Stefanie C.
1/5
I’m POSITIVE you can do better than Ward Insulation. Long review, but worth the read...
My issues with this company began when they blew in cellulose insulation (6/30/19) with a defective hose (company acknowledged that the hose likely had a hole in it) and literally covered every surface and item in my home with a fine dusting of cellulose. Note that they did nothing to prevent this mess, leaving a full, unopened roll of plastic downstairs in my home. They didn’t bother to cover closet doors, floors, or any other surface for that matter, and explained away the incident, saying “cellulose is just messier than fiberglass.”
For a family prone to allergies, this represented not just an enormous mess, but a health hazard. I have since spent countless hours cleaning – laundering, dusting, running fans, air filters, vacuuming over and over – and for this was compensated $150 for what Carter (president/owner of Ward) explains is a “typical” cleaning fee. There was nothing typical about this mess, and anyone who has ever had a “deep” housecleaning done in Ft. Collins knows that fees are much higher than this.
I was dissatisfied with this response – both the content and the tone (read: Too-bad-so-sad-for-you) from Ward, so I contacted Scott Suddreth, the Program Manager for the Efficiency Works program through which we had originally found Ward Insulation. I contacted him primarily to give him feedback about what I felt was an issue of service quality and poor customer service. Scott was very helpful – he carefully wrote down my feedback and indicated his intent to follow through with Ward to get their side of the story, which he did. Scott also offered to do a free Quality Assurance assessment of the work that Ward had done, and I took him up on this. Part of Scott’s job is to ensure that contractors that participate in the Efficiency Works program are compliant with program expectations.
Scott spent 3 hours at my home a few weeks ago (summer of 2019) reviewing their work, and his findings were really surprising. For one, he re-did the whole-house air sealing test – doing it properly this time and securing us an additional $300 in rebate from Ward. Additionally, he identified several areas for correction – meaning that Ward had not performed the initial work to program standards and they will need to return to correct it. These included insufficient insulation, insufficient spray foam in several locations, a fire hazard created by Ward by spraying foam over a furnace vent, and not putting weather stripping around the attic hatch and therefore not sealing it correctly. These issues would never have been identified had Scott not done a complete QA on their work.
That tells me that this company could potentially be out there every day doing work that is most likely sub-par and possibly dangerous (fire hazard, hello?) without having anyone looking out for quality. I don’t believe I’m just one outlier. Not only this, but when they wreck your home with dust, they don’t really give two clucks about it and they’re not afraid to tell you so. I have a lot of forgiveness for folks when they’re polite and when they take responsibility for their own mistakes. Ward offers a losing combination of shoddy work on top of an I-don’t-give-a-crap attitude toward its customers.
I didn't end up posting this review until now, February 20th, 2020, because of yet another discovery made today about the dangerous and shoddy work of this company. See electrician statement below:
"Labor for up to 2 on site electricans to separate fan and light
switching. Add an additional switch leg for bathroom fan to
switch box, During this process a few very unsafe open splices
were found in the attic that were installed with the bathroom
vent fan to the light kit/switchbox when the insulation was blown
in. An additional hour of labor was used to repair open splices.
Open splices were cut and reinstalled correctly in electrical
junction boxes rated for insulation."
DON'T USE THIS COMPANY.
