A And J Fireplaces

Steer clear of this slipshod, unprofessional and deceptive company. The owner constantly misses his appointments and his workers, including his son, haven?t the first clue as to what they are doing. My wife had contacted A&J Fireplaces in order to pick out a fireplace and have it installed. After the initial visit from the owner in which a fireplace was picked out, the owner then kept missing appointments and failing to return numerous phone calls. After several days she finally managed to get in touch with the owner who finally made the appointment, saying he?d be out to do the installation at 10 am. At 10:15, when no one showed up, my wife called and was told by the company that the installers were running late. To our surprise the owner his son and a helper to handle the installation. Right from the beginning it was clear that they were having problems. During the installation the son remarked that he didn?t have the right tools and asked if he could borrow ours!! We didn?t so he had to drive to a hardware store to purchase them. Next he asked us if he could use our ladder!. We wondered why these guys who worked on fireplaces and chimneys didn?t have their own ladder. After the installation the son turned on the fireplace and within minutes we all knew something was wrong. The flame would ignite, but would immediately fade and go out. The son said there was something wrong with our line. It had not been used for awhile and he suggested it was full of gunk. He also suggested that not enough gas pressure was able to come through the line. He suggested that we needed to have a new line installed. He offered to run a new line himself, and charge me only what the gas company would likely charge me. Next he fiddled with the gas tanks and thought we were out of gas. We then lit our kitchen stove and it ran normally, indicating that we weren?t out of gas at all. We went back to the fireplace and this time it did light up, but the flame was lower than normal, which the son said also might be due to a clogged line. But he did say that there was something wrong (still blaming our line or our pressure or our assumed lack of propane in the tanks) -- he said he had recently installed one ?just like this one,? and the flame was much higher. It was supposed to be higher. The next day we had our propane company come out and the technician, who we?ve dealt with for 30 years, told us that there was nothing wrong with our propane line, the pressure or the supply. He was also more than willing to put that into writing. The next day (Weds., 10/14), I had appointments for the Denville fire and building inspectors to stop by. They did a cursory ?eyeball? inspection, and signed off on it. The height of the flame was not their concern -- they only needed to insure that the gas fitting was correct and that the chimney was high enough. We called A&J Thursday morning (10/15). We wanted to get John back over here to fix it himself as we no longer had confidence in his son. My husband spoke to Andy, who told him John was out on an installation job, but he would ask John to call him. John did not call back on Thursday afternoon, nor on Friday. I was not surprised. On Monday, 10/19, I called A&J again, and happened to actually reach John. I told him of the problem, and requested that he personally make a return trip here to fix the problem. John seemed clueless that we had previously called, nor did he seem to have any concern that he was not paid in full yet. John set up an appointment to come on Thursday, 10/22, between 9-10am. Thursday came and the owner never showed up. When I called the company I spoke with someone that said that the owner thought the appointment was on Friday, adding that he would be there in the morning. I took this time to call the manufacturer of the fireplace who put me in touch with a qualified technician. After sending him a picture of the fireplace he remarked that it was indeed, not putting out enough flame. Friday morning: 10 minutes before the scheduled appointment the owner called and said that he couldn?t make it and would try to stop by in the afternoon. I told him that he absolutely had to make it and that we simply weren?t going to be put out again by his mishandling of appointments. The owner then said, and I quote ?We don?t care about the customer, but we do care about our fireplaces.? Absolutely ridiculous. Run, do not walk, away from this company.