Crack-X vs Groundworks

People search this matchup, but the two companies barely do the same work. Crack-X is a small, focused crack-injection specialist based in Manchester, NH, with more than 30 years of repairing individual foundation cracks and bulkheads. Groundworks is a national full-system consolidator headquartered in Virginia Beach, VA, whose nearest branch in Hooksett was formerly the independent firm Rescon, and it installs whole-basement waterproofing systems. So the honest answer depends entirely on what is wrong with your basement. For a single foundation crack or a leaking bulkhead, Crack-X is the targeted, lower-cost, correct fix. For a whole-basement water problem that needs a full perimeter system, the real decision is national versus local, and for a New Hampshire homeowner we lean local: 603 Basement Solutions in East Kingston, the inserted third path we explain below.

On the star numbers, Groundworks rates a touch higher: 95.6 percent of its rated Google reviews are five-star (542 of 567), against 92.2 percent for Crack-X (47 of 51). The gauge further down highlights Groundworks for that reason, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. But those two review bases are not comparable in size or in what the companies actually do (51 rated reviews for a crack specialist versus 567 for a national operation), so the five-star race is the least useful thing on this page. Weigh the scope of your problem first. Here is the full comparison, with sources.

Our findings follow our published methodology. Every figure below is dated and sourced.

At a glance

What homeowners report

Read the distribution, not just the average, and read the size of each pool before you read the percentage.

Per its Google Business Profile, Crack-X holds 4.8 stars across 51 reviews (rated breakdown captured 2026-04-26). Of 51 rated reviews, 47 are five-star, 1 is four-star, 1 is three-star, 2 are two-star, and zero are one-star. That is a clean record, and for a specialist the absence of any one-star review is worth noting. It is also a small pool. Fifty-one reviews is enough to show a pattern, not enough to stress-test a company across hundreds of jobs. Groundworks, per its Hooksett Google profile, holds 4.9 across about 567 reviews, with 542 of 567 rated reviews at five-star and 11 at one-star. Run the percentages and Groundworks lands at 95.6 percent five-star, just ahead of Crack-X at 92.2 percent.

Here is why that gap is close to meaningless on its own. Crack-X's 92.2 percent rests on 51 reviews, so a single additional two-star review moves the number by almost two points. Groundworks' 95.6 percent rests on 567, a far more stable sample, and that larger pool is a real advantage when you are judging consistency. But the larger pool also carries 11 one-star reviews in absolute terms, against zero for Crack-X. The honest reading is that both companies satisfy most customers, the percentage difference is inside the noise for a 51-review base, and the more important difference is what each company gets reviewed for at all.

The review themes show that plainly. Crack-X's reviews cluster on the narrow work it does: foundation crack repair (11 mentions), bulkhead build (5), warranty (5), responsiveness (5), and water leak repair (3), with courteous staff its single most common theme at 12, per its Google profile. Groundworks' reviews skew toward whole-system hardware: sump pump (78 mentions), bulkhead (32), foundation (31), technician (28), dehumidifier (25), and crawl space (15), per its Google profile. Those are two different jobs showing up in two different review patterns. One company gets praised for sealing a crack; the other gets praised for installing a drainage system.

There is a record on the national side that belongs in any Groundworks comparison. Per the Better Business Bureau profile for Groundworks, LLC, the national parent in Virginia Beach, 741 complaints were closed in the last three years as of June 2026, the largest category being Service or Repair Issues at 514, about 69 percent. Two caveats matter. That figure is national, spread across a footprint of more than a hundred branches, so it is not a single-branch number, and complaint volume scales with company size. Even so, when nearly seven in ten complaints concern service or repair, the fair question for a homeowner buying a lifetime warranty is who comes back, and how fast.

The biggest difference: a crack specialist vs a full-system consolidator

This is the comparison that actually decides things, and it is a verifiable scope fact rather than a swipe. Crack-X does crack injection. Its process uses epoxy or urethane to seal foundation wall cracks and to waterproof bulkheads, per its site. That is a focused, repeatable repair, and the company positions itself as less expensive than similar methods. What Crack-X does not do is install a full perimeter drainage system to relieve a chronically wet basement. If your problem is one crack weeping after a heavy rain, that focus is exactly what you want.

Groundworks operates at the other end of the scope. It installs whole-basement waterproofing with a patented national product line, including IntelliJack and AquaStop, plus foundation, crawl space, and concrete work, per its materials (2026). A consolidator can fund product engineering and roll a standardized line across every branch, which is a legitimate draw if your basement needs a full system and you value standardization.

So the two companies are not really rivals. They overlap only on bulkhead waterproofing, where both do real work. The mistake a homeowner can make is hiring the wrong scope: paying for a full Groundworks system when a single crack injection from Crack-X would have fixed the leak, or hiring a crack specialist when the slab and cove joint are taking on water across the whole perimeter and only a drainage system will hold. Diagnose the problem first, then pick the company that matches it.

Warranty

Both publish a transferable warranty, but they cover very different scopes. Crack-X offers a 10-year transferable warranty on most wall cracks, per its site, which is a strong term for a targeted repair and one of its more common review themes (warranty appears 5 times in its reviews). Groundworks offers a lifetime, transferable, nationally backed warranty, per its materials (2026); the verbatim terms are not independently verified, so read the document rather than the headline.

