CalWater Solutions

Two words: stay away! We had nothing but complications, setbacks, misunderstandings, inadequate communication, and ultimately had to ask another qualified company to take over completion of our rainwater catchment project. Note in another review — «unforeseen complications» and «cost was higher» and «job took significantly longer». .. these happen when expectations are not managed. What should have been a clean and straightforward project wasn’t. Work that was already done had to be redone. Materials needed to get the work done were not adequately anticipated to be ready and on site. Argh — this was a nightmare and ultimately the problems became a complete distraction from the project and become personal and unprofessional. Stay away.

Brent & Calwater Solutions are a standout team — one of the few during a 3 year new construction effort that met (and actually exceeded) expectations. First, Brent knows his stuff. He gave great advice on the project design, and when I asked questions, did extra research to come back with thoughtful answers. He was more than capable of «geeking out» with my «how-​to» and «why» questions. For instance, how to create an self-​correcting system where housewater supplements graywater for days where the graywater output is below a threshold. And, allow web-​friendly monitoring of that solution.
Second, Brent meets his timelines, and executes the project with minimal guidance, asking good questions and offering suggestions, but requiring zero management (what a relief for construction). He actively solves «integration problems», figuring out how to work with others /​patch things with the existing house teams.
And last, Brent really cares about the outcome of the systems he installs, and your overall satisfaction with the house. When I had a related plumbing question — one which did not involve his work — he graciously offered to look into it to give me peace of mind. He also made great recommendations on drought-​friendly plants and other related planting techniques. I think I have one of the few green lawns in my area, and it’s well below the water use thresholds…
Brent is a great guy. You’ll be happy you chose to work with him. A real bright spot in my overall new home construction.

Brent was very knowledgeable about rainwater systems, and made the necessary efforts to complete the job to expectations despite some unforeseen complications. His hourly rate seemed reasonable, although the job took significantly longer to complete than he had anticipated, so the cost was higher than some other estimates I’d received. Brent also tried to upsell me repeatedly, and quoted some surprisingly high numbers for a simple laundry to landscape system, for example. However, overall I was satisfied with the result and felt confident the job had been completed in a professional and competent manner.

Brent Helm and his crew did an outstanding job on my multi-​family Victorian in south Berkeley. His professionalism, integrity, in-​depth technical knowledge and pricing was impressive beyond expectations. I highly recommend CalWater Solutions to all my friends, neighbors and colleagues.

Rainwater & grey-​water recycling is the right thing to do. During an extensive remodel we finally pulled the trigger on an integrated system in tight quarters behind our home in Palo Alto. We found Brent & the team at CalWater to be honest & extremely hard working. Though the project was large (6000 gallon rainwater system, 300 gallon greywater system) Brent was able to work within our complicated building/​permitting schedule to make the installation successful. We appreciated his ‘can-​do’ attitude, as well as his extensive knowledge of rainfall averages, tank sizing, salvage solutions (ie French Drains) and system design. It seems inevitable that as water become scarce, it is only a matter of time that their business of water recycling sees its deserved renaissance.

We met Brent at CalWater Solutions and were psyched to finally get to implement some water conservation in our new home. He was great at explaining different options on how we could offset our water dependency and allowed us to choose from several different options to meet our small but worthy budget. He listened to our vision and ideas and we had him install both a rainwater harvest system which captures water from our roof and also a greywater reuse system which allows us to reuse our bath, sink and laundry water for irrigating our yard and flushing our toilet! The system works great and our water bill has been reduced by 75% due to the fact that we reuse our water. All the plants and fruit trees that we are watering are flourishing and we don’t even turn on the hose. The entire system was sketched out and he gave us a schematic while walking us through step by step so that we could maintain it ourselves. What an amazing concept, why isn’t everyone required to do this?

Brent came in and did a water conservation presentation for my 5^th Grade class in Alameda. He opened their eyes to engineering and cool new ways to conserve water. He’s super nice and his projects look great! Thanks for coming in Brent!