Brian, Toronto

I contacted a number of companies to help me revamp my weed infested backyard that was within my budget and tastes and by far Iberia Landscaping/Rick Lopez were the best choice in the summer of 2010. Although the price that Rick gave me was a bit above what I had in mind, I knew I was getting was I was paying for as the estimate was very detailed and precise and spelled out what I was getting and not a quick note on a piece of paper. A lot of other contractors wouldn't go to the level of detail and make sure that all of my questions were answered or wouldn't contact me/come out to to give an estimate. Rick's team completely revamped my weed infested backyard and helped turn it into a pleasing area to relax and have a barbecue with friend and family and helped with functional issues such as drainage (I hope - I guess the winter thaw will be the test). The quality of work and the application of the materials will help with the resale value of my house at some point if I choose to move on.

In the late summer/fall of 2009, I had a number of contractors out to look at digging out my rear parking area to create a proper driveway area. Around the time that I began contacting various contractors my neighbour showed interest in getting his rear parking pad area done as well as he was cleaning up the place and preparing to rent out his property. Previously, the driveway consisted of a bunch of loose gravel that was compacted down which was fine for the summer time to drive on, but I had found in the winter previous that it was very prone to ice buildup which was hard to remove and it made it very hard to get my car out of the back area and I feared loosing control possibly trying to rock the car back/forth. :-o I had contacted a number of contractors that came out and some of them seemed like fly by nighters and not in business for a long time which gives the negative impression of paving companies overall. I had one guy come out and pace the driveway by foot to give an estimate and then these high end places wanting to charge exceptionally large amounts of money for the job but I suspect that it was high as they didn't want to the job or they had lots of overhead. As I have had subsequent contracting jobs for other tasks around the house, I have encountered similar companies for other things such as doors/windows, patio work, etc so I guess this isn't a new phenomenon and I have learned to weed out the bad apples. Ludwig was the total opposite to these other companies and Joe Bozic was very professional, courteous and understanding of my situation with the neighbour/shared driveway. I must say that the way that Ludwig does business is the way that all companies should. I have been burnt badly with other companies who do not follow the same business ethics and hold the integrity that Ludwig does to heart where word of mouth is everything. The experience with Ludwig/Joe was pleasant from beginning to end from the quotation to dig out/gravel and final paving work to the invoice request. It should be this painless for everything that we deal with. This comes as a great surprise to an industry that has a bad reputation and Ludwig is one of the companies that stands out. I am in the middle of the 2nd winter with the new driveway and it so nice to be able to get out of my driveway with ease instead of spinning my wheels on gravel and ice over the winter. I was a little hesitant to post my review sooner but wanted to get through the previous winter before putting up a review but the driveway is performing as expected so far. The only disappointing thing about the job was the fact that the neighbour didn't agree to do the entire driveway but that was out of Ludwig or my control and I wasn't about (nor could I afford) to pay for his part for the rest of the driveway. Perhaps the rest can be done some day and Ludwig will be at the top of the list for consideration.

I don't know how to email back in this interface so posting another review... _____________________________________________ Company Response from Eddie Guido “**Thanks Brian** We appreciate your detailed review. We would love to expand on a few of your concerns. Firstly, the amount we charged you for the camera inspection following the attempted snaking was at a discounted rate of $180 + GST when on its own it costs $265 + GST. We always charge step by step." I appreciate this. I didn't know it would be that high the camera inspection was that high and was reduced after failed snaking. You got the job done. I guess this comes with the territory of this sort of operation. "Secondly, you mentioned that a red flag for you was the fact that we were able to accommodate your emergency so quickly. Of course! We specialize in said emergency repairs and they need to be attended to quickly as there are sanitary and health concerns involved. Our infrastructure is set up on purpose to handle these kinds of situations as quick as possible." I understand fully and that you specialize in responding to an emergency / sanitary situation. I guess the "red flag" comment is more applicable to evaluating contractors in construction type projects where (good) general contractors are usually very busy. That is, if the contractor comes next hour to start taking your walls down, etc than this should raise red flags, rather than this case where you are dealing with emergency/sanitary situations such as describe (which I did state in the in initial review that you treated this as such). "Third, we would like to touch on the burying of garbage in the hole; we agree with you and it is DrainWorks’ policy that no garbage should be left in the hole." Thanks. I hope you rectify this. I had to ask for them not to do this. "Lastly, DrainWorks offers financing 24 hours a day; it is built into our emergency repair infrastructure. The only stipulation is that the homeowner must decide if they want financing before any work begins. One cannot request financing after the completion of a job, by that point from an administrative standpoint, all the paperwork, deposit, etc is already in order." I *DID* ask for financing when you were out the Sunday night for the initial call and the excavation work was setup. Jeremy told me it was not available / did not have the forms and if I wanted to proceed for next day that they needed an answer as to proceed in order to come out. I asked Frank again if I could do this on Financing as I had ask Jeremy for the financing and he was trying to talk me out of it like it would cost me an admin fee, he didn't have the forms on him and sorry it wasn't available at this time. Never did either try to accommodate the financing request. "I hope some light has been shed on a few of your concerns; we really do appreciate you bringing them to our attention. You are truly a valued customer, thank you for the positive and highly rated review.” I do appreciate the feedback you have provided but I still stand by some of my points that I had asked for financing for example and was told no by two people. I'm happy with the job and that you did respond quickly and efficiently to fix the problem and treated it like an emergency / sanitary situation. I did not mean to suggest that this should raise red flags as I described above (some well known contractors have used this as a gauge for whether you have the right contractor and as I said it all worked out for the best). Again I have no problem recommending DrainWorks or using you again for future work and do not mean this to be any bad will.

