I didn't get a referral to Berlogar, I just saw Berlogar's sign while driving past in Pleasanton so I called them when other geotechnical engineers in Oakland told me they were too busy to come to Sunol. Frank Berlogar himself agreed to come to my home to evaluate a steep hillside above my home. He walked to the back of the house, looked around in about 10 minutes, and then told me I had to completely empty the "sedimentation basin" below the hillside. He said it would be about 50 truckloads of dirt. This is a grassy area with concrete walls. He then asked me to write a $1,000 check to a charity he supports. I was pretty surprised that, at most, 30 minutes of his time (including the 20 minute round-trip driving time from his office!) would justify $1,000. He gruffly replied that he's been doing this a long time and his time is worth it. I grudgingly wrote the check. So my first tip is to ask how much he plans to charge before he comes to your house. I didn't expect him to make a free site visit, but I thought it might be $200-300 at most.
When my husband came home, I told him what Frank said and my husband had follow-up questions before the excavation company Frank recommended came out to give us an estimate. My husband called Frank and told him that it was not a sedimentation basin. It was actually just walls--there is no concrete bottom as the seller had told him that he put up concrete walls as he planned to put a swimming pool up there. So there was no bottom to the "basin" and my husband wanted to know to what depth we needed to dig. He wanted to be able to give proper instructions to the man Frank had recommended for the clean-up. Frank was gruff and rude, said "I can't answer this on the phone as you wouldn't understand me anyway..." My husband tried to clarify, "You already said it was about 50 truckloads, but how deep from the wall down should we dig?" Berlogar's initial assessment was too vague, just "empty out the basin" and we were trying to clarify with more specificity since there is no basin and thus no concrete bottom as an ending point.
This wasn't a brand new request. Yet Berlogar would not answer without ANOTHER site visit where we would have to pay him again. My husband replied, "We already paid $1,000" but then Berlogar hung up on him. I was standing right next to my husband during this call and he never raised his voice. He was polite but firm, yet Berlogar still hung up on him. Seriously? I would expect better from a professional. Stay away. read more