Durham Masonry

To be honest I joined Angies List not really expecting to get anything out of it. After all for the price of joining I have lost more money doing other crazy things. But I must say, I most defiantly got my moneys worth already. I called Durham Masonry and Gerald Durham came out and gave me an estimate that was quite reasonable. Gerald's son Bill then came in with 2 other young men and did the work in about 2 1/2 days. They were all very polite and worked steady all day to get the work done. After the job was done they cleaned up the area and made sure everything was to my liking. The only negative (This did not bother me, but perhaps someone else) is that when you call them you mostly get a machine, but they do get back to you in a reasonable amount of time. I would recommend them and plan on them doing another project next year.

While my complaint cannot include my neighbor, we contracted this person together, so I will be referencing her work as well as mine. Mr. Durham met with me and my neighbor in early November 2013. I questioned him repeatedly about doing this work in the cold weather and the effects of the cold weather on this type of work. My neighbor and I were completely fine with waiting until the spring to get the work done. Mr. Durham said more than once, and quot;No problem - we work all winter.and quot; I paid him a deposit on 11/09/13 of $500 - work was to begin the day after Thanksgiving - no one showed - Monday, no one showed, and my neighbor called him. He wasn't even in town and was surprised his people had not shown, then called back with the excuse that someone was sick, someone didn't know to show up, etc. They finally started Wednesday and dug up my entire sidewalk, walkway, and my neighbor's. Then, the weather got cold, and he told my neighbor and me that they could not pour the concrete in cold weather - the very thing I specifically asked him SEVERAL TIMES! For the next three weeks (the ENTIRE HOLIDAY SEASON), no one showed, and our sidewalks and walkways (and her front porch) remained completely torn up, with their equipment left in the yards to boot! I called several times, and they finally completed the work two days before Christmas.

The work looked to be ok, although the concrete did not look like that of my neighbors' sidewalks. In February and March, my neighbor and I noticed that some of the concrete had lifted and the stone underneath was visible here and there in the driveway and along the sidewalk. We called Mr. Durham, and he came to view the damage. He told us that we were and quot;two of many of his clients who had complained about the concrete he'd used,and quot; and that he was and quot;very upset with Hempt Bros. (the concrete supplier) and would call them.and quot; He gave us a and quot;mini lectureand quot; on how concrete mixes can be bad, and that this is what must have happened. He later let us know that a representative from Hempt Bros. would be contacting us. A few weeks later, I found a business card from someone from Hempt Bros. and called. He said that the salt from the roads had and quot;meltedand quot; the concrete, that that was normal, and they would do nothing to try to correct it. He also insinuated that shoveling/snowblowing the sidewalks would cause this kind of damage. I called Mr. Durham, extremely distressed, and he repeated what the representative said - completely denying what he said in November about cold weather not being a problem, and completely denying what he said about all his customers being upset and the poor quality of the concrete. The sidewalks and walkways have chunks out of them, and look almost as bad as before we had the work done, never mind the awful condition of the work he did on my neighbor's porch.

Over the next few months, my neighbor talked with him about what he would do to correct the situation. He said he could have his people and quot;patchand quot; the holes, but that the salt would probably pull that up next winter as well. WHO WOULD USE REPLACEMENT CONCRETE THAT ROAD SALT CAN DESTROY??? I can also tell you that we had quite a bit of snow over the winter of 2014, and the sidewalks, etc. were barely visible for most of that winter, despite the snowblowing! So - how did the salt or the snowblower damage the concrete????

After a while, he just refused to call back. This whole experience has been emotionally draining for myself, and especially for my elderly neighbor. We live in a low-income neighborhood - we struggled to save this money, as she did. We thought we asked the right questions, trusted someone recommended by Angie's List, and we lost our money.

Bottom line - we told him we would wait till spring if the winter would be an issue - he said it wouldn't, then said the effects of winter damaged the concrete. What would a normal person call this kind of behavior?

I'm not sure what I would like to try to resolve this situation. He made it clear that he would only and quot;patchand quot; the damage. I believe a refund on the order of 10%, or $250, would be appropriate.

While I would like to avoid any personal attack against Mr. Durham or anyone who works for him, I will never be able to recommend him/them to do any kind of work for anyone who asks.

Additionally, this is our first experience with someone listed with Angie's list - because I am now out $2,500, and will probably have to spend that amount to fix the problems, I can't in good conscience recommend Angie's list to anyone as well, which is extremely disappointing, as well.

He came out in Dec and he said the weather was no problem. There was snow around our property so I didn't really see the results until which was in March. When the weather cleared, from a distance it looked great. They left half the concrete around the foundation, they didn't seal it. The job was not done properly. I look at the sidewalk and you can see the stones in the concrete. Not only can you see the stones, but the concrete is starting to crack. He did come and fix the stoop. He came over and he said to me, and ldquo;you must of shoveled to heavily or put too much salt downand rdquo;. The second time he told ME that I needed to call the cement company, but that's not my job. I already wrote him a letter explaining how I'm very unhappy. He wrote me back and basically told me that, that's the way it is and that he would come patch it. I wrote him back to ask him to please fix the problem. We did this back and forth a lot of times. I haven't heard from him for 2 weeks.

unknown

unknown

They have done two jobs for me. One as a subcontractor, building a three car block garage, including the footers and floor. I adjusted the job as we went, and they were very flexible and also reasonable.
The second job was much smaller, just a foundation wall replacement, which they did timely and well.
I would definitely use them again.

We decided to use Durham Masonry because of their reputation. Concrete is guaranteed to crack but they did a great job. I would recommend them to anybody. They were on time, they were professional, they cleaned up after themselves and they did the job.

He was excellent and have had no issues with the work he has done.