Gress Masonary & Tuckpointing

Price was fair and work was completed as promised.

The house is a 100 year old brick home with a full stone basement. The craftsmen were prompt, arriving at the designated hour each day. They worked the entire day. At the end of each day, they cleaned up the work site as though they had finished the job. It was obvious they took pride in their work. They worked on the project until it was completed. They did not leave to work on other jobs. They were efficient and careful. Whenever I asked questions about their tasks, they took time to explain, thus allowing me to gain an appreciation for their craft. Ron Robitsch provided a detailed bid and carefully reviewed the bid with me. When we encountered unexpected problems (which I anticipated might happen), Mr. Robitsch discussed with me and provided a written estimate before proceeding. Since they did the work, various people who have seen it have been complimentary. I plan to hire them in the future.

It took a while to find matching bricks but once found job was completed.

They went above and beyond, they did an excellent job. The job ended up extending to more than what they were anticipating in the bid, but they held to the bid.

The crew seemed very professional, competent and efficient. They spread a tarp on the roof to catch the old mortar pieces and dust and hosed down the roof after they took up the tarp, This left the work site looking the same before and after the job. They were friendly and seemed to be well equipped and competent. .

It was a very nice job. They cleaned up after themselves very, very well. They were very professional. Their foreman, before he left, made sure he was still there when I got home and made sure he went all the way around the house and showed me exactly what he did at every point. He said, "If anything goes wrong, let us know." He was very thorough.

He did the work three days after we phoned him. He matched the old mortar exactly. He left the work area completely clean. It is a very good feeling to have someone be so efficent ,professional, and caring. I highly recommend them.

The workers arrived early in the morning, worked all day, and did an excellent job grinding, scraping, and tuckpointing the entire chimney. They gladly answered any questions I had, explained what they were doing, and checked in with me on a few details as the job progressed. I was pleased with their demeanor and their workmanship, and would gladly hire this company again.

The company showed up on time, had a full crew, worked diligently all day and completed on time. Clean up was good.

They finished the work and told me that they would not be back until Tuesday and they did not come on Tuesday. However, they called me to inform me that they had to power wash in several other homes. I spent $7200 out of which the porch was $3500. They were very nice. They were fast. There are still a couple of spots that I am not particularly happy with, but they said that they might have to rebuild it to get rid of those spots. I don’t know about the price because I think they were a little high. I think they should have dug out here and there and out new steps which they did not. When I called them to complain about that and they came back and convinced me. They were professional. When I told the owner about it, he said it would take a lot of money to dig and put it in. I told him that it should have been through in the money I had already paid. I will use them again in the future as I know I can trust them.

Chose Steve Gress even though his bid was higher than another bid because he was very thorough in showing me all of the things they were going to do. I was convinced he would be more thorough than the other bidder. What I soon learned is what he told me and what he told the foreman to do were two very different things. I had to do quality inspections of the work throughout because they didn't address the spots that Steve had committed to address. The foreman would relay his frustration because Steve was telling him to get in and out as quickly as possible and to do no more than he had to. Original bid received 4-6-07 and accepted 4-18-07 with promise of work being completed by 5-31-07. First wave of work was not completed until 8-07 and final work until 11-07. Company was very unreliable in terms of getting the crew out in a timely fashion. The quality of the work was terrible. The caulking around the pool had to be redone 2 times because it was done so sloppily. It was embarrassing to look at and even after the final redo looked worse than when they started. It is now a year and a half later and the mortar used on the tuckpointed has totally crumbled. I just had to pay another firm $2100 to come redo the sidewalk that was just done by Gress 18 months ago. I've had 3 different contractors tell me that Gress used the wrong kind of mortar which is why it crumbled. Steve Gress stopped by my house during the summer of 2008 to see how the tuckpointing was holding up and he saw that it was crumbling. He promised me he would send a crew out to redo it but it is now a year later and he never did. Basically, the $16,000 was totally flushed down the toilet and I now have to pay somebody else to redo this work.

The office personnel was great, call bks timely & actual work was great also. Paid a lot of attention to detail and work was done in a timely manner. I would recommend the company again. Clean up could have been better.

Crew was on time. Did excellent work. Crew was friendly and polite. Clean up was great! Competitive pricing.

A generally disappointing experience. During the course of the work, large amounts of sand & mortar were washed down the driveway to a sump at the base of the driveway, causing the sump pump to fail. I spoke to Steve Gress daily during the job & from these conversations it seemed to me that he was not aware of the actual progress of the work (which was being done by his crew, not by him personally), or the problems we had encountered with the sump pump. At the end of the job, we negotiated a discount to cover my cost for a new sump pump. The tuckpointing & brick repair seem to be of good quality, but the overall experience was disappointing for us.