I moved into an older home back in July and noticed small symptoms of a problem that became worse over the next couple of weeks. I first noticed a small sewer/sewage smell near the rear laundry floor drain when I was leveling the washer and dryer and tried flushing with water and javex bleach. Then while testing a toilet upstairs I had flushed a number of times in a row to make sure it was flushing properly and shutting off. I went downstairs a little bit later and noticed some waste on the floor near the laundry and clear water in the drain in the front. This was the first sign of a problem. I noticed that the basement toilet was only flushing 2-3 times max and then would partially flush. In hindsight, I later figured out that there was too much water in the floor drains to allow the toilet to push the bowl water through (I didn't know the level of the water in the floor drain traps). I thought perhaps a minor clog so I tried some chemicals down the floor drains and basement toilet (toilet safe - won't damage wax ring/porcelin). Anyway, I noticed the water levels in the floor drains was rising and lowering over a 24 hour period after heavy use (washing machine, dishwasher) and thought it was a partial clog. I continued to endure sewer/sewage smell way too long trying to exhaust home remedies (drain cleaners, baking soda and vinegar, etc) before I was going to call in the pros. Over this time period I was researching/investigating possible solutions and asking for recommendations from pros and so I looked in the Yellow Pages and online for various plumbing companies that did all services (plumbing, drain work, snaking, scoping, etc) at a reasonable price. I had first seen Drainworks in the Yellow Pages but held off until I could get in touch with a friendly neighbour for recommendations but they were away for a good week or so when I really needed someone and was fed up with the smell. I was new to the neighborhood and figured word of mouth was good. I was in the local blue big box hardware store and was describing my problem to the guy in plumbing and they suggested a clog in the main line which was similar to advice on some plumbing forums. I asked for a recommendation and he said they can't really give them out. Anyway I got to the checkout and asked for a personal recommendation and one suggested Drainworks. That recommendation that "I call Drainworks when I have a problem" and all of the glowing reviews on homestars.com I thought I would give them a shot to at least try clearing the line. I know there is another couple of recommended plumbers that are used frequently by a well know contractor on a TV show and I was considering them as well but wasn't sure if they would charge more and they didn't have as many favorable reviews on homestars.com for example. I should have called DrainWorks sooner to get resolution to the problem instead of living with it so long!!! (smell, troubleshooting, agony, etc) I called on a Sunday night to schedule them to come out on the Monday to look at the problem as I figured that they would charge more on the weekend, etc. William answered the phone when I asked about scheduling for them to come out in the morning and he asked me "what's your schedule like tonight" and he explained that "we never charge more for weekend or holiday work" so I said sure come out to snake the line. Jeremy showed up at the door within the time frame given and was already looking down the breather (fresh air inlet) when I came outside! Jeremy brought in the snaking equipment (Ridgid Power Snake/Auger) through the sidedoor (with booties on!) into the basement and proceeded to try and snake the drain ($195+gst) through the front floor drain. He couldn't access the sewer through the breather as the previous owners put stone and other debris in the fresh air inlet (and the downspout too) for some reason. (We later found a wooden stake stuck in the downspout / drain primer hole leading to the floor drain and removed it :( ) Jeremy tried for a good 5-10 minutes to feed the power auger into the floor drain, through the trap and out to the mainline but could only get so far. He then pulled it out and put a smaller bit on and fed it down again and again got stuck but this time when he pulled it out he hit mud as the auger bit was full of mud. He figured there was a broken house trap (typical in older houses) and that it was full of mud and that's why water was draining so slowly out of the house (and the sewage was backing up in the house causing smell (and basement toilet was not flushing)). He then put the see snake (scope) ($180+gst - ouch!) down the floor drain to use more to find the location of the snake in the mainline using an above ground locator device (X marks the spot where it stopped). I think this was a bit expensive to charge me this much to just use as locator