Falcone Crawl Space & Structural Repair

I used Falcone to clean out my crawl space, replace the vapor barrier and add three piers. The employees were friendly, on-​time and knowledgeable about their job. I was extremely impressed by the work and the employees that worked on my house. I think they may cost a little more than most but the service was worth it. Also, I have a really tight crawl space and they didn’t complain.

After getting a number of estimates for crawlspace repair, minor subfloor repair, and to level a severe low spot in our kitchen floor, we hired Falcone Contracting, as I liked the initial impression that the owner, Fred Falcone, gave me. I also liked the idea of supporting a family-​owned business. His wife runs the logistics back at the office and is very friendly, was responsive to my requests. However, if I could turn back the clock, I would have tried another company, as we were not satisfied with the work that wasn’t completed or the overall experience.
At the beginning, they showed up on time and began the crawlspace work. Fred had his brother begin working on the minor subfloor repair, which didn’t take long. However, when I checked his work, the subfloor was raised well above the existing subfloor, and I had to explain to Fred’s brother that I can’t lay tile on an uneven floor — I was irritated that I had point this out, and I had to ask him to redo it («aren’t they the professionals? Isn’t this one of the basics?», was my thinking). He did redo it and got it right — but it was at that point that I felt like I had to watch them to make sure work was done correctly — not a good feeling, especially when you’re going to be paying $ 5,000 for repairs.
It took a number of days for them to complete the crawlspace repairs and as best as I can tell, they did complete the main crawlspace repairs properly, and pretty much on time.
After they finished the crawlspace, they began working on trying to level out the dip in the kitchen floor. This is where the biggest problems began. Fred explained to me that they would make some adjustments and then give the house time to settle and would come back in 2 – 3 weeks. That made perfect sense to me. He also set my expectations that he would not be able to make it perfectly level, but that he could improve it significantly — I told him I was fine with that. He came back as he said and made more adjustments, but the floor was still way off, and he said he was concerned about his ability to do much more saying the beams under the house were bowed severely. He said add’l supports would be required and would cost me another $ 2,300. I was not happy. To this I told him that I was sorry he seemed to have overlooked the extent of the repair, but that he included this repair in his estimate and I asked him to complete the work at no add’l cost to me. I also noted that the other estimates (some actually came in less than his) also included that repair and that I didn’t think multiple contractors would have all missed the same thing. He agreed to finish the job at no add’l cost to me. He came back out and put another support beam in but was not having any luck getting the floor to level at all — in fact, they raised it too high and now we were having concerns on how that was affecting the rest of the house. I had to call again, and they came back out and lowered it again, but ended up taking out all the shims and we were back at where we started. Fred said he wasn’t sure what else he could do because of the bowed beams, to which I still wasn’t understanding why they weren’t included in his estimate. It was at that point that I lost faith in their ability to properly repair the kitchen floor — in fact, I was concerned that they might do structural harm — so I dropped it and did not ask them to come out again. (Today, our kitchen floor still has a severe drop in it; in effect, no work was done on this part of the job).
On a separate note, Fred & his team all left their cigarette butts on my driveway, to which I had to ask him to clean them up – this was less than professional in my opinion.
Personally, I liked Fred and his wife (who was manning the phones) — they were friendly and tried to be helpful. And I do think Fred gave some effort to make things right — but his apparent oversight on the repair estimate must have been pretty big — so much that he wasn’t willing to absorb whatever it would take to make it right as originally promised. For me, the weight of this oversight exposed a lack of knowledge and understanding of structural engineering and a lack of experience for that type of repair, such that I cannot recommend their services.
The overall experience, especially since nothing was done on the kitchen floor, left us dissatisfied and feeling like we had not spent our $ 5,000 wisely.