Terra Nova Engineering

Terra Nova Engineering is a 5-​Star Business!!! Sheila replaced and certified our sewer lateral in Richmond without a hitch. We live out of state and were overwhelmingly impressed with Terra Nova’s quick response, competitive price (including City fees) and professionalism. Bonus: locally owned business. Highly recommend!!!

Terra Nova is a well run engineering and sewer construction company. They designed and implemented TWO sewer laterals for me. They beat the quotes from other companies. One job was over 30 feet long and relatively complicated, and they did it well. Even with unexpected problems coming up, they didn’t increase the price.
They also understand city rules, permits and regulations. They even called me months later to remind me to get my city credit refund check!
If you have to fix or upgrade your sewer lateral in the Bay Area, just call these guys — they are the best in the business!

I Highly Recommend Terra Nova Engineering!
Superb Service — Shelia was very helpful with excellent knowledge and a Great Attitude.

I received an estimate from Terra Nova for a sewer lateral replacement in Berkeley. I ended up going with another company because I also wanted to get some other plumbing done, but I wanted to leave a positive review because I had a great experience with them.
Sheila was responsive, nice, and clearly knew her way around Berkeley’s regulations and compliance requirements.
The estimate was detailed and informative, and the quoted price was very competitive. They also do free estimates, which should be standard for uncomplicated sewer laterals. Beware the places that charge $ 150+ for a camera inspection just to get an estimate.
If you need a sewer lateral replacement in the East Bay, Terra Nova should be on your short list.

Needed to replace my sewer lateral. I went with Terra Nova because
1) Excellent communication
2) Very competitive bid
3) Local to my city
Am very happy I did so. The work was completed quickly, on-​time, with no damage to surroundings. All area was left clean. Highly recommend.

They did a great job on my trenchless sewer lateral replacement. Very low price excellent service. I am leaving this review because I stumbled on this when I was looking for the phone number to give it to a coworker who needs his lateral replaced. Sheila and Mirko do great work and are a pleasure to work with.

Awesome company, awesome service! Terra Nova communicated well with me, and replaced the sewer lateral beautifully and the asphalt on the street (a steep grade) looks superior to my neighbor across the street who went with a cheaper company and had to have the work done twice!
I recommend them highly!

Sheila and her team recently completed a sewer lateral replacement at my property in Richmond. Sheila has excellent knowledge on underground utility repair. She responded to all my inquires professionally and in a timely manner. She provided all the information I needed for claiming a city-​owned tree damaged case. Her fees for the job was adequate and worth for the quality of service.
One thing I especially want to endorse was their professionalism in working in a difficult environment. Unfortunately, I have a hostile neighbor complaining about the job; he was harassing the team and even called the police in trying to stop the job. However, it was not a problem because the team had the city permit in place. The construction staff was not discouraged by the harassment, and dealt with it in a professional way. They continued the work under safety and completed on time, and to satisfactory.
I highly recommend this business if you are looking for a qualified contractor to resolve plumbing issues in the Richmond area.

I met the owners of Terra Nova Engineering, Sheila and Mirko, in May of 2007 at my open house. The sellers of this Richmond Annex duplex had already hired them to do their sewer lateral work. My sellers researched all the geographically desirable companies and were very happy with their work and the price. I had to try them myself. They exceeded my expectations! I had been using several other companies for the previous 20 years and had no idea what customer service was all about until I worked with Sheila and Mirko. They are very professional. They are also very connected with the officials of the local municipalities which cuts through all the red tape, respectful, competitive with their pricing, punctual, organized, hold my clients hands through the process of getting their bond money and offer a senior citizen discount. Their crew is friendly and approachable. I recommend them to all my clients. What can I say? They are the BEST OF THE BEST!

Terra Nova Engineering just completed a sewer lateral replacement at my home in Oakland. We knew the lateral wasn’t compliant when we purchased the home back in December. We had 5 different contractors/​plumbing companies come out and give us bids. We were referred to Terra Nova by a neighbor who had them perform sewer lateral work a few years ago and were very satisfied with their work. Together with a competitive bid and our neighbor’s referral we chose to go ahead with Terra Nova. Great communication before, during, and after the job as Sheila confirmed start date and provided updates via email and phone during the work. Our job was far from a normal scope of work as our main line connection was 13 ft deep in our backyard. Mirko and his crew worked for 16 hours the first day to ensure that we would have our sewer hooked back up that same day. They finished the job about halfway through the second day. Very polite non-​smoking crew who also did a great job restoring our backyard to it’s pre-​construction state.
Would definitely recommend using Mirko, Sheila and the team at Terra Nova Engineering for your sewer lateral compliance needs.

