A O Handy

Very well! They worked very hard to get the job done before the weather turned and worked diligently until it was finished. The work was done well and I am very pleased!

Great, looks better then before.

The rep showed up and looked at two of my chimneys from the ground (both are 3 stories high) and in about 10 minutes time determined that I need to have both of them rebuilt.  I paid $50 to have someone come out for a sales pitch.  This is great work if you can get it.  Drive around collecting $50 and providing quotes.  I'll look elsewhere for my next chimney review.

I needed to put in a concrete barrier. Andrej came by and gave a very low estimate. I was initially concerned about the low bid. I was also concerned about the low scores from other reviewers on Angie's list. I noticed however that many of the reviewers had not actually used Andrej's services and were simply concerned by his low bid or maybe his accent. Who knows. 
Needless to say, I had Andrej complete the work. He did a great job on the concrete. He came back after a couple of days to repair spots in the concrete that I did not notice and did not care if the spots were repaired. Andrej insisted on making the repairs. 
I have used Andrej on second job already. He did a great job on the second concrete project too.

At the end of the inspection I was positive that I was not going to use him. He gave me like a huge laundry list of things that needed to be done. After he was finished he said that it would cost me $15000. There was no way all of this going be $15000. It was like these little things he tarried about because he wanted to get paid as the coupons were so cheap. He had no suggestions about minimum cost. The thing about him was he did not give us any options, everything he gave was for us to do things. There are always levels of priority and I did not get anything at all from him.

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Andiry came out a couple of times.  I finally decided to do concrete (I had been debating on whether to replace with landscaping blocks).  its about 40 feet long, 3 feet wide, needed to be pitched correctly, and the old walkway had to come out.  Andiry came out on a Saturday (on time) to write the contract, and started work 2 days later.  It was done 5 days later.  It looks great, and the work site was cleaned up.  there is a bit of a language barrier, but it's easy to work through.

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Excellent work taking out old cement between large stones on landing and steps and reapplying cement.  They also tuck pointed the whole stairway structure which is quite large.  They did this over three days, were on time and reliable.

As all the other reviews mention, Andry can be difficult to understand due to the language barrier and accent. When I called to schedule an inspection for a quote, he just said he would be in town on Sunday & would call me when he would arrive. Instead of calling to say he would be there in an approximate time, he called when he was outside the house, which was unfortunate because I had just run to the store and had to turn around immediately. When he came back out to sign the actual contract/invoice, he did call to give me an approximate arrival time so I could plan to be home. The original quote was written on the back of a business card. If it wasn't for the other reviews, I would have dismissed him outright.
I had a corner of the foundation that was seriously cracked and chipping away. It was mostly a stucco exterior, but the underlying concrete was damaged too. He came on Sunday to sign the contract and came back on Monday to do the work. I came home from work that day to find him cleaning up after restoring the entire side of my foundation. It was beautifully done and looks like solid work. The only downside is that it doesn't match the other 3 sides because they have a "roughed up" white stucco look. He told me that I could easily paint the concrete to match, which I may or may not do. I like Andry's work much better than the original look of the white stucco exterior. It's a nice seamless piece of work.
I regret not taking a "before" pic because he took a worn out, crumbling slab of foundation and made it fresh & new.

He came and inspected our brick exterior, and gave his opinion about what should be done to repair and maintain the brick exterior.  He gave an estimate to repair the damaged bricks as well as rebuilding the chimney from the roof up.  

seemed like an expensive estimate and suggestions to do more than may have been necessary.
They could be correct in the long run but for now I'm trying which seems like a reasonable, more cost effective solution suggested by another contractor.

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We are undertaking an extensive exterior renovation of our c.1927 Tudor Revival and badly needed masonry restoration represented Phase I.
This was our first experience with a provider found on Angie's List and we were very pleased. I received a very prompt response to my initial request for an estimate and in comparison to other quotes we obtained, A O Handy was most in line with the extent of restoration we felt necessary as well as within our budget.
The work began within a few days of our having signed the contract and continued daily until completion. I was especially impressed with the crew's punctuality and how respectful they were of the jobsite. They tidied up  the work area everyday before they left.
I was also impressed by how well they were able to match the color of the new mortar to that contained within the existing grout lines. They also cleaned up the unsightly repairs where the previous homeowner had attempted to repoint sections of the brickwork himself years ago.
In summary, if you're looking for quality, old world craftmanship, I would strongly recommend AO Handy. It truly was a pleasure dealing with Andy, his son Arthur and the rest of the crew.
I am hoping the next phases of our exterior renovation go as well as the masonry restoration did.

$50 for a chimney inspection. After repeated emails someone gets back to me months later. Guy drives ups and I meet outside. He looks up at my small furnace chimney (frost is spalling the bricks) and says we'll that for $1500. Don't you want to go up an look at it I asked (I had a ladder ready to go. Nope he said. And that was it. I later learned he gives estimates for free. Waste of money. 

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Started and completed in timely manner , cleaned up brick ,removed side porch and reinstalled.

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I used them through a big deal on Angie's List. They are in the middle of doing the work. I am satisfied so far. They are very friendly. Their timeliness and responsiveness was good. The cost of the project will be $2000.

They did a fine job, however, getting in contact with them was incredibly frustrating.  When we finally did get them, they would say, "We called you," but if they did, they did not leave a message.  My husband gave them our house phone, cell phone, email address, etc. and still it was very hard to get a hold of them.



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|Another thing that was nerve wracking for me was that they showed up with other people and wandered around our farm a couple of times, taking pictures.  And they brought their dog who would bark and made our dogs bark, too -- plus they hooked her/him to the pasture fence a few times which made my animals nervous.



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|They were very friendly and worked well when they were working.  Once they started the job, they finished it in a timely manner.  However, because it was so difficult to contact them, they lost out on another job that we had.  They wanted to do the whole job (we would have liked them to do the brickwork) and gave us a quote for everything -- however, we wanted to deal with the contractor we'd already started working with -- he said that he would subcontract with them so they could do the brickwork (this is before we had really tried to work with A O Handy).  After trying to contact them numerous times, and some of the other unease about their wandering around the farm, we decided to go with a subcontractor that the contractor knew. 



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|As far as using them in the future -- if we had a small job, my husband would consider them, he really liked their work -- as long as it wasn't something that had to be done in a timely manner since we wouldn't know how long it would take them to get back to us.  My husband flat out said, "Please leave a message, so that I know that you called and when you plan to be here" and still they didn't.



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|I don't know what the cost of the service was -- I'll have to ask my husband, who is not available this week.

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He was punctual and polite with a slight language barrier given his strong accent. His inspection was rushed and felt lacking, when it came to details. Especially since I had to encourage him several times to take note of specific concerns I had about certain areas that I felt were necessary for a thorough checkup. I was also concerned that he wasn't taking any notes or measurements of any kind. When the inspection was over, he briefly declared what work would be needed without offering any thorough explanation. He was also supposed to send me a clarifying estimate for the work to start in the spring, which I have yet to receive.

It's still a little tricky, but I thank him for not saying I needed a new door and masonry work.  Very honest and easy to talk with.  Highly recommend.

I was very impressed with the quality of the workmanship and their openness of my thoughts on the project. They were extremely thorough in explaining what was going to be done and why. They needed to set up scheduling for the chimney repair with my neighbors; they took care of arranging this with my neighbors all on their own. He did a very thorough follow up after the service.