Brick + Ember Outfitters

The inspection went well. We recently contacted them to come out and clean the chimney and inspect it, however he did not clean it. He inspected it, and went ahead to sell me a very expensive chimney cap which was not needed. He claimed it needed several hundred Dollars worth of repairs. At that point I told him I was not prepared to buy a new cap and to which he said it was not logical to clean the chimney until we had decided on what we wanted to do and have the repairs done, and he left. I had a second opinion and had someone else come out and inspect the chimney, and he told me that there was nothing wrong and I did not need a new cap. There was some minor repair work needed to be done, but it could wait until summer when it was warmer. I am not really thrilled with Masonry Outfitters. They were very good with follow up and everything else. I am just disappointed that when I called them to clean the chimney, they wanted to sell me something, and didn't clean the chimney.

We did go back and forth for a while trying to schedule and it took some time to find an available date. Punctuality was an issue, but only because of the weather. He completed an inspection that ended up only being an estimate for additional work that he recommended needed to be done. We chose to have him do the work. He put a chase cover on and did some masonry work on the top of the chimney. I have had a chimney sweep completed before, but I did not see any of the typical steps taken to complete that work. We did not see a $100 credit on the bill and he never did the chimney sweep. However, the work that he did seems to be good.

He did a nice inspection. He was very nice and gave me an estimate on some other work I needed to have done. The only part I had a problem with was getting a hold of them in the beginning but he was very punctual and was here when he said he would be. The work turned out well and I am very satisfied. He was here for about an hour completing the work.

They didn't fill in all the cracks in the sidewalk and patio. They said they would come back but they never did.

Once the appointment was scheduled everything went well. Had a little bit of an issue with trying to schedule an appointment with the office. I had to leave several phone mail messages and finally got results by emailing for an appointment. Then I never got confirmation so I didn't know if the service was going to happen until the guy showed up.

It went pretty well. Overall not a bad deal.

No response from provider to set up service I paid for.

It seemed apparent the company had oversold their deals with Angie's List and other vendors (I saw a few deal websites with their deals). They did not reply within 2 business days as they should have with RapidConnect and trying to get them scheduled was difficult. They even noted on their business answering machine that they were experiencing high volume due to selling lots of deals. We scheduled a Friday 9AM appointment for them to come over, and my wife took the day off work to be there for them. It snowed the night before and even though I'm sure they knew they would have little chance of being able to work on our chimney at 9AM, they did not call to cancel until 8:30AM, 30 minutes before they were supposed to be there. Now, I understand they can't work with the snow, but the snow had started falling the evening before. My wife had to take a day off work for almost nothing. She got other things done, but the whole purpose of the day was so we could have our chimney swept. We then scheduled a second appointment that got snowed out as well. We were given a little more lead time on the4 cancel (and they even tried another time period that day), but still couldn't get it done. Finally, on the third try, Sam was able to come out. He immediately noted that since we have a gas fireplace, he doesn't need to clean it. He still did the inspection and gave us a quote for repairing a rusting chimney chase. So, ultimately, I paid $79 for an inspection and, luckily, $100 credit towards repairs. Otherwise, this deal would not have been worth the price. Sam was diligent during the appointment and provided me pictures of the repairs he recommended, so I can't fault that much. He was there right around 9AM and the appointment was done in less than an hour. However, their apparent overselling of deals and lack of appointment-canceling courtesy lead to an overall Good, but not Excellent experience.

He set a date and had to reschedule a couple times due to weather which was completely understandable, and they were very good at communicating.

He went around the house and gave an estimate for areas needing maintenance. The charge was about $150 more than the big deal amount, which I thought was reasonable. The work looked good. There was one area of brick spalling where his estimate was unaffordable, so we skipped that. Later, I noticed a few gaps that he had missed.

