We are extremely satisfied with TC Hafford in the work they did to fix our foundation and quite literally prevent the house from collapsing and rolling into the lake. We purchased this house in summer 2020, knowing there was some foundation damage but not understanding the full extent of the damage until well after closing. We had 4 major areas of serious foundation damage with the potential for more to develop, mainly due to the foundation not being constructed properly from when the house was built 33 years ago, and being neglected during those 33 years since. We talked to 5 different foundation repair organizations that ran a wide range of remediation proposals. We chose TC Hafford because we felt their proposal was getting to the heart of the various issues with a very engineering approach. Once getting that initial proposal and signing a contract with TC Hafford, they then had two senior people within the company come out to our house to further evaluate the damage. They spent an hour looking over every inch of the foundation, asking questions, and evaluating the overall situation. In the end, they came up with an even better proposal for what to do to address the damage, and would honor our original contract in not charging us more for the additional work they would do. They were terrific to talk to, answered our questions, and most importantly they demonstrated the confidence of experience in understanding our situation and how best to address it. After worrying that buying this house was the worst decision we had ever made, it was a relief to feel that there was a path forward that did not involve anything really drastic like knocking the house down and starting over.
During the roughly 2-3 months of working with TC Hafford and talking to the various staff in their office, from scheduling the initial assessment to completing the work, the people in the office I talked to were terrific. They were incredibly friendly and always did their best to answer my questions. The unfortunate piece of all this was that at the time we were working with them, they had just started working with a new computer system, and thus all of the staff were learning how to use it. This unfortunately made it difficult for them to answer questions about scheduling in terms of what work was going to be done when. So it ended up requiring numerous calls from me to the office to find out, made more complicated given this is a seasonal house and we live out of state. But every time I called the staff person I talked to was very willing to help and was honestly just as frustrated as I was that they could not answer my question right away, and most times had to call me back or I would call back some days later. But in the end it all worked out.
The sales person we met with was very friendly and seemed quite knowledgable in dealing with foundation repair. He came up with an initial proposal that seemed a good engineering approach to stabilize our foundation, and explained the reasoning around his proposal. He was also very responsive to calls, texts, and emails in answering our various questions, even scheduling a separate call with us, all of which I really appreciated.
The various guys that came to carry out all the work that needed to be done -- which included installing 10 power braces, 2 smartjacks, a large cement pour, moisture encapsulation system with sump pump and dehumidifier, and spray foam insulation -- were all absolutely terrific. I cannot say enough good things. They were super friendly and knowledgable, very open to answering questions, and all seemed well experienced in carrying out what needed to be done, even working long days and the occasional Saturday. We were impressed.
After the work was done in each time they came to the house at each phase of the project, by the time they left it was like they had not been there. From what I could see, clean-up was as much part of the job as getting the actual work done.
TC Hafford came up with what seemed to us the most engineering approach in getting to the heart of our foundation issues. It was the one plan that we felt was worth investing in, that would give us peace of mind in moving ahead with additional investment into other parts of the house without worrying about how long the house would last before caving in on a failed foundation.