WORKERS WERE FRIENDLY AND PROMPT. IF I COULD DO IT AGAIN I PROBABLY WOULD HAVE SPOTTED THE BACK INSTEAD OF HAVING ALL THE MORTAR SCRAPED AND TUCKPOINTED BECAUSE THERE WAS A HUGE PRICE DIFFERENCE BUT I WASN'T SURE HOW WELL IT WOULD MATCH. A FEW SPOTS WHERE THE MORTAR COULD HAVE BEEN WASHED OFF THE BRICK BETTER.

HIS PRICE WAS GOOD, BUT HE DID A HORRIBLE JOB. HIS SUPERVISOR WAS VERY POLITE AND PLEASANT TO DEAL WITH, HOWEVER, THE WORKMANSHIP WAS REALLY BAD. THEY DIDN'T DO THE JOB RIGHT AND LEFT A MESS ON OUR EXPOSED AGGREGATE DRIVEWAY. THEY CHIPPED BRICK WINDOW SILLS AND GOT MORTAR ALL OVER MY DECK, ON THE AWNING AND ON OTHER THINGS. I SPOKE WITH THE OWNER ABOUT THE PROBLEM AND HE SAID "WHAT DID YOU EXPECT FOR THE PRICE?". I TOLD HIM THAT I DIDN'T EXPECT MY PROPERTY TO LOOK WORSE AFTER THEY CAME AND I DIDN'T EXPECT TO SPEND MORE TO REPAIR THINGS THEY DAMAGED. I FEEL HE WAS BEING SLOPPY BECAUSE HE KNEW I WAS SELLING THIS HOME, BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, HIS WORKERS DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO TUCK POINT.

IT WAS VERY PLEASANT, VERY PUNCTUAL. DID A GREAT JOB AND ALL THE WORKERS WERE POLITE. I LOVED THE GIRL.

SALESMAN, MARK WENT TO MY MOTHER'S HOME. SHE HAS ALZHEIMER'S. HE THEN CALLED ME FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE TO TALK TO ME ABOUT THE WORK. HE FURTHER TOLD ME THAT HE KNEW MY ROOFER RANDY. RANDY DIDN'T KNOW HIM AT ALL AND SAID ''HE GOTCHA MARY''. THEY SAID THEY DO WORK FOR THE ST. LOUIS CARDINALS. I AM A SINGLE MOM ON SSI DISABILITY AT A POVERTY LEVEL INCOME. I WAS GIVEN THE SCARE THAT THE BRICKS WOULD JUST GET WORSE AND LIKE I SAID THE TUCKPOINTNG WOULD CURE THE ONGOING BASEMENT WATERPROOFING PROBLEM. THE FOREMAN DEBBIE WAS FRIENDLY TO ME AND I STILL QUSTION WHY THEY GOT UP ON THE ROOF WITHOUT CARRYING PROPER INSURANCE PAPERS TO SHOW ME. WHAT SHE SHOWED ME WAS OUTDATED. THERE WAS A CREW OF ABOUT 5 LABORERS. THE LAWN BECAME MUDDIED AS THEY KEPT THE HOSE RUNNING AND LEFT SOME CIGARETTE BUTS AROUND EVEN THOUGH SHE TOLD THEM NOT TO. THE PRICE WAS OUT OF LINE FOR WHAT THEY DID AS I HAVE THREE OTHER BIDS. A NEIGHBOR TOLD ME HE PAID $3,000 FOR THE WHOLE HOUSE. I HAD JUST A SMALL AMOUNT

WORK WAS DONE WHILE I WAS OUT OF TOWN SO THERE IS SOME DOUBT AS TO THEIR PROFESSIONALISM, ETC. ALSO, SINCE MOST OF THE WORK WAS HIGH UP, I REALLY HAVE NO IDEA HOW GOOD IT MAY OR MAY NOT BE. THEY DID KNOCK DOWN MY CABLE WIRE AND DESPITE BOTH MY NEIGHBOR AND I CALLING THEM ABOUT IT, THEY DID NOT RETURN TO PUT IT BACK UP. THEY ALSO LEFT MY GANGWAY FAUCET GUMMED UP WITH CEMENT, PUT A HOLE IN MY GARDEN HOSE, AND THREW IT INTO THE MIDDLE OF MY BACK YARD. THEY DROPPED TAR FROM THE ROOF REPAIR AND TRACKED IT ONTO THE SIDEWALK AND UP MY FRONT PORCH STEPS. I WOULD BE HESITANT TO CALL ON THEM AGAIN, PRIMARILY BASED ON THOSE THINGS WHICH MAY NOT HAVE HAPPENED IF I HAD BEEN HOME AT THE TIME. I DON'T WISH TO BE UNFAIR TO THEM, BUT CANNOT, UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES, GIVE THEM AN ''EXCELLENT'' RECOMMENDATION.