studs out of the basement and carrying fresh concrete back into the basement. The area they had to jackhammer was approximately 175 linear feet - it was a BIG job! Also, they had to cut all of our drywall and studs at 30"" above the floor so that they could get their equipment into the area of concrete that needed to be removed for the french drain installation. In addition, we have a large granite bar area with cabinets and a finished bathroom that all needed to be disassembled and removed - another significant hurdle for us to tackle so that ValueDry could get to the perimeter floor area. They installed a new sump pump well & system, enhanced an existing sump pump to add another pump in the well and installed a french drain around the perimeter of the basement. To be honest, basement Waterproofing is a messy job - tons of dust and debris. Yet, Brian and his team did a great job controlling the amount of dust as well as kept their work area clean at the end of each work day. One additional cost that was incurred and not originally planned for, was an exterior buried drain pipe that ran from our backyard, around the side of the house and to the front lawn. Brian determined that the pipe that was installed by our landscaper was not sufficient for draining the volume of water we typically experience in a heavy storm - nor was it properly installed to allow for drainage beyond our property. The entire side of our house was very wet and marshy. Brian designed a new drainage system that involved a buried leach field at the end of the drainage pipe to allow for the water to run off and disperse much better. Again, we hadn't planned for this additional cost but Brian did the right thing by bringing this to our attention and helping solve the problem for us!
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