First General Waterloo Region - Property Damage Restoration - Kitchener, Ontario

Ken M.

The team at First General, lead by Michelle Austin, was terrific. Communication was first class, and the inevitable complications that arise in a restoration project were dealt with efficiently and fairly. Every member of the team and sub-contractors lived up to a very high standard. We thoroughly recommend them for your project.

Karen

First generel is the worst you could ever use. My place flooded from a person above and my insurance sent First General, Lynn and Simon. They tell you they work for you but they don't. They are out to make it the worse time ever. When you question them on the job they are doing or lack of doing and you bring your our contractor in. They lie and say they never heard that you had 3-4 inches of water. then they decide after 4 months they aren't doing the job and your insurance company just pays you out. Lynn from first General tells the insurance company your place is livable when it isn't and you can see in the pictures, it isn't. I meet them at the storage unit to switch it to my name and they brought a mini fridge to store we had and they left it closed for 4 month and it is all moldy everyone knows you have to leave a fridge open but First general isn't smart enough to know that. They told the insurance company all my contents are fine and nothing needs to be replace after water coming down from the ceiling and pretty much raining our home for 6-8 hours and ceiling feeling downing down on furniture and having 3-4 inches of water on the floor were furniture is sitting on. We have a new company dealing with the contents so I will let everyone know later how much is damaged since First general said they is no damaged contents. NO ONE SHOULD EVER USE FIRST GENERAL FOR ANYTHING BECAUSE THEY ONLY KNOW HOW TO DO IT WRONG 100%. PLEASE REMEBER THAT JUST BECAUSE THE INSURANCE COMPANY SENDS THEM YOU DON'T NEED TO USE THEM.
NEVER USE THEM. @firstgeneral

Joe

Go ANYWHERE else!!

Showed up unannounced twice. Needed to borrow our tools. Needed "a hand" carrying everything in and out of the house. Then left abruptly after installing galvanized piping for our water heater, leaving a HUGE mess behind. If you know water, galvanized pipe rusts in a matter of weeks... Then didn't care they'd done that when we complained. 6 weeks later our water was brown with rust. 7 months later the pipes corroded so much they leaked in our basement.

We wound up needing to rip out everything ourselves and have it redone. Turns out on top of all that they'd removed our hot water temperature thermostat mixer as well which is required by code so you don't scald yourselves or get Legionaire's disease in your water tank, and they cost 200$

EDIT to owner's reply:
The work was in Nov 2017, booked by Tarion through Brandon Boyd, and completed by a gas fitter named Nick.

Jennifer M.

Worst service of all time. First General was brought to us through TD insurance. Claim was initiated in April 2022. It is now December and looks like project still won't be finished until 2023. Constantly cancelling and showing up on wrong dates. Too cheap to pay for a carpenter so edges are unfinished. They broke the vanity and had to replace it. The wrong toilet was installed. Took incorrect measurements so the mirror that was purchased was too big. The list goes on. Please do not work with these people.

Margarita T.

We used First General after a water damage in our kitchen.
We liked them.
The project manager/estimator was Andrew. He was very available on the phone and e-mail, responded promptly and scheduled things quickly.

We had Tim, Ron and Olivia as our team for dealing with the water damage. They were on time, very pleasant to interact with and did a good job as far as we can tell.

I hope no water damage happens again in our house but if it does, I would call them again.

Kimberly T.

This company was hired by my insurance company. The woman that they sent in was not professional. Heartless in what we were going through. It was like she was here just to save the insurance company money. We kicked her out and told the insurance company this company would not be welcomed in our home again. They ended up calling First On-site and they have done a great job. My advice to this company would be not to rip home owners off because eventually everyone will just kick you out of their home. Good luck with your company if you continue like this. Home owner if you go through insurance and you feel like a company is putting the insurance company first then kick them out!!!

Dave K.

First General was called in after we had flooding in a finished basement room. The project manager (Andrew) was professional, courteous and kept things moving along while communicating any adjustments/revisions. Given the room had to be completely stripped down to the cinder block and concrete floor, there were a variety of services/teams involved to remove flood damage and restore the room to a state that was even better than before. Very happy and would recommend any day.

Stephanie K.

Amazing service

We didn’t know what to do after our basement flooded. Our insurance company sent First General and they helped us through everything. Everyone was professional and quick clean up!