Finally, a contractor that doesn't suck!

First, some info about the contractor, taken straight from his business card:

Mountjoy's Remodeling
Carl Mountjoy
Cell: 540-379-0324
Email: mtjoyremodeling@aol.com
Decks, siding, windows, etc....


Now, the story behind how we found this guy, and why we're so glad that we did:

For quite some time, now, I've been meaning to post about companies that I've had good/bad experiences with. I've been trying to avoid bitching and moaning too much, though, so I've shyed away from posting about companies that have screwed me over (although I do intend to, in due time, but want to do it right when I do).

Anyways, pretty much everyone I know has been screwed over by a contractor doing work on their house, at one point or another. We've had our fair share of bad contractors, which made our recent search for a good contractor to repair our flood-damaged basement very difficult. Finally, after about 2 months of trying (half-heartedly, though, because we're so paranoid that it takes a lot of motivation to actually deal with finding a contractor), Lacey's parents hooked us up.

They're friends with a guy, who used to run a contracting company in northern Virginia, but who now lives in southern Virginia, somewhere near them (I think). They've known him for a long time, and he has done work for them several times over the years, and they even have him over for dinner from time to time. Apparently, a real good guy, who is trustworthy and does high quality work. Well, he's got a son, who currently works as a home inspector for Centex Homes (and evidently, a good one), but who has also been working on getting the family contracting business going again on the side.

He came over, gave things a thorough look (both from a home inspector and a contractor's perspective, I presume), talked to us for a while (and was not pushy or shady in any way), and wrote us up an estimate. He gave us a very reasonable price, and said he could get it done in a week.

Being skeptical, based on past experiences of getting screwed over, I still made him sign a modified version of a 6-page contract addendum that my lawyer wrote for me several years ago. However, based on our meeting wit him, we could see his friendly nature, vast array of relevant knowledge, and attention to detail. Those qualities, plus the fact that he and his father are friends of the family, made it pretty clear that this was an honest guy we were dealing with.

He was able to start the work a day earlier than he originally expected, and finished it within the quoted time frame, despite running into a few surprises (not his fault, it was the house's fault), which he handled very well, and with very minimal additional cost to us. The work was done very well, and we're determined to refer some business to him, because we were just so impressed. We're going to have him do some more work for us in a couple weeks, too.

* edited 04/23/2007 to update contact info

When it rains, it pours (part 2)

This is a quick, but long-overdue followup to my 06/26/2006 post, "When it rains, it pours."

There are all kinds of things I could say about this, but the task of putting it all into words has been kind of daunting. So, I'm just going to post the emails that I sent to my coworkers and school learning team members when I was dealing with water mitigation/cleanup/etc, and link to the 300+ pictures that I took along the way...

Email to Work #1 (06/26/2006 1:46am):

Basement flooded tonight due to nonstop heavy rain.. yard is saturated, sump pump couldn't keep up.. other drainage not efficient either, so water is coming in from at least 3 locations. After spending all evening/night recovering from the initial flooding, now the sump pump has given out completely, so I'm dreading what the night will bring. I will probably not get any work done tomorrow either, as I try to salvage/clean things and deal with kids and stuff.

Email to Work #2 (06/27/2006 11:38am):

Yesterday, I fought with the rain as long as I could, carrying 10gal shopvac buckets full of nasty water from my storm drain up the outside walk-out stairs, while the rain just kept pouring down, and throwing it out in the yard, but in the end, I did not make a very good sump pump replacement. So the water started pouring in from the sump pump pit and the outside storm drain, and quickly filled the whole basement with 1-2" of water.

At some point I gave up on getting the water out, and switched modes to salvaging whatever belongings I could. I spent all day yesterday dealing with that, and eventually, in the late afternoon, a plumber made it out and replaced the sump pump. So now there's no more flooding happening, and hopefully it will survive the high quantities of rain we're supposed to get tonight, but I still have a lot to deal with down there, especially washing and drying all the clothes/towels/blankets/etc. that were down there, and trying to suck up as much water out of the carpet as possible.

We've got water mitigation people coming on Friday night--that was the soonest anyone could come out--but in the meantime we need to do as much as we can, ourselves, because it's going to get pretty gross between now and Friday.

Anyways, I'm going to have to take today off as well, in case that wasn't already assumed. Hope to be there tomorrow. As long as the new sump pump can keep up with tonight's rain, that should be possible.

Email to Learning Team #1 (06/26/2006 8:01am):

hey guys.. Basement flooded last night due to nonstop heavy rain.. yard is saturated, sump pump couldn't keep up.. other drainage not efficient either, so water is coming in from at least 3 locations. After spending all evening/night recovering from the initial flooding, now the sump pump has given out completely, so I'm glad to see that the rain has stopped for now. Gotta try to salvage/clean things and deal with kids and stuff today, and try to find a replacement sump pump (probably in short supply now), a shop vac (borrowed a neighbor's but need our own), and a plumber to heavy-duty-snake out our storm drain...

Email to Learning Team #2 (06/26/2006 3:08pm):

yeah, I thought yesterday was bad. now we've got over 1" through the entire basement, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it.

i bought lots of stuff at the hardware stuff this morning, but nothing i bought is any match for the continuing rain. plumber should be here soon to replace the sump pump, but there's concern that he may not be able to do that since it's immersed in several feet of water and all.. i hope he has some kind of pump, but the lady on the phone didn't seem to think so. if it can't be replaced today, i will be crafting a homemade water pump->pipe->sprayer solution.

Email to Learning Team #3 (06/27/2006 12:17pm):

sorry for my silence.. been working on basement water issues all day
and late into the night. i will really try to get my part done today.

Email to Learning Team #4 (06/27/2006 12:21pm):

Oh, but the good news is that the plumber WAS able to replace the sump pump, so at this point it's a cleanup/salvage effort only, and I'm no longer trying to act as a manual sump pump. :) Let's just hope that this pump holds up during the heavy rains tonight, since we're supposed to be in for another doozy.

Here are the pictures:
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_06_25/
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_06_26/
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_06_27/
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_06_28/
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_06_30/
http://www.oatmealcookies.org/pictures/2006/2006_07_01-basement/