Ed Bennis Chimney Repair & Masonry Restoration

Bennis is a local chimney repair company. Tim came out, inspected the chimney and a provided a very thorough estimate of the needed repairs. It was more detailed and accurate compared to the estimates from other companies. The price to do the work was very reasonable. They came a little bit ahead of schedule which worked out better for us. Felice took his time and did high quality repair work, including removing all debris and doing a thorough clean up when finished. I was very pleased with this repair service. total time to complete the work start to finish was about 2.5 hours.

They were very professional and helpful. This being my first time owning a house with a chimney they walked me through how to safely use it and pointed out things that I should repair. I would definitely use them in the future and recommend them!

Arrived promptly, got the job done with no fuss. Reasonable price.

I was happy with Ed's work! They showed up on time & put tarps down to keep my house clean. They worked quickly and efficiently. Ed and Scott were also very nice and professional. I will absolutely use Ed Bennis Chimney again!

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The price was a bit higher than some of the other quotes received, but the service was worth it.  The crew worked efficiently, did a real nice job, and cleaned up the work site when done.  They even took steps to help protect the lawn by laying down some wood planks to help since the ground was pretty soft and muddy.  The chimney is now the best looking feature of the house!

On New Year's Eve, a squirrel invaded our living room, coming down through the chimney.  Luckily, I was able to get him out without too much damage, but I couldn't understand how he got in, since we do have a chimney cap.

On New Year's Day, I called Bennis and explained the problem to their voicemail.  To my pleasant surprise, they called back on Saturday, January 2nd, telling me that they had an opening today, Monday, January 4th, and they needed my permission to come on our property to examine the cap.  I readily called back and gave them permission.

They arrived on time, and examined the cap, which was faulty and completely open on one side.  Within 45 minutes, they had replaced the cap with a much more secure version (my husband took pictures) and gave us a very fair price.

We would highly recommend them for any chimney repair work.

Excellent. Arrived on time and they took care to be very clean as they worked. They secured our fireplace screen to the stone on our fireplace, something we didn't even think to ask if they could do. Very good service. Will use them again.

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I had a recommendation from a family friend for Ed Bennis Chimney Repair and Masonry.  I needed stone pointing done on a retaining wall and stone porch.  As soon as I contacted them for a quote, they were very responsive and actually made an appointment to look over the work with me and talk it through. I got a quote from another mason for the same job and they did not meet with me before providing the quotation.
After I received both cost estimates from the two contractors I contacted, I decided to use Ed Bennis because of the recommendation I had received and because I believed they knew the job better since I had talked it over with their estimator.  I called up and scheduled the work over the phone, which was about a month out on their schedule.  This is the one thing I would do differently in the future. I should have mailed back a signed copy of the estimate as there was a line item on the cost estimate that I opted not to proceed with.  I verbally mentioned this over the phone, but I think overall for the communication, things would have worked out more smoothly if I had sent it in writing.
Before the work started, they dropped off a sample board so I could choose what color mortar I thought best matched the existing so I wouldn't end up with bright contrasting mortar of the new work next to the old.
The workers did a really nice job. I was impressed right away with how good the work looked.  I did have a dispute about some of the work performed, but it was resolved well with Mr. Bennis and I am happy with the entire experience I had with Ed Bennis Chimney Repair and Masonry.  They conducted themselves very professionally.  Mr. Bennis was extremely fair with the resolution to the issue.  The issue had nothing to do with the quality of the work and is related more to communication than anything else.  I would certainly use Ed Bennis again and recommend him to family and friends.

