Base­ment Water­proof­ing Con­trac­tors & War­ranties — 7 Things to Consider

Feb 12, 2012 • By Matthew Stock.

When mak­ing a deci­sion on hir­ing a base­ment water­proof­ing con­trac­tor, most home­own­ers con­sid­er rep­u­ta­tion, process, price and war­ran­ty. Why an entire blog post ded­i­cat­ed to under­stand­ing a base­ment water­proof­ing war­ran­ty? Because it is one of the most mis­un­der­stood things in our industry. 

One com­mon mis­con­cep­tion is that a war­ran­ty is the same thing as a guar­an­tee. While both serve as pro­tec­tion for the con­sumer, there is a big dif­fer­ence. A guar­an­tee is an assur­ance that if a prod­uct or ser­vice doesn’t work, it will be replaced, typ­i­cal­ly at no charge. A war­ran­ty, on the oth­er hand, acts more like an insur­ance pol­i­cy. It basi­cal­ly is a promise to pro­vide ser­vice if some­thing goes wrong.

Let’s put this in the con­text of base­ment water­proof­ing. If you con­tract a base­ment water­proof­ing con­trac­tor to repair a foun­da­tion crack or install a drain tile sys­tem, you get a war­ran­ty, not a guar­an­tee. So if it fails, you don’t get your mon­ey back. Instead, you are giv­en a promise that the com­pa­ny will come back and take care of the problem.

This might be obvi­ous to some of you — espe­cial­ly for those who went to law school or are fre­quent watch­ers of the People’s Court or Judge Judy. But now let’s talk about the not-so-obvious:

1. A war­ran­ty is only as good as the com­pa­ny that stands behind it. If they go out of busi­ness (like most of our com­peti­tors have over the past 10 – 20 years), your war­ran­ty means nothing.
2. Com­pa­nies often use a war­ran­ty as a mar­ket­ing tool to ​“one up” their com­pe­ti­tion. If they are a less­er known com­pa­ny, or even worse, have a poor rep­u­ta­tion, this sales tac­tic is prob­a­bly the only thing keep­ing them in busi­ness. You may be in your house longer than they actu­al­ly stay in business!
3. Do not be afraid to ques­tion a con­trac­tor on how long the com­pa­ny has used a cer­tain process. If they have only used a process for five years, how com­fort­able are you with their ​“life­time warranty”?
4. Make sure to read the fine print. Every com­pa­ny has a clause that basi­cal­ly says ​“We are not respon­si­ble for dam­age to prop­er­ty caused by water seep­age”. Remem­ber this is not a guar­an­tee. If you need to use your war­ran­ty, the repair didn’t work, so pick a com­pa­ny with a good rep­u­ta­tion and many years of expe­ri­ence to solve your prob­lem the FIRST time.
5. The Bet­ter Busi­ness Bureau and Angie’s List are great resources for con­sumers. Under­stand, how­ev­er, that nei­ther orga­ni­za­tion has any legal author­i­ty to force a fly-by-night com­pa­ny to hon­or their warranty.
6. A lawyer is always a last resort, but there is no guar­an­tee you will pre­vail. Any­one who has first hand expe­ri­ence with our court sys­tem under­stands how exhaust­ing and expen­sive a law­suit can be.
7. Tony Sopra­no is just a fic­tion­al char­ac­ter on HBO; he can’t make things right for you! 

Bot­tom line: bas­ing a pur­chase sole­ly on a war­ran­ty is a recipe for dis­as­ter. Hire the right com­pa­ny with the best solu­tion and every­thing else will fall into place. 

Just so you know, we offer a life­time war­ran­ty on res­i­den­tial drain tile sys­tems and crack repairs. Our busi­ness con­tin­ues to grow year after year. ​“Life­time” real­ly means some­thing when you’ve been in busi­ness since 1957. 

Tags: basement crack, drain tile, researching companies, warranties, how to choose a waterproofing company

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