rather than scoping entire drain considering that I had already paid for the snaking and hadn't gotten anywhere with that but they did give me a break on the excavation work apparently. :) He recommended an exploratory excavation to investigate the problem and I asked if they could do it as soon as possible. They set up their schedule to come out at 8:30 the next morning to start digging a 2'x5' trench beside the house and recommended replacing the floor trap with straight PVC section and cleanouts to city/house (house traps are redundant now as all fixtures must have traps by code now). I knew that I couldn't leave it this way for long, couldn't sell the house this way later. I suppose I could/should have called other contractors out but they would have had to scope the line as well probably and their costs may have been more expensive so I decided to proceed with the job. The cost seemed reasonable for the work and was inline with price of a job that a family member had done for entire house to street section. The only red flag that perhaps stuck out was that they could do this next day (good contractors are usually really busy) but it worked out and they treated this like the emergency I viewed it as!! :) Next morning, Andre and Frank show up and explain what they are going to do (dig 2'x5' trench, scope drain both ways and put in 5' PVC section between house and street) and that later there would be someone else (Alex) by to help out. Andre proceeded to jackhammer a 2'x5' area and then dug down for 4-5 hours with a manual hand excavation. Amazing! I'm glad they don't use a machine as it was so close to the house and would have meant more damage to the driveway. Also, the fact that they could get all the work done in such a small space! Alex showed up later to help with the removal of soil too far down to shovel out and they loaded out buckets until they got down to the broken house trap pipe. Andre and Alex explained their findings such as the fresh air inlet was misaligned with the connection to pipe connecting before the house trap (perhaps from shifting in the property or when the driveway was paved?). Once they had excavated down far enough they exposed the clay pipe and broken house trap which was removed. Frank showed up shortly afterwards and they put the see snake down the sewer lines towards the street and the house to check things out. No problems found so they put the new 5' section in which included the cleanouts for inside the house and towards the street. After doing the final inspection, Andre and Alex proceeded to put soil back in to the hole. My only major complaint with the job was they were going to leave garbage such as used work gloves, pvc pipe and old clay reminants in the hole and cover it up. Who does this? I insisted several times that this be removed. I wouldn't bury stuff that was clearly garbage. I'm posting now after about 2.5 weeks since the job was done since I wanted to make sure it was completely resolved as I wanted to make sure the sewer/sewage smell went away and no other issues discovered. At this point, I'm just trying to get rid of a musty smell in the basement (which basements typically have)! :) Frank did indicate that there is clay pipes under the basement floor and the wye connection with the neighbor (shared connection under mutual driveway) towards the street (city). At this point I don't have the money to replace this and don't think it is warranted at this time. I don't see any major problems with these pipes happening anytime soon since they are mostly straight sections (no curves where joints would deteriorate more quickly besides the one original floor drain trap (the other floor drain is ABS)). Also, there would be no guarantee the city would replace their clay pipes. Plus having to dig up the whole (mutual) driveway! :( I'm just waiting for the soil to settle a bit more before I ask DrainWorks to come back and put some more gravel down as discussed with Frank. Too bad DrainWorks doesn't repatch the driveway later, but I guess they want to stick to plumbing. The job by DrainWorks overall exceeded expectations and it amazes me they were able to do the job in such a tiny space! I have no issues with calling DrainWorks again for plumbing or drain work or recommending them to others that had no previous use/recommendations. A bit pricey of a job but I guess this is the going rate for these sort of sewer fixes. The other thing I was a bit disappointed with was that the deferred financing option was not available because I called them after hours on the original call and when I further asked for it at the end for the balance of payment I was told "sorry it's not available". I'm in a bit of a financial bind right now having moved in recently so having spare cash on hand would be good. Great job DrainWorks. You got my drains working! :)