Chimney Conspiracy
Can anyone recommend a good chimney inspection and repair company for NOPO?
My girlfriend recently bought a house and we have wasted a month trying to get someone to give us an estimate on a little chimney repair and cleaning.
The first company we called made an appointment to give us an estimate. On the day of that appointment I waited all day and no one ever showed up. Two days later while I was home I noticed a truck for the chimney company we had called pull up next to the house. Iím thinking the guy is finally showing up to do the inspection. So, Iím watching the truck waiting for the guy to get out of his vehicle and come knock on the door. A few minutes pass. Finally the guy gets out of his truck and comes to the door. Iím all ready to let him do the inspection and give us an estimate, even though heís two days late. I open the door and the chimney guy hands me a piece of paper and says, ìHereís your estimateî. Then he just walks back to his truck. He didnít even wait for a response from me. Needless to say we decided not to hire a company that was two days late for an appointment and gives an estimate without ever looking at the chimney.
So we called a second chimney repair company to come give us an estimate. Well, today is the day theyíre supposed to be here and no one showed up. My girlfriend called and they claim they donít remember making an appointment with us.
Again we have decided to try a different company.
What the Hell is going on? Can anyone help us?
I wont mention the names of those two companies because I donít want to be a hater.
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good luck with that. i had a similar experience with general contractors awhile back.
As did we - I’ve called it Oregon’s own peculiar ‘the dog ate my homework’ view of doing business.
I do remember using British Brush for chimney cleaning several years ago, though…
Portland Chimney–they came when they said, did what they said, stuck to their original quote, recycled/reused everything they could, and cleaned up after. And two years later, the chimney is problem-free.
Nice chimney guy who gives People’s Food Co-op members a 10% discount, 503-288-0244. He did a great job on my chimney, but I know nothing about his rebuilding skills.
I also had a good experience with Portland Chimney a few years back… they came at the scheduled time, and the guy who did the cleaning and inspection was cool.
I recently hired Portland Chimney to do a Level 1 inspection on a house that I am purchasing. There are two chimnies and I was told that both would be visually inspected. After almost two weeks and several phone calls with promises to fax and mail the report, I received it. It came back clean, no issues. Not one comment. The FIRST thing I noticed when I pulled up to the house to look at it with my realtor was one chimney had a lean to it and was missing some morter in several joints. It was the first picture I took of the house. My whole house inspector noticed it - first thing. He noticed other issues that weren’t mentioned either, but this was the obvious one. My realtor was there for the initial chimney inspection by PC, she was a little surprised at the speed with which the person (who I was later told “well, he’s pretty much just a sweep.” I called initially asking for an “Inspection”.) took off after his work inside was done. After finally getting the report, I called to say that the report was obviously insufficient since everyone noticed the chimney problem at first glance and the guy they sent out didn’t…which pretty much means he couldn’t have looked at the chimnies externally. All I got was backpedalling and when they finally said they would reschedule and get someone qualified out to look, the first suggestion was on their schedule, when I told them that time was of the essence, they said they’d try to get someone out the next day and would call me to tell me - I gave two numbers. After most of the day went by, I called the office. The woman that was supposed to call me was gone and the inspector had just got back on the road from looking at the chimnies…supposedly…I am supposed to get the report faxed to me tomorrow morning, first thing. Not holding my breath.
I don’t want to sound like I wanted services more than what I asked for, but when you don’t even take two seconds to jot down a comment about the chimney issue, an issue that might lead to further work for the company, I might add, -add in the rest- and it smacks of a shoddy operation.
Well, the guy DID go out and look…at one chimney. Not the one I was concerned about. Here is my guess. They park across the street. They see the BIG chimney. They focus on the BIG chimney. They can’t see anything else. They find some problem…cuz I have called and said there was a problem, and they get in their truck and drive away. If they would only park in the driveway…the furnace chimney is STARING them in the face. Gotta love it. THis is PORTLAND CHIMNEY AND MASONRY INC.
We’re very unhappy with Portland Chimney.
Our chimney had some loose bricks near the top.
We checked with the BBB. No bad marks.
Asked Portland Chimney to review their quote before starting work. (They had sent someone with binoculars to evaluate and quote with out going on the roof.) We didn’t want any surprises. We were assured it was firm.
When they started the teardown, guess what? It needs to have even more extensive work. The price doubles.
The scaffold is up and the workers are there, so we go with their recommendation.
Now, we have leaks, two rooms with ceiling plaster damage. Portland Chimney covered the chimney with plastic and provided us an unsolicited quote to repair the leaks.
Perhaps PT Barnum was right. I just didn’t think I was going to be the sucker.