J C Masonry Inc

This was a difficult job with a high chimney and tight spaces. Multiple masons never returned calls after looking at the job. Mr. Castaneda was friendly and seemed professional. He initially quoted a low price for the work. Mr. Castaneda has good command of the English language. From this good start, things rapidly turned sour. After the 1st day, the contractor asked for more money than quoted (+25%). I thought his argument fair and agreed. I will grant that we had a tight timeline and very poor weather. Still, the quality of the work was poor -- voids in mortar large enough for 3 fingers, no thought to stone size selection, and a drop cloth actually mortared into the wall! Little effort was made to work clean and the contractor left with huge amounts of mortar litter, a pile of sand. The icing on the cake was that the contractor promised on 3 occasions to return and address some problems and never showed! I hate to put a blight on someone's livelihood but this company should not be doing business for general masonry. Maybe they are the greatest brick layers ever, but I wouldn't know.