I hired Dino to waterproof my basement from the inside in advance of a renovation. He'd come recommended through a friend. At first, I liked him. He came across as personable and knowledgeable. My house is 80 years old and had shown minimal signs of moisture, but even during the flood of July 2013, it didn't flood. I decided to do the job anyway, as a precaution. Dino's workers came and put Delta vapor barrier on the walls and dug a trench around the perimeter of the basement and laid what they told me was weeping tile. They cemented over and I assumed they had done a proper job. Now, in the winter, I have started the basement renovation. In the process of replacing the plumbing in my basement, my contractor exposed some of Dino's work and was shocked by what he discovered. He found broken pieces of plastic pipe at various places along the wall. It was laid very shallowly in the gravel, not beside the footings as is the standard for this kind of work. When I called Dino to explain the work he said that this was normal and the way they always did it. He called it a "free-flow system." (My contractor had never heard of such a thing, and in my research on the Internet, I didn't see anything remotely like it.) I told him I wasn't happy with this since it wasn't what I expected and he agreed to come over check out what his guys had done. Even seeing the broken, disconnected pipe laid in at random places, he insisted that this was normal and that the pipe wasn't necessary. The gravel would still get the water to the drain or the sump pump. (As for why any pipe was used or the logic behind where it was dropped, he didn't provide a coherent answer.) He said that he'd done a great job and that my basement would never leak. And if it did, he said he guaranteed his work for 20 years. When I insisted that he either do the job to industry standard so that it could pass inspection or give me my money back he said the most he would do was touch up what was there. If I didn't like that, I could sue him. I said I would do that. And he invited me to go ahead since he planned to close the business anyway. (So much for the 20 year warranty.) In the event this man remains in business--steer clear.
