Due to Hardcastle Solutions, Inc's total and utter incompetence, in the last month, I have had to learn far more about fire sprinkler installation than I would like. As I understand it, you have to obtain a set of City approved blueprints corresponding to the structure, or in this case, structures you are to install your fire sprinkler system in. You know they are approved because there is a big stamp on them with the City's seal stating that they are approved. You work from those blueprints to create a design plan specific to the structure. You then submit your design plan to the Fire Chief. Once you get an approval from the Fire Chief, you move forward and install your sprinkler system.
I will now describe how HSI went about our project. We met with one of their local reps and handed him a set of preliminary blueprints in order to obtain a bid from them. They sent us a bid and a proposal. We signed the proposal and set a check for the deposit. When our project was ready for fire sprinkler installation, we called them. They eventually came out and installed our systems. We called the Fire Chief for approval and he was shocked. HSI never submitted a plan to him for approval, nor did they acquire City approved plans to work from. Instead, they used preliminary sketches to design their system, then went ahead and installed a system that was not approved and will not work, thereby delaying our project for weeks and counting.
After HSI thought they had successfully completed the project, they sent us a bill. When their error was brought to light, Jason, their regional supervisor, stepped in and tried to do damage control by offering us a $1,500 discount on our project. In an act of extreme bad faith, notably, instead of sending us a revised invoice, Jason sent us a new proposal where he specifically excluded the work that HSI had messed up. I guess he thought we were gullible.
The project designer who worked from unapproved plans and who did not even bother to get his design work approved by the Fire Chief eventually showed up on our job, only to insult my father and tell him that their incompetence was my father's fault because they were working off of unapproved plans. I am a layperson, but as far as I can tell, the way that you know that you are working from approved plans is because they have the City's seal of approval on them. If they do not have the City's seal of approval on them, they are not approved and therefore you should not work from them.
Our project has been delayed for weeks and is costing us a ton of money and there is no end in sight, in large part because when you begin by displaying utter incompetence, then you try to dupe your client, and then you follow up by showing up at the job to insult and cast blame for your own incompetence on your client, it makes it difficult to foster a working relationship and a solution-driven environment.
It should be noted that this company goes by many different names including, but perhaps not limited to, HSI SOlutions, Inc, Hardcastle Solutions, Inc, and HSI Fire Protection. read more
