CHIMNEY SWEEPS UNLIMITED INC

Initial work went well. Job was finished, chimney smoked. Contractor came back added a face of bricks. Chimney still smoked and contractor said that was ll he would do. I installed a metal facing to reduce the height of the opening which eliminated smoke problem. He came back one more time to discuss and said what I did was all that could be done. He left me to make temporary solution permanent. He would do nothing more. If I did not have rudimentary skills, we would not have a useable fireplace. What I did should not be necessary for a proper Rumford installation.

Initially the project went well. The fireplace smoked when job was finished, so Rob, owner, came back and added the brick facade to deepen the opening. The fireplace continued to smoke. Rob came back again, and acknowledged the smoke coming in the room. I remember him planning to grind off a bit of the lintel to create a better path for the smoke. We were to schedule the follow up work. When I called to schedule the follow up, Rob said that he didn't make any proposal for further work. In order to use the fireplace, I fabricated a metal "hood" out of sheet metal duct material that in effect lowers the height of the fireplace and therefore prevents the smoke from coming into the room. (I read up on Rumford fireplaces and it seemed to me that the fireplace opening was too high). My "hood" doesn't look nice, but functioned okay. Rob came again, confirmed that he would do nothing more, and said that my solution was what was needed. I couldn't imagine that a piece of scrap metal was to be the solution for an expensive, historic job. I asked about fastening the sheet metal in place, and he told me what to do.Subsequently, cracks have appeared in the chimney in a second floor bedroom. I haven't pushed further for a resolution for that problem... it didn't seem likely that anything would be done, and frankly I'd given up. We also have seepage coming down through the chimney, andI have no way of knowing if this is a chimney problem or a roof flashing problem. Rob was NOT asked to deal withh these two problems.I do not know enough about Rumford fireplaces to know if it was done correctly. Rob suggested that the problem might be weather, but we found the problem consistant regardless of the weather. The project went back and forth over 5 years, the last meeting taking place this past January. Timing was not a concern, and Rob had some health issues at one point.Had I not had some minimal skills in sheet metal work, we would simply have an non useable fireplace having spent $7,000. I should not have to come up with the solution after spending that much money. And I would think the minimum response would have been to do something with my fabrication to make it look better and be permanently fastened in. Or, given that the project failed, some negotiation for a refund.Rob is a person of good will, and I continue to be surprised by his dropping of the ball on this project. Perhaps he was overwhelmed by a project that didn't work, but that's not mine to say. I was very surprised when he cut off further attempts at making the project right.I would love to see the project come to a mutually agreeable solution.

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