The Fireplace Guy

Ben is an extremely nice guy. I am a small business owner and I hired him because I support small business and I really liked him when he came over to give us a quote. His price for the work was reasonable. He told me that he had done the same type of work for Benson Stone Company before he branched out on his own, so I trusted that he knew what he was doing. The day he installed the fireplace insert, he was prompt and seemed to do a good job. Unfortunately, as soon as he left, we lit the new fireplace and our house FILLED with smoke. It was awful, there was NO ventilation. After putting out the fire and airing our house out, we called Ben and he told us he knew what was wrong; that he had forgot to hook something up and he would fix it. The next day, he came back out and we used the fireplace without incident for the rest of the 2011 season. Fall 2012 rolled around and we called a chimney cleaner/fireplace company. Ben does not do chimney cleaning so we called someone else. After inspecting our set up, this person refused to clean our chimney because the chimney duct was not correctly hooked up to the top of the fireplace insert. It had been "jerry-rigged" to draw smoke up the chimney, but any attempt at cleaning it would dislodge the unstable set-up. Chimney cleaner left and then I called Ben. At this point, Ben told me "he is out". I don't know if that meant he was out of business or out of ideas to make our chimney work. However, to his credit, he told me to have the insert repaired and he would pay the bill. We then re-called the chimney cleaner/fireplace company and they spend an entire day removing and re-installing the fireplace insert. The bottom of our old fireplace box needed to be cut out so the insert would fit in the space properly and then the flue could be hooked up correctly. I was also told that we could have had a bigger unit if this would have been done in the first place. The insert unit we received from Ben will only take logs less than 16" which is kind of a pain in the butt. The installer told me that the bill for the labor performed was about $700. As far as I know, Ben paid it. I have never heard anything since. In a nutshell, Ben is a very nice guy. He is also honorable, as he paid to fix his mistake. However, I would not hire him again because I don't think he really knew what he was doing at our home. I am just glad that the "jerry-rig" did not fail and cause damages.