Butano Geotechnical - Watsonville, California

Homa M.

I never write reviews but we decided to do it this time so that no one else would have to suffer what we suffered at the hands of this firm.
We hired Butano to design our landscape retaining wall. After 3 months, they submitted a design to the City that came back with 13 pages of comments for just landscape walls. After speaking with the City we found out that their design had several major issues with the City's ordinances, which could not be fixed easily, nor approved or implemented. Butano did not follow up and did not provide us with any fixes even though our contract was supposed to include one free round of revisions and so we assumed they can't handle the project and they were walked away. But after 3 years they took us to a small claims court. We lost the case because they presented a forged contract with different scope of work and different payments schedule. We realized later that only the first and last page (with my signature) of the submitted contract to the court was correct.  Butano's owner is a con-artist. We had to pay Butano over $4500 for a job that was not done. We also lost $1100 City's permit fee, wasted lots of time and efforts and suffered emotional distress during the process. Interestingly we also found out that they had 4 other cases in the small claims court.  Later another firm which we hired had to redesign the walls completely based on the City's ordinance, and we received the approval easily and the walls were built.

J B.

We were required by the county to have a contractor approve our residential site drainage plan. Our GC had installed a French drain system and it was tested by a series of uncharacteristically heavy ‘atmospheric river’ storms this winter. Zero issues, all water drained away from the house.

Butano required us to remove the fully functional system, meet several times on our dime, and then install their swale system that broke down immediately in the next rain and held stagnant pools of water directly on our home’s foundation.

Dealing with Butano left us over $10K in the hole and they were unwilling to work with us resolve issues they caused on our property.

If we could do it again we’d definitely go with any other provider. It was so bad that my incredibly good-natured, optimist partner is now preparing to take legal action.

Pam S.

Response, professionalism and technical expertise was not what I expected. The initial report provided to Santa Cruz County Planning Department had minor errors causing huge delays in the permitting process. After several (7) months and lack of communication a meeting with all parties at the County offices provided an understanding so Butano Engineering could rewrite the report with satisfaction and a proposed approval for the permit process. The corrected report was very slow. Butano Engineering projected a specific timeline and could not meet the dates provided causing a huge delay in the project. This delay cost the property owner thousands of dollars not to mention thousands paid to Butano Engineering to correct the original error on the report initially submitted to the county.

Mehrdad M.

Butano Geotechincal Engineering provided a design that had major issues that didn't get the City's approval and they never followed up to fix it. Hired another firm to redo the design that could be approved and implemented. I absolutely do not recommend Butano Geotechnical.

threetoedsloath

Greg Bloom at Butano has been the fastest and most on it Geo Tech firm I have dealt with. Scott, one of the Engineers has been fantastic as well. Highly recommend.

Claire M.

Greg Bloom is an excellent soils engineer for anyone needs Soils reports for construction purposes!! HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!

Tida S.

We hired Butano Geotechnical for our new home, they are a great company to work with. Very professional and honest. 👍👍

Jack J.

I would like to thank and congratulate Mr. Greg Bloom and his entire staff for their unparalleled service, professionalism and always on time. It was a great pleasure to work with this company.