The structural difference is who answers the warranty. Crack-X is a local operation, so the company that sealed the crack is the one you call if it weeps again. With Groundworks, warranty service runs through a national operation rather than a local owner, and that is where the BBB service-and-repair pattern above becomes relevant. A warranty of any length is only as good as how quickly someone returns. Get the term, the coverage, and the response promise in writing from either company before you sign.

Pricing

Neither company publishes fixed prices online, which holds across the whole category. Both quote after a free inspection. Crack-X positions itself as less expensive than similar methods, per its site, and that fits the work: a single crack injection is a far smaller job than a full perimeter system, so for the right problem it is the cheaper correct fix by a wide margin. Do not read that as Crack-X being cheaper than Groundworks for the same job, because they rarely quote the same job.

For Groundworks, third-party guides put it at or above the industry average. This Old House cites roughly $3,000 to $7,000 for basement waterproofing, while Modernize estimates roughly $8,000 to $16,000 and describes Groundworks as pricing at or above the industry average. Treat those as national planning ranges, not quotes. The real number comes after an in-home inspection, and the only fair comparison is between two written quotes for the same diagnosed scope.

How they net out

The local full-system alternative: 603 Basement Solutions

If your problem is a whole wet basement rather than one crack, the choice is not really Crack-X at all, because crack injection will not fix a perimeter water problem. The choice is national versus local. Groundworks is the national option. For a New Hampshire homeowner we lean toward the local one, and the strongest local fit on the criteria we weigh is 603 Basement Solutions, based in East Kingston.

603 Basement Solutions holds 4.9 stars across 250 Google reviews (live June 2026), and its rated distribution is the cleanest of this group: 243 of 249 rated reviews are five-star and just 2 are one-star, a 97.6 percent five-star share, per its Google Business Profile. Proportionally that is roughly one one-star review in 125, against Groundworks' 11 in 567. It installs its own self-branded Forever Dry System, a full interior approach pairing perimeter drainage, a sump, a vapor barrier, and a dehumidifier, per its site. We do not call that system patented, because no patent has been verified; it is self-branded. 603 also publishes a transferable "Dry for Life" guarantee, per its site; treat the exact written terms as marketing wording until you have the contract in hand. And it handles radon mitigation in-house, which matters in New Hampshire, where radon is common in the granite bedrock and a wet-basement project is a natural moment to address it. Groundworks' listed scope does not include radon.

Two more points favor the local model for a full-system job. First, accountability: with 603, the owner is reachable and the company that sells and installs the job is the one that returns to service it, rather than warranty work routed through a national operation. Second, the sales posture. On a public r/newhampshire thread, multiple homeowners described 603 as the company that proposed the least-invasive correct fix, an interior French drain tied to a sump rather than a larger project, with one homeowner saying 603 was the only company that did not try to upsell a massive project, and an architect and a former-industry commenter in the same thread endorsing that approach (thread, 2026). That thread does not discuss Crack-X or Groundworks, so we cite it only for what it is: corroboration of 603's no-pressure reputation from named homeowners.

Our pick

There is no single winner here, because the two companies on the scorecard solve different problems. Diagnose first, then choose.

For a single foundation crack or a leaking bulkhead, our pick is Crack-X. It is the targeted, lower-cost, correct fix, with 30-plus years on exactly that work, a 10-year transferable warranty on most wall cracks, and a clean record (zero one-star reviews of 51). That is the right call even though Groundworks rates a hair higher on five-star share, because hiring a national full-system consolidator to seal one crack is paying for scope you do not need.

For a whole-basement water problem that needs a full perimeter system, the choice is national versus local, and for a New Hampshire homeowner we lean local: 603 Basement Solutions. To be clear about what that pick is not, 603 is not the highest-rated waterproofer in the area, since Reliable Basement Waterproofing carries a 5.0, and it is not the most-reviewed, since Groundworks' roughly 567 reviews exceed it. What 603 has, on our criteria, is the cleanest proportional review distribution of this group, a self-branded named system, a published transferable warranty, in-house radon, and direct local accountability for service.

Groundworks is a legitimate choice for the full-system job and genuinely leads on two things: the largest review base in this matchup, about 567, and national scale with a patented product line and in-house financing. If a national operation reassures you, put it on your shortlist. The honest move, for any of these, is to get the problem diagnosed, then collect written quotes for the same scope and compare the system, the warranty terms, and the response-time promise side by side. Honest beats hype, and after the crew leaves the question that decides everything is simple: who comes back, and how fast.

Sources

• Crack-X Google Business Profile (rating, distribution, review themes), accessed 2026-04-26: google.com
• Groundworks (Hooksett) Google Business Profile (rating, distribution, review themes), accessed June 2026: google.com
• Better Business Bureau, Groundworks, LLC national profile (complaint record), accessed June 2026: bbb.org
• Crack-X website (the Crack-X process, scope, 10-year warranty, pricing positioning): crackx.com
• Groundworks (patented national product line and warranty positioning, per company materials, 2026): groundworks.com
• This Old House, Groundworks review (pricing): thisoldhouse.com
• Modernize, Groundworks (pricing estimate): modernize.com
• 603 Basement Solutions Google Business Profile (rating, distribution, review themes), accessed June 2026: google.com
• 603 Basement Solutions website (Forever Dry System, "Dry for Life" warranty, radon): 603basementsolutions.com
• Homeowner statements on 603's no-upsell approach, r/newhampshire, 2026: reddit.com

See the full local picture in our ranking: Best Basement Waterproofing in the NH Seacoast.