MASONRY RESTORATION MASTERS

I made contact John Dwyer came out gave a price I accepted he came back out to tuck point cracks in mortar, reset loose bricks, fill missing mortar. He was here about 1.75 hours and said he was done. There were still cracks, some bricks just lifted up, joints still not filled. I said it looks like you missed some areas let me know when this repaired. 15 minutes later I went out to see how it was going he was gone. Called him no answer. He is a joke. His new company name is Masonry Restoration and new phone is 720-380-8899. Email: [email protected] Stay away from this guy do not waste your time.

Hiring John Dwyer and Masonry Restoration Masters has been a big mistake. I should have done more research. John convinced me of his “decades of experience” and I didn’t think the job was all that extensive. There were places that the brick mortar had cracked and needed to be tuckpointed. John's says that he is an expert at tuckpointing. His whole business is called "Masonry Restoration Masters"! John looked around and gave me a price. He came out the next week to do the job. It looked like he was doing well from what I could see. A couple weeks later, the house inspector for the new buyers pointed out several cracks in the brick that had been missed and that I still needed to get repaired. I called John and he said that it would be more money to come out and fix those!!! What??? I paid you $100/hr as an experienced professional, and you can’t come out for another half hour to finish the job? He now won’t return my phone calls. I have to find someone else to finish a half hour of work. I am appalled and very disappointed.

I selected Mr. Dwyer based on a prior Angieslist.com evaluation. I was uncomfortable with my initial phone conversation with Mr. Dwyer -- he claimed that he was "being assertive" by telling me he didn't want to know all the details on the phone (I didn't think the information I was providing was too extensive). I do give him credit for being accommodating schedule-wise, as we did have to reschedule with him due to concrete work being done where he was also needing to work. He was punctual, but the work was only "fair" in my opinion -- the bricks didn't fit in perfectly -- you can tell where the work has been performed. The mortar color did not match well, either. I have not had masonry repair done before, but I would certainly seek out a different company next time to see whether I'm too picky, or whether the repair could look more carefully "blended in" to the existing structure.

It went well.

John's company, "Masonry Restoration Masters," was referred to me by the home inspector we had hired to do a pre-listing inspection, after the inspector recommended we have some tuck pointing done, due to cracks in our house. Basically, there was a long crack line in the bricks, about a foot above the ground, running most of the length of the front of our house, plus some cracks in our brick patio in the back of our house. John was accompanied by his brother, Steve, and together they worked to dig out the old, missing or broken mortar in the crack, as well as pointing out to us a number of other small areas in our house experior which were in need of some brick repair/tuck pointing. They then installed new mortar, and were careful about creating a near perfect match in color compared to the original, 55 year-old mortar in the rest of the house. They came back 2 days later, allowing time to let the mortar set and completely dry. Upon return, they brushed/filed away any excess mortar and did some touch-up work all around. Two days later, John came alone to scrape out broken and cracked mortar in the areas of cracks in our brick patio, then filled those areas with a mortar to match. The work they did was excellent and upon inspection of the previous cracks, one cannot even tell anything was amiss at all, which is a sign of a job well done. The mortar is a near-perfect match to the old and any prospective buyers should just notice a clean, well-maintained and sharp-looking brick home, instead of noticing 15 feet of cracks in the front of the house! Besides their excellent masonry skills, John and Steve were very friendly and pleasant, willing to engage in interesting conversation with me while they worked and they were quite professional, as well. They were careful to close the gate each time to keep our dog from escaping and they even stopped to throw the ball in a game of fetch for our little dog.