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We purchased a 100-year-old house in the summer.  The previous owners said they had never used the 3 fireplaces.  So we had Bennis out to inspect them and let us know what work would have to be done to get them operational.  Bennis charged us $375 for fireplace cleanouts and inspected what they could from the inside but could not get on the roof because it was raining.  So they said they'd have to return to complete the inspection.  In the meantime, though, they sent us a proposal to do such work as "rebuild fireback" and "install smoke tite in smoke chamber."  The proposed cost for the work was $3400. 
I call them to say that I'd be happy to pay $3400 if that would leave us with working fireplaces, but my understanding was that they didn't know if the fireplaces would be operational because they hadn't completed the inspection.  They agreed that they couldn't say whether the work they were proposing would make the fireplaces operational or not.  They also agreed that they'd have to come out to complete the inspection before they could give us a responsible proposal.  So they came out again and spent an hour or two poking around.  The inspector said that a lot of work would be required and told us to expect a revised proposal shortly.  It never came.  I called several times to follow up.  On some calls they said they had no record of a second visit.  On others they acknowledged that they had returned for the complete inspection and that they'd be getting a revised proposal out to us "any day."  We never received the proposal, or any further communication from them, and at some point I just gave up. 
I spent a lot of time with them and find it amazingly unprofessional that they never sent us an accurate report and proposal.  I think it's even worse that they sent us a proposal that was based on insufficient information.  I could very easily have accepted that proposal and paid $3400 only to discover that additional $1000s would be required to actually make the fireplaces operational and safe.

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We hired Bennis to repoint portions of two exterior walls of a stone house.  While the staff was punctual and responsive to my concerns, the quality of the work was not up to par.  The first mistake was that they did the wrong wall, the workers having misread their own estimator's drawing.  They did not charge for the extra day it took to do the correct walls.  The biggest flaw is that they did not use mortar that in any way matched the existing house and the technique was not nearly as good as the original.  When I realized this after I had paid them (I mistakenly thought the mortar would dry to the correct color), to be fair, they offered to re-do it, but for a variety of reasons, we decided that re-doing new mortar it would cause more problems than just leaving it.  Although the people were very pleasant to deal with, I cannot recommend their work

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Bennis was very responsive to an urgent situation where a PGW technician, on an inspection and meter exchange visit, turned off our gas water heater because of "bad ventilation" through our aged brick chimney flue. On assessment, the details of a lining proposal were given with a conditional clause for chimney narrowing, if found, costing additional $350. Narrowing not found. My initial phone call for an assessment was Thursday, June 4 and the liner was installed on Monday, June 8. The workmen arrived on schedule, covered our floors with tarps, cleaned up a lot of debris, and turned the hot water heater back on at the job's conclusion. The new ventilation attachments are very nice, look sturdy and secure with smooth masonry applied. Very pleased. My mother-in-law had a comparable job done on the chimney of her home in Brookline, MA about 4 years ago for $1500.00. Our price matches up; seems very fair and reasonable.

They are first class and they are in business for a lot of years. Work was excellent.

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It went very well. We had actually planned on having him come and give us a second estimate. When he came out, he said this is what you need and I can do it now. He was very clean, wore booties, thorough, quick and inexpensive. He was very friendly and pleasent to deal with. I would highly recommend him.

We bought an old house with 3 fireplaces and, at the recommendation of our HVAC contractor, had Bennis in to checkout out the fireplaces, determine whether they are operable, and, if not, tell us what would be needed to get them working.  So Bennis came and cleaned them out for $125 each and then sent us a proposal that described such work as "rebuild back wall of fireplace" and "install smoke tite" and gave prices of around $1100 per fireplace.  
That seemed reasonable enough so I called with the intent of accepting, but also to ask a couple of questions.  My principal question, of course, was whether the fireplaces would work fine once the work was completed.  And the surprising answer was: "Oh, I don't know.  We can't say that.  We didn't get up onto the roof because it had been raining, so can't say what condition the flues are in.  You might need more work."  Needless to say, we weren't interested in paying $3400 for fireplace work with no guarantee--or even good reason to believe--that the fireplaces could then be used.  So I asked them to return to complete their inspections and then give me a bid on all work that would be needed to get the fireplaces in working condition.
They returned in not too long and spent a couple of hours doing a more thorough inspection.  When they left they told me that much more work was required than what they had put in their initial proposal and that I should expect a detailed revised proposal in a few days.  That was over 2 months ago.  I've called five times to ask for their proposal.  Each time my query elicited a different response--from "we have no record of anyone being out to your house and don't know what you're talking about" to "Mr. Bennis is reviewing the details right now, even as we speak, and we'll be putting the complete proposal in the mail this afternoon or tomorrow
at the latest."
Well, I still haven't received anything and I'm not planning to call again.  So on responsiveness, Bennis gets an F.  But the greater concern involves their first proposal: I could easily see myself having accepted that proposal and paid $3400 for, in effect, nothing of  value.  What type of chimney contractor proposes a $3400 project without having first checked out the chimneys?

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