Authentic American Masonry

Submitting a negative review is not our character. We believe in giving any business a fair chance to correct issues. We understand things happen, people get busy, new priorites take over. However, when a job has been paid for and then there are issues with the job, we would expect that the business would want to correct everything and make it right. Since Bill, the owner of Authentic American Masonry has dropped all communication, we feel other consumers need to be aware prior to hiring him. To note, our fireplace is beautiful and Bill is a very skilled craftsman. On both occasions when we met Bill, he showed great pride in his work. Since the fall of 2014, we have been reaching out to Bill to correct some of the open spaces/gaps on the fireplace. There are stones missing and you can clearly see the underlying facia that the stones get cemented onto. Bill came out in February 2015, looked at the job, and agreed it needed correction. Because he lives a distance south of us, we told him to pick a convenient time and we would accomodate his schedule. We are more than reasonable people and were trying to work with his schedule given the distance he needed to travel. The last communication we have from Bill is in April 2015 stating he would be up over the next month to complete the job. We have not heard from him since then. We have sent numerous emails requesting that he complete the work. We have not received any response. Our last attempt was this month (August 2015) asking if he would please set up a time in the fall to complete the work. No response. If we could do the work ourselves we would, but masonry is not our profession. Bill was paid for this job in the summer of 2014 and paid well. When we renovated our condo, this was the one item we splurged on because we wanted quality and our contractor spoke very highly of Bill and his work. Because it looks so beautiful, we were considering to have the stonework extended up to the ceiling and asked Bill to price it when he came back to finish the work. We know this was a small job compared to the beautiful homes he works on in the NH Lakes Region but it is a great disappointment to see such a fine craftsman have such poor communication with clients basically leaving a job unfinished. We are only to guess the "pride" he showed was not "authentic."

With great attitudes and a strong work ethic, Authentic American Masonry masons performed the job on time, more than met our expectations, were considerate regarding noise and neighbors, cleaned up after themselves, and handled the contract in a totally professional manner. We were so pleased that we contracted with them to do another job.

It all looked good until you started noticing the little things like off center bricks and the flashing that was barely held on

Water stains on a the dining room indicated the possibility of a leak from an upstairs bathroom. Bill, the company owner and lead worker, came over and gave me an estimate to open the ceiling for the plumbers to find it, and then he would do any of the bathroom work that needed to be done after the plumbers repaired the leak. After the leak was discovered in the shower pan, Bill rebuilt it and retiled the entire small stand up shower stall. He also installed a new shower door. He also took up linoleum flooring and retiled the bathroom floor and removed some wall tiles. During the course of the work, I needed to bring in a plumber to move pipes, as well as a carpenter to remove and replace rotten studs. Bill was prompt in setting up a time to do the work and arrived and left on time. When he finished the tiling work we checked the water flow in the shower and there was standing water on the shower floor rather than draining out properly. After considerable cajoling, Bill redid the shower floor to attain the right slope that would drain the shower stall, which should have been done right the first time. His work was essentially complete at that time, yet, neither he nor any other person he found could competently repair the 3'x5' opening in the downstairs ceiling, so I needed to hire someone else to complete that portion of the work. I also had loose bricks on my chimney that Bill promised he would repair once the temps rose about freezing. First it was June then July, then September then October and he never showed after several reminders and even a couple of phone conversations, the whole season was lost. He is great at having an excuse for anything and leaving you hanging. On top of all this, the quality of the grout used in the bathroom and shower was porous! I needed to find a waterproof treatment and apply it to all the grout to seal it, and even today I am seeing the kind of hairline cracks in the grout that causes concern. Bill is personable and considers himself a mason first and a tiler second. Based on the tile work he did, I would never recommend him or use him to tile anything indoors, and while I would hesitate to have him do outside masonry work, my observation is that is his strong suit. I was very disappointed in his lack of professionalism in using poor quality grout and certainly not getting back to do the repair work on my chimney. His very reasonable pricing made his offer effective and his web page for Authentic American Masonry paints a better picture than what I experienced.