American Engineering Construction

The original five stars stand for the retaining wall in the basement. The foundation, not so good over time and leaving all the construction debris behind, poor show. Sorry I have to down grade.

We used Carlos and AEC for a supplemental foundation inspection on a home for our buyer client. Fair price, and very knowledgeable. They were very responsive over email and phone, which is refreshing to have a company that does business the way their clients do! We are planning on using them again in our real estate business.

I had a chance to work with Carlos to work on my foundation. He was very thorough and great to work with. He is also very knowledgeable.

There was several other bad reviews of this company a few month ago but somehow they magically disappeared. ??? Carlos Jr might be a paying Unilocal member now.

My father and I bought our 1^st home this year and it was pretty much move in ready, the only thing we needed to do was raise a small portion of the back of the house which was lower than the rest of the house, as it was an addition.
My dad was pretty much in charge of the project as I am clueless when it comes to construction, but he asked that I do the research on licensed contractors. I decided to go with AEC for the following reasons
1. Carlos speaks Spanish
— This was a requirement as English is my dad’s 2^nd language
2. It’s a small family owned company
— I liked that my dad didn’t have to be dealing with workers, project managers, supervisors and random staff. Carlos is the owner so everything went through him
3. Affordable
— AEC was affordable. We also liked that Carlos also provided us with a detailed payment plan before he started the project.
Ultimately, he got the job done (raised the house about 6 inches) and it was done over a weekend.
What I didn’t like were the cracks on our ceiling (2 of them) from the raising, but in all fairness Carlos did warn us about them.

I wish I would have done this sooner. I just recently bought a home, and as some of you may know… WHAT A HEADACHE! So in getting the the required inspections a «red flag» came up with the foundation, that it would need a foundation replacement and would cost $ 30k… I was terrified! After some thought my husband and I decided to push forward and just bite the bullet. We figured the minor repairs could wait while we saved up enough money for the foundation.
Our agent recommended AEC. So I scheduled an appointment and they came out. They were so thorough and completely put mine and my husbands minds at ease. Instead of trying to upsell us they said it was just a matter of basic upgrades to get the home to code. They took care of everything. The plans, the permits and the work. One stop shop! It was so easy and a joy to work with them. When calling ask for Carlos if you can. If we ever have any other work in the future we will definitely use them again.

I guess those who posted 5 stars were Carlos’ friends.
Asked them to do some foundation work, finished half, took my $ 2000 and told me would come back, but never did.
The worst was that later I asked an inspector to check the work and was told the job was not done properly and I had to spend another $ 3000 complete the whole thing.

If there was an option of no stars I would have given that.
Run away as fast as you can from this so called company. My experience was extremely disappointing with him right from the get go. I was starting a new house and signed a contract with Carlos for doing the grading foundation and drainage. I did my part in checking his credentials sand saw the 4 beautiful houses from outside that Carlos had supposedly done. I did ask to speak to the owners and Carlos said that the owners were not at home (I should have insisted), but he promptly gave me some numbers to check his references. All his references gave glowing reviews, but I didn’t see the fact that these guys were not the owners of the houses I was shown .
Let me just list all the problems I had with him.
1. He lied about his work experience.
2.He messed up all the survey stakes so I had to call Survey guy again to to retake corners of the house.
3. He tried to fool me with half baked grading he tried burying roots in the building pad .
4. The foundation walls were crooked and not even square bowing at places and were 4 inches off and 2 inches off !
5.He didn’t complete the jobs that he got paid for (He was getting married so I gave him progress payment thinking he will finish the grading, which of course he did not. Still kicking my self for that)
6.He and his crew had no sense and value of time, They arrive at 9:30 –10 at the job site some times not till late afternoon just because they did not want to miss the Soccer matches that were going on which was more important to them than my project time line.
It was a first time I was building a house –on my own. I had read about this kind of people but failed to act sooner when I realized was trouble for my project.
Any way after wasting 5 months of my precious time and about 20,000 dollars I finally asked him to leave the job. Thank goodness for that!
If you would like to see pictures of the botched up job I have plenty
I hope this warning will save somebody their hard earned money.
Babita

As a first time homebuyer I didn’t have experience dealing with contractors and I was overwhelmed and scared when the inspector told us we needed «foundation repair». Hey I watch HGTV and I knew foundation work can be a really big problem, I was ready to walk away from the deal until my husband asked me to meet this company over at the property for an inspection and quote.
Carlos was amazing. He drew me diagrams so I could really get an idea of the scope of work and explained things in a way I could understand. After answering all of our questions, he presented us with a simple, yet professional contract and we agreed on the job.
When we realized we needed permits from the City of San Jose I got scared all over again. Here I was at City Hall being charged by the minute and not understanding the complicated process. A signature was required for the permit, but because I was not officially on the county record as home owner yet I could not sign. Carlos to the rescue! As a licensed contractor his signature was valid and with a phone call he met me down at City Hall within 15 minutes and took care of business.
The work hit a few bumps (as construction always does) when we realized there was some extra termite wood damage. But AGAIN, Carlos to the rescue! They shopped for materials, repaired the damage and fixed and cleaned everything up beautifully.
Another embarrassing speed bump happened when our check bounced because I forgot to transfer funds from our construction budget. Even though I felt so terrible, Carlos was so understanding and cool about it.
We still need to have more work done in the future, but this was job was prioritized for safety and our budget. But when the time comes we will definitely hire American Engineering Construction again to update everything.
So if you hear «foundation repair» don’t fear, seriously, Carlos to the rescue! They made a horrible situation easy and painless.