Key Contracting Inc

I had to put the water in, in my commercial building in Moorhead. It was problematic, because the water main was on the other side of the street so they had to bore under the street to hook it up.

Wow, these guys were terrific.

First of all they saved me money, quite a bit actually. They were there a little longer then they anticipated because the ground was wet and they still came in on budget.

Before I talked to Key Contracting, I had talked to another company. They made it sound like it was so much work. The other guy went into a yarn about all the things he had to do. He was like, I gotta put this down there, and I gotta do this and I gotta do that. I gotta I gotta I gotta. Like there so much load and work, the ground was going to crack because of the load on him. (And he wanted more money too, lots of it.)

Then, I met Tom, the head of the underground department at Key Contracting. He was just the opposite, made it sound easy, like a routine task. That made me feel comfortable. Right when they started the work, Tom said to me, "Will get her." And thats exaclty what they did. When your dealing with this guy, you really dont even need the paper work, he does exactly what he tells you hes going to do. The guy on the backhoe, Clint, was terrific also. Cheryl who runs the office was really top notch to work with too. At Key, they do exactly what they tell you they are going to do.

When your doing stuff like this, you worry that things can get out of hand. But these guys with all there experience, know exactly what they are up against, which is why they can be so upfront with you.

But the thing I liked best,(besides the money they saved me which was a lot of money really) is that they made me feel comfortable the whole time. And I really worried a whole lot less, as soon as I met these people at Key Contracting. You know, from start to finish.

You think you can do better someplace else? I doubt it, I really do. Key Contracting is a first class operation. Thanks Key Contracting, terrific job.

Being in an older home, you accept the challenges of upgrades and necessary repairs that come as the years go by. As far as sewer repairs go, that's completely out of my wheelhouse. Since we moved in to our home, we've had a couple sewer backups that were finally solved by using 1 ply toilet paper. Not the most comfortable, but it's better than clearing out a clog every six months. Any way, we had a routine checkup and saw there was a tree root that had collapsed the pipe. I asked the drain guys who they work with and they recommended Key Contracting.

I gave them a call and talked to a couple different people, but they quickly came out and assessed the situation. The cost numbers that were thrown out were a bit much, but winter was coming really soon and we figured once it's taken care of, we'd be better off. Clint was the man in charge and he gave us all the scenarios, if they had to dig into just our yard, or into the cul-de-sac.

Now here's where I was impressed with their being upfront about my options. Rather than give me the doom and gloom option of only having to dig into the cul-de-sac and costing way more than we budgeted for, as well as get the city involved, he saw a more affordable option. It was to dig under our driveway (leaving it intact) and boring into a manhole. The only caveat was that the city wasn't too keen on doing that anymore, but they said they'd make some calls and let us know. Nice to know that there are companies out there that won't just screw you over with the most expensive option.

Inside of a week, we had flags and spray paint on the lawn indicating where the utilities were and the proposed dig sites. My wife and I were excited to see one was by the manhole, but the other led into the center of the cul-de-sac, the more expensive option, yikes! A couple days later, my wife noticed their trucks and equipment outside, and they were coming toward the house with a mini-excavator. I went out and asked what was going on and apparently they were ready to start work before I had a written estimate! (I'll explain their reasoning later) I had them hold off until I heard from their boss (roughly 20 minutes later on the phone), who explained that they were going to bore into the manhole instead of the cul-de-sac so we were happy about that. I just wanted it done, so I gave the go ahead.

After a day and a half of work, Clint flagged me down and gave me the fantastic news that hooking up our new pipe to the existing pipe in the cul-de-sac was going to work out just fine, they just couldn't see beyond the tree root so they thought they'd have to go another way. This meant not having to bore into the manhole, thus saving us a couple thousand dollars! I was ecstatic because usually when the foreman flags you down, it's not good news, but this time, we lucked out.

All in all, the work took a couple days and my yard is a mess with tread tracks and some filled in holes, but it was explained very clearly that was going to be the case. Having this done in October, they were able to beat the snowfall, so that was preferable for them. Another plus, was they took out some dead bushes for me since they were so close to were they were digging, my wife was excited about that.

In the end, there really was just one hiccup along the way, which was not being notified they were going to start prior to getting an estimate. When I inquired about the estimate, rather than a traditional one, I was given a hard number that they wouldn't exceed. Sure that sounds bad, but it was the same number the foreman had guesstimated the cost would be around. The really good news, the grand total was about 1/3 less the hard number.

Ultimately, I'm sure there are other contractors out there, but I'm glad I went with these guys. They're local, honest, and up front about the process so you feel included every step of the way.

*As far as cleaning up once they’re finished, I did have to call to make sure they’d come and collect the brush and branches, and it was done inside of a week, no complaints here.

Left a bunch of junk in the neighborhood. Drove on people's lawns. And blocked traffic on a dead end street without any notice.

I get it, they're trying to do a job. I'm also trying to do my job, and I can get to it when the street is blocked with cement trucks.