Firstcall - Grimes — Local services in Grimes

In my honest opinion, I would suggest to do your own repairs if you are able to. I chose this company after a house fire and I regret it for many reasons. Short version -The PM lacked communication, direction, knowledge, follow through, guidance, basically every aspect of a Project Manager. They sub-contract most tasks, they do some cleaning on their own (of which is the "minimum required" and less than half-assed, mind you) so if you are expecting to have smoke damage removed, just do it yourself. What they claim to have "cleaned" was appalling and absurd. But, since it all gets covered in sealant (low-end, that is) they don't care. Afterall, they aren't the ones living there, they are just the ones getting money for the job.

I even came home to unsafe conditions on a few occasions (bulkhead left on the floor with 2 inch nails sticking out, kitchen walls/floor/dog water bowl full of insulation from poorly sealed (or forgotten to be) vapor barrier over newly installed insulation. They left a motor fan blowing on this section of wall for hours, so that was horrible to come home to. Not to mention, having to clean all of that off of my dogs and worry about how much of it they lapped up from their water bowl. I had to constantly clean up someone's mess that was left behind. Always picking/sweeping up screws, nails, etc.

We had paint spray residue all over our upper level (doors, handles, mirrors, bathroom cabinets, door trim, windows, bedding, wood floors, etc.) from not being blocked off. We had to ask repeatedly for walls to be re-cleaned, and were constantly told "it's been cleaned", or "that's all we have to do", "we wiped the walls with the dry sponge", etc. You could see uneven and wide spaced streaks, you could see large areas that were not even tended to in addition to full walls that weren't even tended to. Luckily, we observed like a hawk, again....this is our home, not a check to us, so we made sure to do what they could not.

PM often commented about how nice things looked, insinuating that his crew did a great job....well, his crew didn't do those particular things. My husband and I did that part of the job. (We didn't have this company do all of the work. We had them do about a third and we did the rest ourselves because we had reservations about restoration companies to begin with).

We just heard from the electrician last week. He said he was wondering if he was to come back to the house or not since he never heard back from the PM. He sat idle for almost a month. We had to reach out to him.

It was an unfortunate situation that kept getting worse. Luckily, it's over and ways have been parted.

Pay attention to your estimate, review your estimate, do your research, learn tasks, understand tasks, have confidence, ask questions, demand answers, do things yourself, and or hire your own contractor(s) if you feel inclined. You will be told at the beginning stages that certain things are "required", ...and, that is certainly NOT the case. Always, always, do your research. Call your City if you have questions/doubts, etc. about what is or is not allowed/required. Call your mortgage company. Do your research.

Restoration companies work hand-in-hand with insurance companies, for a reason...

6/19/25 - Adding to this - I recently found out that my 'heavy duty/professional HVAC cleaning' was in fact not done in it's entirety nor as lead to be believed. When my own independently contracted HVAC rep was at my house just 2 days ago I got confirmation of this as we both saw it firsthand. Talk about another huge disappointment to say the least. Luckily, my contractor took the liberty of doing it himself as he felt so bad for us and it was in SERIOUS need of cleaning. He spent a full hour cleaning, and I wasn't even...

I never write reviews and felt I had to because we chose first call based on the great google reviews. We had major exterior damage after a hail storm in August 2022. We were working with a different company at first and then they started to feel a little off so we switched to First Call after being given their name by our insurance company and seeing the great reviews. We also need some remodeling work done in the near future and liked that they did that as well. Initially they were very responsive and came to look at our house right away. We needed a new roof, exterior, garage doors, deck, posts, and skylight. We worked through the insurance process and they worked with us to get the roof scheduled and replaced in November before winter. Then we started to be pushed back and forth to different project managers. One told us the other would reach out, he never did so we would call the first one back and maybe get a response. Finally they showed up one day without telling us they were coming to put up new posts. After bringing it up several times, they sent someone to look at our garage door - I’m still waiting for that quote and finally just gave up and called another company.

The siding was an absolute nightmare. They told us they would not be able to do it until spring because they were very busy and it took awhile to get the product. When they finally reached out to us about the siding in summer 2023, we had a new patio being installed and needed to wait a couple of weeks for that to finish up because they started the siding in the back of the house. We finally got back on the schedule. However I think they had too many projects going at once because they would send one person to work on it for a few hours every day. After a couple of weeks of that, they sent a crew to try to finish it up. When they got to the front of the house, they realized they did not order enough siding!!! So, all worked stopped for about 4 weeks while they ordered more. They left our yard a mess during this time and left a pile of siding pieces, supplies and just trash in our driveway. My husband cleaned it up after calling them several times to see if they were at least coming to pick up their tools. Then they got the siding, we had to wait to be scheduled and AGAIN not enough was ordered!! So, another 4 weeks or so of the same. When the rest of it finally came in, they sent a crew to finish it up. However, they were horrible. Large marks left on the siding, nails sticking out and they put on our house numbers crooked. It was awful! It took us multiple calls to get someone to come fix it. Finally our siding was done in September 2023. We recieved a bill, paid it and hoped we were moving on with our lives. But, in November our sometimes project manager randomly stopped at our house asking us to sign a completion form. We did. Then in January we recieved a very large additional bill from First Call. We reached out and the accounting person we worked with was very responsive. After some back and forth, we figured out that they were attempting to charge us for work from the insurance scope of work that they did not complete (things like the garage doors)! (If the bill wasn’t so large, I probably would have paid it just to be done with them. I wonder how many people do that). They updated the bill removing those items. Then we had to go back to our insurance because there were additional items not already in our original payments. It was a giant hassle! Finally March 2024 we are done with First Call and will never be a...

Two stars instead of one because the receptionist was very nice! I called First Call after being referred by my insurance company to come give a quote on our roof for hail damage from May 16. The receptionist was very nice and helpful. She told me someone (I will not mention his name) was going to give me a call to set up a time to come out. I had to reach back out to them a few days later because no one had called. The guy called me and set up a time to come for June 3. I wasn’t able to be home when he came so requested pictures be taken of the roof so I could see what it looked like. He took down my email and told me he’d send me pictures, but I never heard back from him. I called First Call twice since then checking in while at the same time being understanding of how busy they were after this storm. This last time they told me the guy was in a quick meeting and would call me back. I have yet to hear from him and found out that he never even came to my house to inspect it that day. I understand this is a busy time, but the communication on their part (besides the receptionist) has been very disappointing. I had heard great things about this company and was hoping to do business with them but I was forced to call another company who was happy to take my business. I’m sure their actual work is great, but you can’t get work done without the communication piece.

UPDATE: A day after I left the review the original guy called and left me a message apologizing for not getting back to me and asked if I still was interested in services. The owner called me today apologizing for the incident which I very much appreciated! I did already go with another company, but I do appreciated him...