Hauser Home Improvement

We are remodeling a large 50 year old ranch house that we recently bought and discovered water leaked into one of the fireplaces every time it rained. We were warned to beware of contractors who want large deposits up front before they ever start any work.  Ryan Hauser sounded very sincere and knowledgeable when he gave us a free chimney inspection and quote.  He offered to do more work and at a better price than any of the masonry contractors that we contacted from Angie's List so we gave him a 50% deposit, $440, and were told he would start at the end of the next week when he the his first opening in his schedule.

Two weeks pasted without any sign of Ryan.  He did not return calls until days later and had excuses for the delays. About one month after giving him the deposit, we told Ryan that we had found another contractor and asked for our money back.  Ryan assured us that he would start that week and and complete everything to our satisfaction.  His price was about 1/3 of the other quotes that we had so we waited.  A week later with no sign of Ryan Hauser, we again called and asked for a refund since we found another contractor who could start in two days.  The next day Hauser came over while we were not there and removed the tops of all three chimneys, left the debris in the driveway and left; apparently staking his claim to our house and our money.

No sign of Hauser for a couple more days while rain really poured in from the exposed chimneys but he did return our calls to say that our chimney had a unique size flu tile that he was having trouble finding.  The next week I found Hauser on my roof with his wife spreading concrete over the tops of two of our chimneys - but had not yet fixed the one that had been leaking.  He had not removed and reset the large cap stones which had missing mortar joints and tipped at odd angles to the chimney but only filled and crowned the area between the flues on the top of the chimneys.  The roof was littered with rubble and mortar since he put nothing down to catch the debris and protect the shingles.

I told him I not pleased with his work and the that the cap stones were never reset and still looked terrible. He said that he had not noticed since it looked fine from above and he had not looked at it from below - honestly, that is what he said! It was late and he was leaving for the day so we told him that he was done and not to come back!  He never cleaned up the roof or the debris on the ground.