Avalin Design Construction Co

Fred Cohen is very kind gentleman. Fred is also patient, knowledgeable and helpful with answers to my questions. Fred, his office staff are professional. His workers are respectable and clean up after their work. It was such a pleasure working with them.I highly recommend them!
May 1st, 2020

This review is overdue but well deserved. Fred and his guys at Avalin did a great job in retrofitting by craftsman home. Of the multiple quotes received they are competitive in their pricing. The reason I went with Avalin is after speaking with Fred on his visit I realized he knows his stuff really well. No umms, no maybe's, no but's, he was able to answer all my questions straight to the point like a good instructor would. Gotta love someone that tells it how it is and not sugar coat it to get the sale. Always remember you get what you pay for, pick wisely and get it done right the first time.
Feb 12th, 2020

I had a wonderful experience with Avalin. As soon as we bought our 1916 craftsman we began getting quotes for a seismic retrofit. The house was not bolted and during the inspection we were told the concrete foundation wasn't in super shape. The bidding process was confusing. Alpha told us we needed to spend 60k to replace the whole foundation, Golden did a hasty bid and missed an important feature. Fred (owner of Avalin) came down somewhere in the middle in terms of what we needed and distinguished himself by his level of customer care. At the other companies the jobs are basically bid by sales people, so it is a huge plus to have the owner/engineer bid the job in the case of Avalin. We were so confused by the three vastly different bids that we hired our own independent structural engineer to come tell us what we needed. Lo and behold his advice matched Fred's most closely, so we hired Avalin. Our experience from there was as easy as could be. Fred got the job permitted, his workmen were professional, neat and courteous. During bidding it seemed like there was a brick masonry wall on the front side of the house meaning we couldn't retrofit that wall but could opt to replace (which we didn't based on the advice of the structural engineer). During the job it became apparent that the wall was actually in front of the foundation so that there was no brick foundation and we could actually do a total retrofit on all four sides of the foundation. Even though our quote was for 3 sides, Fred did the last quarter of the job without hesitation and without charging us a penny extra. After they were done everything on the outside of the house looked as it had before, ie there was no mess. The inspector passed the work with no issue. Compared to a lot of the bigger retrofit companies, Avalin is a little guy in this business. But that was exactly why we had such a good experience. Friends have had nightmares with the bigger companies that have dozens of crews and thus low quality control. With Fred, he has guys who have been with him for years and he as an owner/engineer oversees the work. I can't recommend him and his team highly enough. Service: Foundations
Sep 13th, 2020

I worked with Fred at Avalin Construction to do a CEA Brace and Bolt earthquake retrofit on my 1920’s home in Nov 2019. The people at Avalin were responsive to email and telephone calls. They scheduled a free estimate and promised to work with the CEA people to get me a $3000 rebate towards the construction work. Once we got approval to get started, we were able to get the work scheduled. When the retrofit work was completed in the basement crawl space, Avalin got the city inspector scheduled and we successfully passed the city inspection in April 2020. CEA then signed us off with no problems. Fred did all the required document submittals onto the CEA website for us. Thanks to Fred and the people at Avalin Construction for their professionalism. PS: They even filled out my insurance paperwork to get my earthquake premiums reduced. Thanks!
Aug 11th, 2020