My wife and I recently purchased our home and wanted to have a chimney sweep come in to inspect it. We purchased a $99 chimney sweep deal on Angie's List from Masonry Outfitters. Unbeknownst to us, the seller who sold us our home had already hired Masonry Outfitters to install a new flue liner in our chimney months before; so suffice to say, the chimney sweeping wasn't really necessary. Since I had already paid for the service anyway, I asked Kourtney (the owner of Masonry Outfitters) to inspect our chimney's exterior for tuck-pointing. There is indeed a need for the chimney to be tuck-pointed, and Kourtney gave me 3 estimates; the estimates varied because of the amount of work that would need to be done. Some options included replacing flashing along the chimney, other estimates were for the worst-case scenario (i.e. the bricks would have to be removed from the chimney, cleaned, and then re-laid). Feel free to contact me if you would like to see the estimates (773-366-2614). We have not actually hired Masonry Outfitters to do the work yet. For the record, I gave Masonry Outfitters an overall "B" grade because work was not actually performed. I gave "A" ratings for responsiveness, punctuality and professionalism. I gave "N/A" ratings for price and quality since there was no need for chimney sweeping. Angie's List would not let me give a "B" grade when my other ratings were "A" or "N/A", so I changed my overall grade to "A".

Very professional. Did not make a mess. Made reasonable recommendations for further service, which we will probably do. I was very impressed.

After 3 months of attempting to schedule I finally got on the calendar with this provider. A few days before my scheduled service call, I was asked to change my appointment time to convenience another customer. I chose to cancel and get a refund for the service that I had pre-purchased.

We knew we had deteriorating bricks and, through an Angie's List Big Deal, I contacted Masonry Outfitters for an estimate on the repair. They came out in the fall, cleaned the chimney, did a complete inspection, and provided us with a full proposal for service. We agreed to wait until January to have the work done because that is their slow time, and they offered a good discount for scheduling then. The crew (5 to 8 men) arrived on time each day (the work took 3 days, as they had estimated), and worked consistently all day long. The crew supervisor was professional, courteous, introduced us to each member working on the job, and kept us informed every step of the way. I had a little trouble getting Masonry Outfitters to call me back to schedule the initial appointment. Hence, the B on responsiveness above. But after than, I found them to be extremely responsive and professional. I felt very comfortable having them on my property, and I would definitely call them again for any masonry needs.

It went very good. Everything was all ice and they were very clean and thorough. They did nice work.

Performed the cleaning and inspection timely and professionally but quote for repairs seemed quite high.

I went to their website and selected three days that would be best for them to complete the work, but they never showed up on any of the days. In addition, they never called ahead to confirm these days as they said they would. Thus, I had the Big Deal refunded.

Everything turned out well. He was responsive when I called to schedule, acted professionally, and kept everything clean while he worked. He did mention a couple of areas that could be repaired, but he didn't press the matter which I appreciated.

Over the last couple of months, I have had consistent issues with contacting Masonry Outfitters to schedule an appointment. When they final did schedule, I had to call them 30 minutes after our scheduled appointment to find out why they had not arrived yet. They told me they would have to reschedule for sometime in February. Each time they rescheduled, they just assigned me a day without checking to make sure that it worked for me. I understand that this is their busy season, bu their customer service is completely unsatisfactory to say the least. I would like a refund for this Big Deal so that I can find a new company to work with.

They were terrific. I would give them all A's.

They found a lot of damage, which I kind of expected. They offered me 10% savings as an Angie's list member, but I could not use the coupon I purchased. They told me I should contact Angie's List for a refund. They provided a detailed estimate, but it was a little hard to understand. They did come by and explained everything to me. I did ask for picture of the repair they said they would do inside the chimney. I never recieved those but have not had any issues. That I am aware of, all the work was done as promised. I didn't have my normal chimeny service this year, so I don't know if they replaced the area of the lining that the pictures would have shown. From the outside view it's beautiful. they even installed a cap, I had bought to put on over my furnace vent, for me at no charge.

We called on three occasions after getting the coupon in September and finally made an appointment to have our chimney swept on Dec 13. When the rep showed up, he tracked snow into my den and inspected the chimney. He said that it didn't need to be swept, but we had other problems (which we were aware of). He talked about stuff I didn't need and stuff I did need. Fortunately, I was knowledgeable enough to know the difference. He said that he would email a proposal for repairs. So at that point, I ended up paying $89 for nothing. After another six weeks, they finally called to see if we ever received the proposal. I said I had received nothing and didn't care to pursue the matter and that I would like my money back. He said that I would have to contact Angie's List, which I did and I did get a prompt refund.

It was alright. It just took a long time to get it done. They probably need to work on their customer service, returning customer phone calls and getting the work scheduled promptly. The field guys did a good job. The field guys were very cordial and easy to work with.

Super! On time and done in two hours. Very clean, efficient and professional.

Overall our experience was good. We originally contacted Masonry Outfitters