WAYNE J BURGESS MASONARY

I did not contract Wayne J. Burgess. First of all he came in and suggested he had enough blue stone to do that wall, my house is green, then he badmouthed the original work that was done, not to proper standards he said and implied that the people that did it, either did not know how to do the work and it was not done properly. Please note, that stonework has withstood almost 60 years and was compromised by bushes being to close and causing water damage and my having circuit breakers installed in the house which had to be attached to the stone. Then he wanted to take down half the stonework already there and would have charged me upwards of $1900. Not firm, could cost more. (I have to think that would have been a certainty). I got a handyman in the area over, and the job was done in two days, 19 hours, and the cost was less than $460. Understandably I did not contact any of your other options and really doubt I will even think of Angies list for further work.

Wayne did a great job. He was back as promised two weeks later with the supplies for the job, and he quickly removed the concrete walkway and old crumbling cinderblocks before coming back with two other masons who set the new wall perfectly, with a new window and a dryer vent. Wayne finished the wall with a textured tinted stucco that looks great. They cleaned up the site after they were done, which was about 4 solid days of work. I'll definitely contact Wayne again for other masonry work.

1. The firebox bricks do not match the existing, nor does the mortar, but other than aesthetics, it is fine. 2. The estimate was for two new foundation walls. After inspecting the garage foundation, he said he could build the foundation walls on the existing footers. When he tore out the foundation walls and jacked up the entire garage one inch, he told us the existing footers are not sufficient, in fact, non-existent, and we had to pay for new footers for two walls after all. He should have been able to determine if they existed or not when he conducted the initial inspection. We had no choice but to pay over $4000 more for the two footers. He and his crew did show up every day, and finished the job in just over one week. This type of "rough" masonry work seems to be well done (other than the "finish" work in the interior fire place, which aesthetically is not pleasing). However, we felt "taken" by the low estimate and the need to do more work than we wanted, so the job ended up costing much more than the original estimate, so I will not use his services again.

Initial work on front steps, porch and walkway went well. Good solid masonry work and fixed drainage problem. Replacing basement windows led to unexpected and expensive additional work for foundation repair and replacement. Problem with cut and repair of house foundation sill above basement window. Jacking the house for replacing 3 rows of foundation block led to some cracks in interior wall plaster: no warning given of potential problems with jacking. Costs rose significantly above initial estimate. Eventually we called in a foundation specialist for further structural repair.