I have used this company on and off for several years. Prior owner took care of business in a…read moreprofessional manner. Service performance was good with the previous owner. Recently had to replace a conventional septic with an aerobic system due to clay soil issues at one of the properties and the current owner was glad to assist. But, as the project progressed, I soon found out that professionalism varies with different owners. When the bid was given to me regarding the aerobic system, no mention was made that hauling off the large pile of dirt was not included in the bid. For them to haul off the dirt was an extra $800. The dirt is still in my yard! The five sprinklers that were installed were all at different heights, some very low and some very high. Not consistent. They had to come back and lower the high ones. Pooling of water around two sprinklers was a mess. They came out and said that the sprinklers were not "screwed in totally" and supposedly fixed it. Pooling continued and they came back out again and said that rubber seals were not originally put in them to keep water from leaking out of the sprinkler heads and so they installed the seals. The system is on a timer. I asked them to set the timer to go off late night/early morning, but they were going off at noon/midday. I was given no training on how to set the timer at install. I asked a service man that came out on one of the previously mentioned service calls he said he didn't know how to set the timer. As for the service contract, they are supposed to come out at least three time per year to check on the system. I have had to call them twice after waiting several weeks and then months, to remind them. As far as I know, the owners and maintenance folks are good people, but when given the opportunity to DO THINGS RIGHT THE FIRST TIME, I don't think it really matters to them.

DO NOT USE BALLARDS!…read more After waiting THREE WEEKS for installation because of their "mechanical issues," we ended up with a completely different system than what we were promised. We paid for a concrete system with ONE riser and instead got a cheap plastic system with THREE risers. To make matters worse, the tanks had huge bold warnings printed right on the side saying: "DO NOT BACKFILL WITH CLAY." Guess what Ballards used to backfill them? CLAY. We were also told they would run NEW piping from the house to the system. That never happened. Instead, they tied into the old existing piping. We took photos of everything because at this point we don't trust the workmanship and fully expect problems down the road. And the damage to our property has been unbelievable. They completely destroyed our yard. Since installation, we've already had to spend an extra $2,000 bringing in dump truck loads of dirt because the ground keeps sinking around the tanks. We've laid 6 pallets of grass ourselves, and it feels like every single day there's another issue to deal with. We are two people in our 60s trying to fix a disaster that never should have happened in the first place because we cannot afford to hire a landscaping company to clean up THEIR mess. We were ALSO told -- TWICE -- that the washing machine drain, located only 2 feet from the grease trap they connected, would be tied into the new system. Not only did they fail to connect it, but they actually CUT the washing machine lines. Then, after creating the problem themselves, they charged us AGAIN to come back out and fix it -- on top of the original $8,600 bill! So yes, think long and hard before using Ballards. We were left with a destroyed yard, unexpected expenses, incomplete work, and absolutely no explanation of how the system even works. Now we'll see whether they even honor the maintenance agreement that was supposedly included in the price.