In July 2015, we called River Valley Restoration to assess our water drainage problem because water…read morewas slowly leaking into our finished basement. Trey Shafer, owner, told us he was licensed and bonded, and later we found out he lied. He recommended water proofing the basement and installing a drain tile in front of our house ($7,000 / Project #1), as well as a new deck (which we needed) with a metal roof ($16,000 / Project #2) to prevent water from creeping in through the back and into the laundry room. Total for both projects: $23,000. He guaranteed it would take care of our water problem and promised us a one-year warranty.
He explained to us that a large ditch a minimum of eight feet deep would be dug along the front of the house, the dirt would be hauled off, waterproofing would be applied, a drainage tube would be inserted into the bottom of the ditch to carry the water away from the house, gravel would fill the hole, and everything would be nicely landscaped and cleaned up when they were finished. While they were excavating the drainage ditch, they halted the job and called us outside to see that the front corner of our home "just fell off." They "fixed" it , but the repair work is shoddy, the brick mortar is cracking apart, half the brick wall has settled down about 1/2", and instead of replacing all of the brick they knocked off, they built a wooden 40" x 17.5" doorway. They also re-routed the original plan for the drainage pipe,diverting it to the west side of our house, next to the west basement wall. Although they initially dug the ditch fairly deep (possibly about 6-8 feet), they dumped about half of the dirt back into the hole (instead of hauling it off), then laid the pipe, and filled it with gravel. They never landscaped or cleaned anything up, and left rocks all over the yard, and even left ruts all through the backyard. Also during the excavation, they cut through our downspout extension that was buried underground, and when we asked about it Richard told us he had directed the downspout down to the drain tile and it would carry all of the water out through the pipe. Later we discovered it was merely cut off and not directed anywhere, thus no longer carrying water away from the house, but instead directing the water straight down to the basement.
The deck project started one to two weeks later. We brought several issues to their attention, some of which they fixed, most of which they argued about and ultimately did nothing. One thing that was not fixed was the guttering. They removed the long gutter from the back of the house, but did not reattach it to the new roof. Also, the new roof was supposed to protect our new deck and basement, but yet it leaks all over the new deck, there were no nuts or washers used with the screws, the west railing of the deck is not even braced, the roof does not appear to be properly braced and attached to the house, the support column is bowed, and much of the wood has holes and pits.
The first HEAVY rain occured on November 16, 2015, and more water entered our basement than ever before (approximately 1/2" or more above the tile). The first thing they said was that their drainage system was working, but we showed them it was NOT working because no water was draining out of it, and there was no puddle under it. Trey and Richard argued that it DID work, knocking a hole in the retaining wall to "check for moisture," and began looking for every other possible way that the house could have gotten wet, putting sandbags outside the back door (even though that's not how the water was entering), digging a hole under the west side of the house (which ironically is where they had planned on their drain tile's water drainage) and placing a temporary sump pump, taking pictures, and completely ignoring the fact that they had not waterproofed our basement or properly installed the drain tile. They placed fans and dehumidifiers inside the basement to dry it out, and when they returned to collect their equipment the next day, Trey began "selling" us on another costly solution, stating we really didn't need the drain tile he had installed in the front. It became obvious that they did not know what they were doing, and we sought out second opinions from other contractors who confirmed our suspicions.
We have been told that the drainage system was not properly installed and would never work because #1: It was not dug deep enough, #2: a clean-out valve is never installed with a perforated pipe, and #3: If it HAD worked it would have flooded the west side of the house, Also, the severed downspout was merely pouring water toward the basement.
December 2nd we gave him a call and asked for a refund. He was unwilling to give me a refund and did not offer to fix anything, but just said, "Well, you have fun with that," and ended up hanging up on me.