This is for a job done in ⁰³⁄₁₃:
While they got the job done, I ran into a lot of issues with these guys.
When I initially dealt with these guys I’d have to say they were very accommodating. The terms of the purchase of my house were a little different in that I’d agreed to cover sewer lateral (something normally covered by the seller and done before transfer of the property). Because of this I had to file an extension with the city and give a deposit of $ 1500. When I spoke to Sheila, they’d agreed to let me pay them the difference, and have the city send the deposit check to them after all was said and done, which means I ended up paying for the certificate up front as well. An unprecedented situation, but nice of them to agree to.
They based the estimate of their cost off of a bid I got from another company, knowing from the estimate it was a big job, they couldn’t do better but they agreed to match the price. My issue starts here, in that they never personally came out to the property to inspect it themselves. The estimate they agreed to was replacement of the entire sewer lateral down to the street (140ft from in-​law and main house), and included the cost of the certificate.
On the day they came out to work on the property I couldn’t be there personally, and had to send someone to meet them. Instead of coordinating with him to get access to my basement, they broke in by forcing the latch. They also blocked off my neighbor’s driveway for most of the day until I got home from work, despite my neighbor personally approaching them and asking them to move their vehicle.
On that first day they ended up telling me the job was more difficult than they’d anticipated (this is what happens when you don’t actually inspect the property), so they had to re-​route through my basement and they were just going to try and do a partial replacement (a partial replacement??? When the original agreement was for the entire thing???). This first attempt failed to hold, so they ended up having to go back to replace the entire thing anyways.
On top of these things, I too had issues with their communication. When complications on the job arose, they did not confirm the actual amount of the additional cost. They promised to call and disclose this cost to me, but failed to do so.
Because of roadblocks they encountered because THEY didn’t do their homework, and the extra day it took them because they tried a shortcut, I ended up paying 31% more than the original estimate AND they did not cover the cost of the certificate as originally agreed.

Terra Nova Engineering did a good job on replacing my sewer line, but their communication during the whole process was poor at best. First of all, they did not confirm the actual start date on the work with me, and went ahead to file all the city paper works without my knowledge. They are now stuck with this job, and had to lower their cost significantly so I would keep working with them. Secondly, when complications on the job arises, they did not confirm the actual amount of the additional cost. They promised to call and disclose this cost to me, but failed to do so. Instead, an e-​mail was sent to me the next day with the bill 30% more then the original quoted cost. I tried calling and e-​mailing them to call me back, and all I got was more e-​mails and with quite a bit of frustrating, angry overtones.
Fortunately all was settled after a very long-​exhausting e-​mail chain. I don’t think they ripped me off, but I would appreciate better, less chaotic communication. 30% on top of the original bill is not a small amount, and any customer would deserve some sort of cost disclosure before the work is finished.

Terra Nova Engineering replaced my Sewer Lateral and they provided very professional service at a very fair price. They also helped me with the city grant application. Sheila was most competent and organized, and I really enjoyed listening to her calm voice over the phone! She made this a great experience!

Terra Nova Engineering just finished replacing our Sewer Lateral and they did a fantastic job. The quote was provided very quickly and despite the weather not cooperating, the job was finished much sooner than I expected. Sheila came over the night before and worked with our neighbors to clear the street around our house of cars to make room for the equipment. The crew showed up the next day right on time and worked efficiently to completion with attention to detail. I’m very happy with how this project turned out.

Despite indicating that I would probably go with a cheaper bid Sheila gave me great information that allowed me to evaluate a lower bid in an informed manner. She even sent me an example insurance certificate. In the end I went with a lower bid but really appreciated the advice. I felt I would get a better, more professional contractor with Terra Nova but sometimes a used car is all you can afford.

Sheila was very responsive and came out to discuss our project. She was very informative, and quickly provided a competitive estimate. She accommodated my request to get the work done before we left for vacation. Her crew was friendly, respectful of our neighbors’ property (our lateral is right on the property line), efficient, and did a great clean-​up job. We strongly recommend Terra Nova for sewer lateral repair/​replacement.

I live in Albany. Over the past few months I researched for a business to replace our lateral sewer pipe. When I called Tera NovaSheila came out within hours to look at the job and speak with me about my preferences and concerns. She provided an estimate within hours. Another month passed and I finally scheduled the work, again a very prompt response.
The work was everything I asked for, the price was the lowest of all the bids by hundreds of dollars, they used the trenchless method with no damage to our landscaping or sidewalk. Do call them.

Sheila and Mirko were super helpful, providing good advice and were fair and reasonable in their estimate. Sheila also went the extra mile to talk directly with the inspector as we tried to figure out how we would go about replacing our sewer lateral.