McDowell's Complete Chimney Service

McDowell went all out to help me--a new client. I was stood up three times by other chimney inspectors and faced a looming final deadline to meet the chimney inspection/repair requirements for the sale of my house. I called McDowell after hours with a plea to fit me into their schedule. I left messages for 5 other companies as well. None of them called me back. McDowell's staff called me as soon as they opened the next morning (7 AM) and worked to get my issues discussed at their morning meeting. We sent a flurry of emails back and forth and they provided advice so that I could meet my deadline, and found me an open spot on their roster. I am extremely grateful that they took the time to find me answers in such a timely fashion. I would definitely do business with them in the future.

They did a good job and were concientious. They were very thorough, and are a very friendly crew.

Very professional and thorough. Did a great job cleaning and were very respectful of the inside of our house. Very thorough in showing us pictures of the inside and the top of our chimney and making recommendations on fixing.

The worker were prompt, efficient, knowledgable and friendly. Office staff, not so much: we left messages for a week via email and phone before getting a return call. The explanation: the woman who "handles the website" was on vacation and no one checks the emailed appointment requests when she's out.

I use them regularly for a maitenance agreement for my chimney flue. They were so helpful with this fireplace installation as well. They called and ordered the parts and helped set up a plumber to come assist with the rest of the fireplace installation. They also did an inspection of the old fireplace and repointed the inside and the outside of the fireplace and chimney. Everyone at their main office is always nice and helpful and they make sure to call before they come out for service as a reminder.

I didn't like the fact that when they came out, after they came and gave me an estimate at the last minute, they told me I needed a whole new liner which is next to $7000. No one was expecting that, I was kind of put on the spot. I thought they were very professional. I was very impressed with the work they did. I thought it was expensive. The other people came out and they gave me prices but they never came out to start on the job and then told me the liner was bad but their prices were higher than McDowell's for the same type of work of rebuilding the chimney.

Company is easy to schedule; they always schedule the job when I want them to do the work; the young men treat my property as if it's their home with great service, clean-up and fair prices. These guys are professionals....I never need to worry about damage, a job not well done or someone getting hurt on the job. They even advised me what else I need done so I can schedule that into my budget and calendar so my home is kept in tiptop shape. This is done without any hard sell tactics. I appreciate that!

This company was difficult to communicate with and work with. We originally wanted to have a pre-sale inspection but it was impossible to get on their calendar for several weeks, and then the appointment had to be rescheduled due to weather. When we were finally able to have the inspection done (we were already in the house) the inspector himself was professional and prompt, but he recommended a lot of work that we hadn't expected, and we weren't clear on all the reasons why (he did show us pictures, and some of that was helpful). He couldn't provide an estimate himself but said we would get an itemized one from the company by email. The inspector also discussed the possibility of buying an insert to cut the cost down a bit, and we asked for a second estimate on that, so we could compare. He left us a catalog of stoves. A couple of days later the email came through, with a loooong list of work, some of which hadn't been discussed with us, and a huge total. No itemization, no estimate on an insert. We called back asking for itemization and the insert quote - we got an insert quote that was about half of the original quote (which didn't make any sense - if we had to also buy the insert how would the price go down that much) and still no real itemization or break down of the job. After all these contacts and efforts to get clear information we still felt confused, so we called out a second company for another opinion and estimate. That contact went much better, and they were much more straightforward and clear about what work they recommended, why, and what the cost of each piece of work would be. We are going to wind up doing about the same amount of work, for a bit less, and with more confidence. Ultimately, it felt like McDowell's didn't "need" to earn our business, so...they didn't.

everything was fine - no issues or problems

The work was completed as described.

It was good. It was very complete. They have very polite service people.

The techinican was courteous, they came in and put down a blanket to protect my floors. He was knowledgeable. I was satisified witht the services.

Great. A large crew showed up and worked through all the tasks. Coul;dn't have asked for more.

They came out and provided an assessment of the chimneys and all flues. They provided us with a detailed report and pictures that showed deterioration that required immediate attention. They also noticed the boiler was large for the flue size and recommended we contact an HVAC specialist who determined the boiler was not venting properly. We ended up not purchasing the townhouse because of the aforementioned problems. In the end, the guys saved us 10's of thousands of dollars in chimney and HVAC work, so it was money well spent.

