Brighter Basements

The adage «You get what you pay for,» couldn’t be any truer than with Brighter Basements. Will you find a cheaper option? Yes. Will you find a more expensive option? Yes. Will you find a better product and installation? Not so sure about that one. Theo’s product and installation process was great. One day, one crew, no-​nonsense. With Brighter Basement’s structural engineering drawings, permitting was a breeze and the work passed without a second look. When I had some ground settling about a year later, Theo expressed genuine concern with the issue, was responsive, and his crew came out and took care of it with no problem and at no extra cost. If you’re bidding out egress windows, do yourself a favor by reading about Brighter Basement’s process, watch some videos of theirs, and certainly include them in your search for a contractor.

I had a great experience beginning to end with Brighter Basements.
I started by scanning their website and was primarily sold on completing all of the work themselves and not using contractors to do the digging or any of the busy work. I filled out their «contact us» form on their website and Theo called me within a couple hours to figure out what exactly I wanted and my concerns. He looked up my address on Google Maps to see if there would be anything preventing him from driving his machines up into my front yard and asked if there were any backup routes to get to the front yard. He gave me a verbal quote of $ 2,900 over the phone but also insisted on coming out and taking a lot to make sure everything was good.
We set up some time, he came out and looked around the outside of my house, asked what I wanted to do with the planter that was in front of the window, checked inside to check the wall, and gave me a written quote of $ 2,900 + $ 175 if I wanted a clear plexiglass type cover.
I decided on 01÷07÷14 that I wanted to move forward with it, he called me that day with the weather forecast open and said that Saturday, ⁰¹⁄₁₁ would be great weather. We scheduled that for bright and early 7:30AM.
They called 30 minutes before to make sure everything was ready. Construction started promptly at 7:30AM, and by 12:30PM the same day, Theo told me that they were all done and just cleaning up, I could go down and check it out. They left as they came and even moved the dirt to the side of my house to help with a grade towards the house.
The only thing is that window trim in the drywall wasn’t included in the work, it’s not a big deal for me because I can frame it myself with wood, but other than that they’ve got a process down and are very efficient.

This was a great experience for me. Now, part of it is the joy of having light in my basement… yay…but a great part is dealing with the company.
I scanned their website, liked what I read and gave Theo a call. He came out the same week on a Saturday, gave me a free estimate and told me I would have a window by the end of the day Monday. I liked the fact he doesn’t use unfamiliar manual labor to take all day digging the hole, so I hired him.
8AM Monday morning an energetic, friendly young man named Benny, knocked on my door and announced he and his partner Larry, were about to begin. For the next 4 hours these 2 very nice guys and 1 Bobcat poked away at my ground until a large hole was formed. Theo then arrived with burgers and a concrete saw. Several high decibels later my brick house had a large rectangular hole in her side. By 2:30PM I do a test climb out of my new egress/​escape window, watch Benny add the final exterior touches, and wave goodbye. I have a well-​insulated window, surrounded by a beautiful dark brown metal frame.
They cleaned up everything outside leaving no trace of their presence. (My basement is in demo stage so they didn’t need to cover or clean the inside.) It wasn’t as dirty as I thought it would be and most of the mess is outside. It cost me $ 2750 with an unattached metal grate on top. I am very pleased.