My Naperville, IL neighbor and I have had a problem with the swale between our houses and a buildup of water over the years. We each have two downspouts and one sump pump emptying water into the swale to flow down to the drainage sewer in the back corner of our lot. Over the years, the swale has sunk and has become a swamp! We needed to do something. My son had used Sure Seal for his patio and was very satisfied. I sent Jim at Sure Seal a text message asking if he'd be interested in quoting the job. As an added incentive, we also wanted our brushed pebble concrete driveway and patio power washed and resealed.
Jim came to our house, reviewed the situation with both my neighbor and myself, asked a few questions, made a few suggestions and then went to his car and returned a few minutes later with a details proposal for our drainage problem and my driveway and patio resealing. OK, so he made a nice quote, but what about the actual work being done?
Maybe the coronavirus problem we are all suffering with opened up his schedule, but he called and advised us that he was planning to start a few weeks early. His crew with three trucks, two trailers and a supervisor's van showed up promptly the next morning. Jim was with them to give them their instructions for the French Drain, the connections and the other features to solve our drainage problem. An hour later, he left and the supervisor and crew started hand-digging the trench from the front of our houses to the back of my yard. The did not cut our phone lines, they did not nick our cable lines and my sprinkler system still has all its lines in place. After digging in the soggy ground, they poured in the river rock for the French Drain, hooked up all the lines, covered the corregated piping with more river rock and topped the trench off with the sod that they had carefully set aside. The extra dirt from the trench was hauled to one of their trailers, to be removed from the site. Even the little detail of placing a removable trap in the down spouts to catch and sticks and leaves that might flow down from the gutters was included, and demonstrated. We are still waiting for the first big rain to see how well the drainage system will work. Based on what we saw, it should work just fine. The next day, when they came back to power wash the driveway and patio, they also seeded the bare spots along the trench line. Nice touch!
Jim looked at our patio after he quoted and told me that there was a heavy coating of sealants left from previous treatments. It was obvious that the previous contractors had a home-owner's power washer that could only remove the top layer of dirt before the next layer of sealant was applied. Jim pointed out that it looked like pancake makeup, and it did. When his guys showed up with two trucks, two trailers and the supervisor's van, they pulled a two man-sized power washers, a collection of special nozzles and some sort of puffing heaters. When they finished power washing, hours later, the surface looked outstanding. We hadn't seen that look since the pea gravel concrete mix was poured, years ago. It looked Great!
The power washing process is pretty messy. They put up a fabric fence all along the edges of the patio, sidewalk and driveway to minimize the spread of the spray. There was a bit of a mess when it was all over, but they lowered the power settings and hosed off the house and other things that had been hit with the splash. They pulled out a Windex bottle and washed the sliding glass doors to the family room and kitchen. Who'd of thought of that? They did!
The next step was the actual sealing which was sprayed on carefully and not applied with a painter's roller! To keep the spray from getting on the house, the bushes, the ground cover and the grass, they used a metal plate as a shield. These guys thought of everything!
They did a great job of keeping us in the loop. They told us what they were going to do, they told us what they were doing and then the told us what they did. These guys were great!
By the way, in addition to impressing my son, whose judgement I respect, they were not the cheapest but they were competitive in price. We had three quotes for the French Drain and two quotes for the seal coating.
If you are looking for someone to do what Sure Seal does, give them a call. I am sure you'll be as impressed as we were. read more