The guys are wonderful. They're respectful of the house. They wear their booties. They get the job done fairly quickly. The only issue I had with them is the scheduling. The girls in the office don't really explain what's going on. I'm presuming that when they're coming out, they're able to finish the job and they're usually not. They usually have to come out and see what's going on and then go and order parts and then come back and then install and then test it. They quote they gave me was close to $1000 and I think the other company quoted me $1400 to $1500. Their customer service stands out to me. The company is run by a retired firefighter who is from the area and basically did 30 years of firefighting and he hires other firefighters. He is well connected politically and business-wise. He has his ears to what's going on economically in the area. These guys really have the passion to do the job right. They explain it. They are very respectful of the property. They don't come out unless they know that it's okay and if I'm not home, they could still do the work so I don't really need to be home while they're there.

They did consults in a very professional manner. When I called, they knew exactly what my problem was. The responsiveness was good. They were extremely professional from beginning to end.

They were able to fit me into their schedule in a timely fashion to fit in with my home purchasing process. When I did not receive my quote when I was supposed to, they were responsive despite it being after hours and found that a minor slip had caused it to not send and remedied it immediately. I was frantic at first but they were understanding & came through in the pinch calmly and professionally. Definitely customer service oriented!

They were fine. They just came in and did what they were supposed to do. I wasn’t even home when they did it. I will use them again. I think it was an average cost for cleaning a chimney. It wasn’t a great deal though. They were in the price range of normal.

They did a fine job and I haven't had any issues.

This was the only company that was able to do the work. They did a very good job. They had three workers on my project, but normally it wasn't any more than 2 at a time. They were extremely professional, cleaned up after themselves, and were very interested in satisfying the customer.

We had a few issues with them. They don't do as their name suggests; they don't provide a complete service. They didn't retest the flashing to our chimney and we had to pay another chimney company to come and re-attach the flashing to the chimney. Plus we paid them to fix some of the shingles that were damaged by McDowell's. Furthermore, they destroyed our garden hoses and didn't tell us and it took them a week to replace them and they did so with the cheapest brands of garden hoses on the market. They were suppose to come back and waterproof the chimney and we're not even sure that they did the job. We wanted to be there when they were going to do everything and by the time we found out they were here, when we arrived they were leaving. And it didn't look as if they did any work. We had to have them come back and do so more stuff and they tried to put other things in the estimate and they put it in anyway. So the job came up to $200 more. Then they said to put in a liner would cost me another $4000 even though I was already looking at a bill of $8000 in total. It was as though they anticipated the extra work to be pushed on us. The work that one of the guys did was good but they didn't clean up properly. We ended up cleaning most of it ourselves. They did this in November. We would never use them again.

We had another company out and look at out chimney. They said that it was going to cost $8000. However, this company came out and said that it was fine and that it only needed to have some recaulking done around the top of the chimney which my husband did. We are going to have them come back out and seal some bricks for us. I was very happy with their service.

They came out, they checked our chimney, and they told us basically that we shouldn’t use it without getting it serviced. This may or may not have been true: we ended up not using part of it, but still had to use the furnace. They gave me an estimate for roughly 9000 dollars to fix the chimney, and they gave no options whatsoever for fixing it without spending that much money. Again, I was very unhappy with their sales tactics. Even if their estimate had been more reasonable, I wouldn’t have wanted to hire them based on how pushy they were. They charged me more than the quoted rate for a service call because they said they did something more thorough than usual for me. They did a little bit of cleaning, but they were there for a very short time. I don’t doubt that the chimney needs work, but because of their aggressive sales tactics and the way they treated me, I didn’t feel I could trust what they told me. The two guys who came out to the house were not nearly as bad as the one on the phone. The estimate was emailed to me later.

They had a good estimate, and called before they came. They followed up really well. Very service oriented. They did great work.

They were hired to come out and clean our chimney and give us an estimate for additional chimney work. They provided us detailed information, including pictures, of what was done and what needed to be done in the future. They were very respectful and went out of their way to keep the work area clean.