A service for our fellow Master Builders

As a member of Master Builders Queensland, Foundation Solutions live up to that name by providing outstanding foundation and underpinning services to all our clients. We also enjoy working with like-minded companies in the building industry who are great at what they do and strive for the best outcomes for their clients.

As such, we developed a special service for our fellow Master Builders to help them out when they have foundation problems to deal with – for example on a recently built home that is showing signs of foundation movement, or on a renovation project that needs the foundation assessed prior to commencing any works.

GETTING CLARITY ON structural foundation problems

If you’re a builder dealing with a complaint for a structural or foundation defect on a home that is within its warranty period, you’re going to want to get to the bottom of the matter quickly. You need to understand the extent and cause of the claimed defect, as well as where responsibility for resolving the matter lies.

Similarly for a home renovation, a builder may require structural clarification on a home with dubious foundations.

There are a few compelling reasons for a builder to get an expert assessment of a building – even where fault does not lie with the builder, or where the defect is within acceptable limits – such as to maintain brand reputation and reduce exposure.

Deal with foundation problems up front

To avoid unnecessary pains and get clarity on your exposure, builders are best off solving these problems quickly, with the help of experts where needed.

That’s where we come in. Foundation Solutions has a service just for our fellow Master Builders – a complimentary Home Checkup service that will provide clarity on the condition of the building and enable better decision making by all involved.

The Underpinning Appraisal Report

Our service involves a full assessment of the property – inside and out – to determine the extent of the structural problem due to foundation movement. We provide recommendations for further action where required, including forensic engineering and underpinning, and a fully costed assessment to restore the house.

This is delivered in a professional report that becomes a useful tool in the dispute process, provide clarity and certainty for all parties. And we do it all for no cost, with no further obligation on the builder or their client.

If you’re a master Builder and this is of interest to your company, please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us.

How does it work?

THE PROCESS

Getting an Underpinning Appraisal Report done is as simple as calling our team and booking in a time for us to conduct the site visit. We can meet a representative of your agency at the address, or meet the owner or tenant without you if preferred.

Once we’ve completed the appraisal, we send you the final report including a costed assessment and will remain available to answer any questions you have or assist with further services.

TURNAROUND TIME

We usually are able to complete an underpinning appraisal within 1 – 2 weeks from the date of booking, depending on our work schedule. Once we’ve completed the site inspection, we deliver the report within 24 hours.

WHERE DO YOU SERVICE

We service the South East Queensland region, including Brisbane, Ipswich, Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast, Toowoomba and everywhere in between.

WHY US?

We are confident we offer the best underpinning service in Queensland and are prepared to let you experience this first hand at no cost through our appraisal service. We are Master Builders and we love showing people that foundation problems don’t have to be scary.

We’ll provide you and your clients with trustworthy, transparent advice that will help the property sale go more smoothly for everyone involved.

Looking for the best underpinning companies in Brisbane? A quick search for “underpinning brisbane” returns more results than anyone would care to sort through and among these results are underpinning contractors of all shapes, sizes and quality. So to help you sort the good Brisbane underpinning companies from the bad, here are a few simple tips to follow.

1. Search for master builders

The first useful way to reduce a long list of underpinning companies to a quality shortlist is to select those that are certified Master Builders. This gives you a list of the contractors who are:

• appropriately licensed
• supported by the peak industry body

The easiest way to search for Master Builders is to go to the relevant state website – each state has its own site. For Brisbane, this is the Queensland Master Builders Association.

There you can search for Master Builders by the “House raising, restumping & underpinning” category to find underpinning contractors near you.

2. Check for verified customer reviews

Now you’ve probably got a list of 5 to 15 contractors, depending on how wide your search was (in kms). The next step is to check which of these underpinning companies have verified or verifiable customer reviews. 

These can be found in a Google Search or Google Maps Search. For example you check here for Foundation Solutions underpinning services reviews. 

Similarly you can check Facebook or other similar sites that have reviews.

If a given company doesn’t have any/many reviews on third party sites, check their website. We always keep a few of our recent customer reviews on our homepage for easy reference.

If you’re not confident about the authenticity of any reviews, ask the company if you can talk a past customer or two. This is something we at Foundation Solutions readily offer.

3. look for an underpinning process

After searching for quality customer reviews, hopefully you’ve been able to shorten your list a bit further. The next step is to check the website for each shortlisted company to find out what their underpinning process is. This is important to get a feel for how the company works, how transparent and responsive they are, and how comfortable you feel with their approach to service delivery.

We have our underpinning process clearly described on our homepage. In fact we’re so happy with it we even gave it a name – Wunderpinning! – because we believe our process delivers a truly “wonderful underpinning” experience.

You can also read more about our underpinning process in our Underpinning brochure.

4. Limit by type of underpinning

If you have done your research and understand the different type of underpinning – such as concrete screw pile (aka screw pier) or resin injection, you could limit your search by only those companies that offer your preferred underpinning method.

Otherwise skip this step and move to Step 5.

We exclusively use steel screw piles, because they consistently deliver solid, lasting underpinning results. We partnered with Katana Foundations to ensure we have the best screw piles, made locally in Queensland, Australia.

5. Send an enquiry

Hopefully you’ve managed to come up with a final shortlist of no more than 5 underpinning companies. The final step is to send them an enquiry to get a feel for how quickly they respond, how friendly they are to deal with, and how helpful their information is.

It doesn’t matter if you fill out a website form, send an email or call them – do whatever suits you, and then see how they respond. Hopefully based on this final step you will feel confident with 2 or 3 about companies and can proceed further with a detailed enquiry, home/site visit and eventually quotation.

You can get in touch with Nicole or Jason from the Foundation Solutions team by email, phone or website form. Take your pick. We’d love to hear from you.