Austin & Ruxandra from Toronto

We used Otto Masonry to replace pillars on our front porch that over time were leaning out.  As the long term goal is to enclose the front porch, Otto suggested we replace the pillars with steel posts siting on concrete footings below the frost line as this would give us more space at less cost..  We got a reasonable quote from Otto and decided to proceed.  During the project we asked Otto how the steel would be protected from rust etc.    His team found a solution by encasing the posts in "Blue skin".  They then went another step by inserting  "SONO Tubes" around the posts and packing them with concrete to ground level.  The team was extremely professional and completed the projected well in time.

We started exploring the option of lowering our basement after we found out that we could not install any flooring other than carpets ( which we did not want). We interviewed a few companies and realized this was a complicated business. Thus we turned to some of the bigger names in the business. We selected RCC as they were willing to work around our requirements as opposed to the other underpinning contractors telling us what they did and we had no option. This was tough call to make as the other companies only did underpinning but RCC seem to specialize more in water proofing and did underpinning as well. So while the other companies were up-front with what needed to be done and provided the service for a fee, RCC needed to research things like what is required to get a permit, how you go about getting a consent from the neighbour ( as ours is a semi-detached house) and we had to do these ourselves. There was comfort in knowing that there was no collusion but there was the hassle of making a few trips to the city hall to get the required papers. RCC was very cooperative with respect to changing the contract to indicate the liability coverage for us and for the neighbour. This initial stage of the project took at least two month to get resolved at which stage we signed the contract and paid our deposit. The work began exactly on schedule Oct 3, 2012. The crew was very friendly and knowledgeable and had supervisor by the name of Michael. They worked from 8 to 4 each day and left every evening leaving the area clean. A few adjustment had to be made with respect to the position of the new steel pillars and RCC worked with the engineers to get this right as well as meet our needs. We were promised that the work would take 4 to 6 weeks. Thanks to the knowledgeable team and the fact there were no surprises once the digging was done, the job was finished on Oct 29, 2012.