Reviews
Frank who take care my restore on my unit after Fire damage did a great job with his restore team. Also the estimate and clean up team did a wonderful clean up job. They restored my unit in a month after water damage. Thanks team your help and speedy respond.
Take it from someone who made the mistake of hiring this company: you want nothing to do with them. They did terrible work and then sued me when my insurance didn't cover their exorbitant fees. As you'll see below, it appears they have sued many other customers as well. Hiring a lawyer costs thousands of dollars, so Newton Fire and Flood knows most people will have no choice but to hand over a large settlement to them. On their professional-looking website, they promise that their "...billing experts work directly with your insurance company to handle the entire claim so you don't have to." This sounds great, and is why I hired them. The part they left out was "unless your insurance company doesn't pay us enough, and then we'll sue you!" They did not give me a written estimate at the start, which lulled me into hiring them based on their promise to get the insurance company to pay. I would strongly urge anyone hiring this firm to get a written estimate up front. Not only did they sue us, but then they attempted to bully us into not posting anything online about their sloppy work and business practices as part of the settlement agreement. Since I refuse to be bullied, I am likely going to have to pay $2K just to post this review. It will be well worth it, in my mind, if I can spare others from the ordeal I experienced with this company. I was sued on the same day I received my first and *only* invoice. Suspicious that this company might have played the same trick on others, I went to the Newton District Court to look up other lawsuits filed by this firm. Sure enough, in the last year, they have sued seven other individuals in Newton alone. Here are the court case numbers and dates of the lawsuits: 1512CV000118: 6/1/2015 1512SC000384: 12/11/2015 1612SC000158: 5/13/2016 1612SC000170: 6/1/2016 1612SC000263: 7/22/2016 1612SC000303: 8/16/2016 1612SC000435: 12/14/2016 These cases all appeared to be against individuals who were customers of Newton Fire and Flood, but without going through each case in more detail, it's impossible to know for sure. Being this litigious, however, should be a warning sign to potential customers. How much did they sue me for? Well, in the process of hiring a contractor, I received three quotes to do the job: for $4K, $4,923.30 and $6,571.97. Newton Fire and Flood sued me for $14,341.85, more than double the highest of these three estimates. I was very upfront with them about what my insurance was offering which was moderately lower than the estimates. They said they had ways to get insurance companies to pay. But really they knew that if they failed at getting the insurance to pay, they'd sue me to get the rest. What about their work? In their lawsuit against me, they used the phrase "completed in a workmanlike manner." See the attached photos for what they consider "workmanlike." In fairness to them, they did fix the work somewhat after they sued me, but only after we were in settlement talks and I said I refused to agree to their "no online reviews" stipulation. So take that for what it's worth. Not only was their work sloppy, but they were extremely slow, made numerous mistakes along the way, and were frequently at a loss for how to properly fix their mistakes. Workers would not show up for several days, then arrive for an hour or two, do very minimal work, and leave again. The workers would complain to us that they would prefer to work on a single job and complete it, but were consistently asked by their boss to only spend a short period of time at each location and then move to the next job site. In addition, the skill level of the workers was poor. There was one day where one of the workers prepared a single piece of molding: measuring, cutting, and applying several layers of paint outside, only to discover at the end of the day that he had cut it incorrectly, and therefore an entire day's work was wasted. Based on my experience with Newton Fire and Flood, I'd highly recommend you look elsewhere.
In the winter of 2015, my home like many others suffered from tremendous ice damming, which caused nearly every room in my house to suffer from wet walls and insulation. Newton Fire and Flood took care of diagnosing, removing the affected walls and insulation, treating the wet areas with disinfecting spray, and drying the house out with air movers and dehumidifiers for four days. The work was handled very professionally. The company president came out immediately after my initial call, even though it relatively late in the evening, and took stock of the situation and issued his recommendations. Once we decided to move forward, Newton Fire and Flood was ready to show up the next day, where they carefully laid down resin paper over all the unaffected hardwood to protect it and taped acres of plastic sheeting over all the unaffected areas, furniture, etc. Once everything was protected, they cut away the damp walls using hand tools, not power tools, which created very little mess and carefully removed all the wet materials. They vacuumed up all of the mess, sprayed disinfecting spray on the wet studs and interior walls, and then installed a large number of air movers and dehumidifiers, which ran four four days to remove any excess moisture from the house. Once those were removed, our house was remarkably clean considering all the work that had been done and was ready for reconstruction. Afterward, Newton Fire and Flood coordinated directly with my insurers for payment for the water mitigation services they provided. While I hope never to need this type of service again, I would call on Newton Fire and Flood if the need arises.
