The Basic Basement

I very disappointed and dissatisfied customer .a job that should take 6-8 weeks into 5 months the business office have no problem getting in touch went payment is due otherwise I dont hear from them, I have to keep calling asking questions I should not have to keep calling to asked went they will coming to do something the business office was getting offended

Hopefully the title caught your eye as its not an exaggeration.

Basically, we were told to use vinyl flooring by the sales rep on our first contact with Basic Basement. Probably about 6 weeks at 10k later, the floor company comes and says there is no way vinyl would work on the floor. If we had known that, we would have never started the project. Needless to say I was pissed. I tried calling Basic Basement's Office no answer(it was a Saturday, so somewhat expected), called the Project Manager, no answer. I called the Project Manager again because I planned on leaving a message the first call, but the last thing he says is "No messages left on this phone will be returned?" I don't even know why this is an acceptable practice. I'm not saying I need to be called back immediately, but to say you'll just ignore the message is ridiculous. This "Project Manager" was completely absent for the entire duration of my remodeling. He actually picked up the 2nd time and I will say that I was not exactly nice to him, but he was very quick to blame me for the floor saying "We don't do floors, just level it out", then it turned into him saying "I will come to your house to see how much of a Mr. tough guy motherf'er(he used the full word") you are" several time. Now I have a wife a small child to think about so I quickly defused the situation, but the damage was done. All I really needed to hear from the guy was a "Sorry this happened, our reps aren't supposed to make floor recommendations, I'll look into it". Is that so hard? Basic customer service if you ask me. I can't be the first or last person to call him angry and if this is how he handle's the situation, he shouldn't have this job.

When I asked that he be taken off my project BB refused(didn't really matter since he never came on site anyway). When I complained about it, I was able to speak to the co-owner of the company. He basically couldn't have cared less that this happened and didn't really want to "hurt his margins" on my project. It was obvious he wasn't going to give me anything and it was basically a he said she said situation, so not much I could really do, but needless to say I would not recommend using this company. They have zero accountability or customer service skills. Gail is the only person there that seems to be able to do anything and thank god for her otherwise I fear my project would still be going on.

Bottom line is stay away from this company unless you like false advertisement, getting screamed at as a paying customer and lack of any sort of foresight.

The basic basement also has the basic bathroom company.. They should not be in this industry at all.

They want to try to gain as much business as they can and try to flip these renovations so quick they are horrible. There is no project management what so ever, you are left assuming when the guys will or will not show up. They inconvience you so many times and all they have working for them is people in training no true professionals.

You have to babysit them each step of the way. Please dont waste you money go with a company with more reliable history and solid work experience workers behind them.

Mine isn't as much a complaint but a heads up. We got 3 bids to have our unfinished basement finished.

Basic Basement was the lowest bid. We got pretty good results but a few observations. One, the job started on March 5 and ended on April 30 but during this span there were actual workers at our house maybe 10 days in total... Granted some time was taken up with township inspections but the job should never have taken this long.

Regarding workers... There is a different team for each step. The framing team was very good. They kept the place spotless, were efficient and handled our curious 3-year old very well (Rodrigo was especially nice).

The electrician was mediocre at best. I'm not an electrician and took his lead on where to place recessed lights which left a lot of dim areas. The Sheetrock team, well they spoke no English. My wife actually had to write a note to them in Spanish in order to communicate.

Now this wasn't especially bad but we had no idea when they left one day if/when they'd be back the next day. Overall we were happy for the most part but their inflexibility to tailor to your needs (and lack of electrician knowledge of light placcement) require some additional after work.

I used the basic basement company and wound up with more than a basic headache! The person that sold me the job Todd, sold me a big bag of disappointment. To start, I was told they used a management program and that I would have a project specialist working with me at all times. Both the program and project specialist were unmanageable. The promise they make in their marketing in regards to getting it done in 5 weeks, well that came and went and I don't think it was half way done at that time. I regret not getting that in writing, because it was well over 5 weeks!

Then to top it off, my anger overflowed when their workers became careless around my property. I had cigarette butts everywhere, I complained and nothing changed. They had covered my house with sheetrock dust and certainly expected me to clean it up as they didn't even pay attention to it. The garbage from their materials stayed on my property throughout the entire job, and was not kept organized at all.

Then finally my husband and I opened our mouths when we realized the electrical package we had purchased did not provide enough lighting to cover my basement adequately. Their marketing of done for 9999 should read whats done for 9999. Shame on this company for trying to fool the public, our basement was finally done and well below average in quality. I do not recommend this company to anyone, and I feel its important to inform anyone thinking of using them!