Yes, Soozd, I do invest my time to try to get design jobs (that means I do not charge for initial meeting). However, that is something that you or I would have to do if we had more inquiries than time to invest. It does weed out some good serious folks among those lighter inquiries, but it leaves ONLY very committed people in the market pool and recovers the expense of dealing with those less serios folks. I did work for a LA/design/build company that had a very high profile garden center on the south shore (MA). We had an average of 30 calls a day in the spring from people who wanted us to come out and meet with them about their landscape. When they were told about the $45 consultation fee, 2/3 of them would not continue. That left 10 calls a day to pursue. Those consultations would last about an hour. We often did quick sketches on site with graph paper and Prismacolor, but you could not keep them or copy them. Then we would go back to the office and write up contracts to either do a simple install or for design. That can take considerable time. While this is going on, we were also doing design work for those who hired us for that, and were were managing the jobs that were being built at the same time. When you consider how long it takes to construct a landscape, usually weeks, it should be clear that there is no possibility of constructing all of the work that is asked about. You would be faced with ways of filtering down the amount of work you do at every stage until it is managable at each of those stages. If not, you'd be faced with having three years of work booked in March. How professional is taking work on that you can not do for three years? That was definitely an extreme case, but that system was perfect for them. I worked for, and continue to do some work for, a very high end company that six to seven digit landscapes. The jobs are big and take months to complete. They do not do a lot of jobs each year because they are large, tightly managed, and involved. They don't advertise in a big way, so the numbers of inquiries are low and generally from sources consistant with the market in which they work. In other words the leads are usually of high quality and there are not many of them. There is no charge to meet with clients, although they are generally extremely wealthy. That works just right for that company. But, if you call from an area inconsistant with the type of work that they do, you will be subtly told to go somewhere else because they value those 5 hours of invested time managing the jobs they have and don't really want to take the work crews off of those higher production jobs to do a less productive job if they were to get it. Again, I don't see why someone can not take the time to do a mass email response to people once a week, or to put a staff member aside a time to return calls. However, you can imagine that each person calling wants to make a case for their job or wants some advice. It is rather difficult to make one of these conversations short without seeming rude. Then you have to do it over and over for each. I think I can empathise with those who will blow some of these off, if they are in big numbers. These are just some reasons why some charge for consults and others do not. Everyone's circumstance is different and it is not all about trying to milk as much money as possible. It is actually a way to manage the office's time by affecting the source of the work instead of the production end of it.

Sit down because I'm jumping right into some science. This is for your husband to help understand why the bridge idea is not going to help you. Normal soil has an open pore structure that allows air and water to pass through it. Inside this structure lives 10s of thousands of species of beneficial microbes which thrive on the open pore structure. These microbes are Mother Nature's invention. As it turns out the species of microbes living in swampy land are different from those living in dryish land (lawns). When you allow standing water to stand for several days, that cuts off the air flow to the beneficial microbes and their populations begin to decrease. If this happens enough, normal grass will thin out and stop growing. They will be replaced by swamp grasses like nutgrass and some others. So it is important to keep the water from pooling on your lawn. Back to the issue... If your community has an ordinance that says homeowners must drain all water from their own property and not allow it to cross over onto a neighbor's land, then all you should have to do is call your city code compliance officers and make them deal with it. If you live in the savage west, then you might have to do it yourself. Talk to your neighbors and ask them to berm up their land at the fence to keep the water on their side. Since they already dug the ditch, they are unlikely to bend to your wishes. So when that doesn't work, berm up your side of the fence and push their water back onto their property (see how they like having standing pools of water!!). Six inches of berm would normally be plenty. Planting a lawn in the spring is not the best idea, but if you really have to you have to. If you can afford sod, then that should be better, but if you were planning to seed, I would not spend a lot on seed for a spring installation. What will happen is all that new grass will find itself competing with crabgrass which also sprouts in the spring. Your grass seed will be less hardy than the crabgrass and will thin out in the summer heat. It is not uncommon to have a full crabgrass lawn by July. It is much better to seed new grass in the fall because crabgrass seed is not sprouting then. It also gives the new grass all winter and spring to develop heat tolerant roots. Now a word on forum etiquette. This is not your thread. The original poster had a problem with soil structure. Your problem is neighborhood drainage. You should have opened a new topic so people who want to help you don't have to read through someone else's problem from last year - which is really not your problem. I also suspect you will need some advice on planting your lawn (spring? or fall - either one). Now is the time to ask, so post a new topic! When you ask about planting a new lawn, please mention specifically where you live. The zone system is not good for helping with lawns, so give a town or zip code. And if you want more help on the neighborhood drainage issue, I would still post a new topic with your new questions. This forum seems to have a lot of opinions about neighbors '-)

Just wanted to post a follow-up.... We chose #3, for the following reasons: 1) Showed up to do the estimate armed with 8 pages of local references, WITH addresses, names, and phone numbers. 3 local references checked out fine. 2) Estimate was in the ballpark of the others 3) He was the only one who said that he wouldn't have to ruin the carpet to do the job. 4) He was the only one willing to do a sump pump. 5) His estimate included R-13 not just R-9 insulation. The result: Very, very happy. Yes, there has been a bit of nickel-and diming on the contracting company's part, but nothing terrible and the one small item on which we quibbled, there was a good reason why it became an extra charge. They did all the demo and cleaned up, they covered the carpet with plastic, they used the existing framing from the paneling, the sheetrock, taping and spackling and sanding is spectacular. They did 8 high hats, they installed 2 4' baseboard oil-filled electric heaters, they redirected the ONE heat vent into the room, they put in a new laundry room door, 2 new storm doors, new slider windows, and the pump. 2 other things that set this company apart: 1) GREAT communication. They give you a user ID and password to a job tracking web site where you can print your permits, receipts for materials, and get time projections for the job. 2) LOCKBOX. They put a realtor-type lockbox on the door so only those with the combination can get in. We're very happy with this company and plan to bring them out again to do the rest of the remodeling we need as money suffices.

Hi Chris: Our problem ended up being the window sill of the second floor window, the one above the leak. The top surface of the sill should be angled slightly downward, away from the house, so that water runs away from the wall. Ours was tilted very slightly upwards, so any water that fell on the sill ran back into the brick wall of the house and ultimately into the ceiling above the first floor window. A brick mason replaced the second floor window sill and that fixed the problem. They also did some other work: ground out the existing mortar above the window lintels and added weep holes, and added star bolts to keep the wall deflection from getting any worse. But the direct cause of the leak was the angle of the window sill above the leak.