Groundworks Reviews: What the Ratings and Complaints Say

Groundworks is a legitimate, BBB-accredited company with mostly satisfied customers — not a scam. But it's also a private-equity-owned roll-up of dozens of formerly independent local waterproofing and foundation companies, built to sell through a "free inspection" funnel that never publishes a price list. Read the reviews below, get your own number first, and get a second bid. That combination is the actual protection — not which star rating you trust more.

Source: BBB business profile for Groundworks, LLC, checked August 24, 2026. BBB complaint counts change as new complaints are filed and closed — if you're reading this months later, pull the current numbers from the link above rather than trusting the table.

Of the 771 BBB complaints filed in three years, the overwhelming majority — 552, or about 72% — are service or repair issues: work that didn't hold, missed appointments, or delays getting a crew back out for a warranty fix. Customer service issues (151) and billing disputes (44) make up most of the rest.

325 complaints closed in the trailing 12 months against 115 locations works out to roughly 2.8 resolved complaints per location per year — a company this size generating some complaint volume isn't itself a red flag. What matters is the theme: it's follow-through on already-sold work, not deceptive selling. That lines up with what shows up in individual reviews too — technicians praised for the visit itself, then frustration if a callback for a warranty issue gets delayed.

Groundworks doesn't publish a price list, and its own site confirms why: every service page routes to a "free inspection," and the estimate only exists after that visit. That's not unusual for the industry — it's also not neutral. A quote built in your living room, on the day of a free inspection, is harder to compare than a published range you can check beforehand.

Third-party estimates exist to fill that gap. This Old House's own Groundworks review (last updated May 2026) puts crawl space repair at $1,500–$15,000 — a range that matches our independent 2026 encapsulation data ($3–$10/sq ft, or $1,500–$15,000 for a typical project). The overlap is a reasonable sanity check, not proof of what a Groundworks crew will quote your specific crawl space.

Groundworks isn't one local company — it's a private-equity-backed platform (KKR-owned) that has acquired dozens of formerly independent waterproofing and foundation repair businesses across the country and mostly kept their original local names. JES Foundation Repair, AFS Foundation & Waterproofing Specialists, Olshan Foundation Solutions, and Foundation Systems of Michigan all operate under the same parent. If a quote from one of those names feels like a local company, that's the branding working as designed — the estimate, financing terms, and warranty language usually come from the same corporate playbook either way.

• Price it yourself first. Run our cost guide for your size and condition before any inspection, so you have a number to compare against, not just a vibe.
• Get the free inspection — take the photos, skip the same-visit close. Our contractor guide covers the exact questions to ask and the pressure tactics to watch for, which apply to Groundworks brands the same as any other company.
• Get a second bid from a truly independent local contractor.Comparing two quotes from Groundworks-owned brands (say, JES and Olshan in the same market) isn't a real second opinion — it's the same parent company twice.
• Check the BBB link yourself before you sign anything. The numbers above are current as of August 24, 2026; verify the latest at the source before making a decision.

• Trustpilot. trustpilot.com blocked the automated fetch (HTTP 403) at time of writing. That's a fetch-access limit, not evidence the page doesn't exist — check it yourself before relying on this review for that data point.
• Groundworks' own reviews page (groundworks.com). Also returned HTTP 403 to the automated fetch. The BBB and third-party figures below don't depend on the company's self-reported numbers.
• Google Reviews aggregate. No reliable public API without a Google account; not included rather than estimated.

Is Groundworks a legitimate company?

Yes. It's BBB-accredited with an A+ rating and a 4.5-star average across 3,075 reviews. Legitimate and expensive aren't mutually exclusive — the complaints that exist are mostly about follow-through on already-sold work, not being scammed out of money.

Is Groundworks the same company as JES, AFS, or Olshan?

Yes — all are brands owned by the same Groundworks corporate platform. Getting quotes from two of them isn't a genuine second opinion.

Why doesn't Groundworks publish its prices?

Its business model runs on free in-home inspections that end in a same-visit quote, which is standard for the industry but means you can't comparison-shop in advance. Use published third-party ranges — including ours — to know roughly what to expect before that visit.

Is Groundworks more expensive than a local contractor?

We don't have Groundworks-specific pricing data to make that comparison directly — it doesn't publish prices, and we don't take money from either side. What we can say: large roll-ups typically carry more overhead (marketing, financing programs, corporate management) than a small independent crew, which is a cost that has to be recovered somewhere in the quote.