belfor | chestercountyramblings

Look at that photo. Not one of my best as I can’t hoist my camera again quite yet, but I took this with my cell phone.

Daffodils. Is their anything better to see after the winter we had? Are you like me and did you wonder if we would even see them in our gardens again when we were looking at snow, ice, and more snow and ice?

As everyone knows, we were among the many, many people who sustained serious damage during the ice storm February 5th that rocked the east coast and buried Chester County for a while.

Like a lot of other people (as in close to one million or whatever the crazy number was), we had to suck it up and just survive. We had a long power outage, an even longer outage of phone, Internet, and television.

Because we are on a well, when we suffered our extended power outage we were also without a well pump. We heated with our woodstove and were fortunate enough to save our pipes. We kept our refrigerator and freezer items outside in the freezing cold on the front porch in coolers.

It was like Little House on the Prairie. And I love it here in Chester County, but I don’t want a repeat of the winter of 2014 any time soon!

The best part of this entire experience occurred when we called Belfor. Yes I know I sound like an ad, but seriously? They were nothing short of amazing from the call center people to the actual workers that Belfor dispatched.

The guys that came from Belfor were not only really nice and polite and just kind . They patched and super tarped our roof after they removed the tree from leaning on the house and penetrating our building envelope (that is the correct term, right?)

In plain English a giant tree was IN and ON our house. Truthfully had the angle been different only so slightly and I would not have had a house left for Belfor to shore up during an emergency services call.

The guys did such a good job and a careful job pulling the tree back that our arborist thought we had hired another arborist before him. But no, those were just the Belfor guys.

They patched and tarped the roof, they patched the holes the tree also punched in the upper story of our home. They were amazing. And I think they took maybe a 15 or 20 minute break when they were here. Yes, that’s it, and they were here for hours.

These Belfor guys even came back to double-check on us a couple of days later after they had completed the job. Who does that today? The answer is not many people.

That is why I wrote my first post. That was at the end of February. My friends have teased me about it to because apparently the man who owns the company who we see on their commercials – Sheldon Yellen – was on the TV show “Undercover Boss”. I never knew until after Belfor was at our home as that is not a show I watch much.

Why am I writing today? Well I am still recuperating from my surgery, so I was cruising around on Facebook and pulled up Belfor’s page. I was curious if they had anything about those deadly mudslides which occurred recently in Washington State.

What caught my eye instead was a flurry of posts by this woman from Ohio. Apparently from her postings it looks like Belfor was hired to do some sort of emergency work at her apartment building. It seems she owns the building based on what I found listed for her in the property records for Lorain, Ohio. If she does own this building she is concerned about, I don’t get what it is they didn’t do.

All I do know is emergency restoration and regular contracting work are two different things. We hired Belfor for emergency work. That is what they did. They came, they helped us clean up, they made sure we were safe. That is what we asked them to do, those are the services we contracted with them for. And they completed their tasks with perfection.

The guys who came to our home were very helpful and their work has held as we wait our turn for our roofing company to start.

Look, I am the consumer from hell. I have no problem complaining if I think something is wrong. It’s just that I don’t get this woman. She just posted all these posts (not all the same day) and I find it hard to believe they haven’t contacted her or resolved whatever it is that actually happened. I got really speedy calls back whenever I called from the moment we provided them with our contact information. And I am no one special.

So I thought I would revisit my Belfor experience. Which was amazing, and again, I am exacting.

I realize not everyone is going to have the exact same experience with a company, but still……

For the record: I have absolutely no problem referring Belfor to anyone. I don’t say that very often.

I hope this woman gets her stuff straightened out and I know the feeling when your home is a mess (after all I did have part of a tree in my dining room not so long ago), but my opinion as someone who has no horse in this race, is that I can’t really tell what she is actually blaming them for. If she is a property owner, surely she is responsible for her property and long-term maintenance issues isn’t she? Isn’t there a difference between emergency restoration, regular contracting, and long-term maintenance issues? I had a landlord once upon who was not so great with long-term maintenance.

This woman says she wants to meet Sheldon Yellen. Well on that we can agree.

I’d like to meet Mr. Yellen too….TO SAY THANK YOU. Belfor saved my home. They gave me peace of mind. They did good work and were just nice.

So Mr. Yellen if you are out there reading this, know that you are appreciated and so is your team.

This has been the winter that has tried the patience and good will of many and I am no exception. But in my defense, having a few thousand pounds of tree land on the back of the house like a 747 and then to be days and days without power, running water, and so on will do that to you.

We are lucky even in this mess, as it could have been much worse than it was. Especially since where the tree punched through the wall was about six inches from where my sweet man lays his head on his pillow. And that tree hit the house hard and racked it. It also hit hard enough that when the tree punched the wall it popped the solid slats of a hardwood headboard. And pieces of giant tree in the house aren’t much fun, either.

I would not trade my Chester County existence for anything. I love it here. But this winter has been like an endurance test, and I will admit I just have days where I am done with it.

Yesterday was one of those days. Yesterday was when the main roof started to leak.

We had felt another tree part hit the top of the roof during the ice storm but couldn’t get anyone up in all the snow to check. You see, all the snow after the ice storm and the temperatures has made the beginnings of restoration work for a lot of people just slow down exponentially because well, it’s dangerous. But until yesterday the main part of the roof held.

First we woke up to what looked like magic crop circles on the ceiling. By late afternoon we saw the sheen of moisture on the ceiling and the ceiling dry wall starting to freckle then bubble. All in an attractive brown color, of course .

With flooding rains expected later today we called Belfor. They are the best amongst their peers at dealing with post-storm nonsense. And they have an office around Exton.

When we called their 800 number last night we spoke with a woman named Anna. She was hands down the best customer service-type person I have ever spoken with. Then after we gave her our information, a man named John called. He said his crew would be out at 7 a.m. I will admit after a couple of weeks of NO ONE storm related showing up when they said they would post-storm I didn’t believe him.

Well shut my mouth at 7:01 a.m. this morning here they were!!

I can’t even explain what it feels like, other than I am both happy and grateful. This is our home and I love it, and it is such a relief to know they are here.

I must say RIP to the original patio table glass, table, and umbrella however. A branch got it all this morning. The chairs might be on life support too, I am not sure.

For the first time in days I can see other than TREE out the back of our house . Fingers crossed that all continues to go well.

I need it to stop raining in the house.

Thanks Belfor. You are so far more than living up to your advertisements on TV. Seriously? Those ads aren’t hype. These guys are working hard.

Next up: tree guys for the really big stuff but not today….

Sign me grateful.