Christopher Brown Cement LLC

Received bid on 4/8/2016 and they started job on 4/12/2016. VERY fast service for a small job. All other bids I received were for more money and a month or two to get to my driveway. Chris was personally on site with his guys to make sure the work was up to his high standards. Thanks Chris!

Excellent. Mr. Brown knows good customer service and quality work. Would highly recommend for any concrete job.

The contractor was hired to pour two 22" wide sidewalks, garage floor for a 2-car garage and an apron with a trench drain in it.. The previous drain was a slit drain. 1. GARAGE FLOOR - The floor was not poured flat. The concrete at the entrance to the garage slants into the garage so that rain runs INTO the garage creating a pool of water you have to wade across to get in the garage. The floor is wavy. I'm concern that puddles will form in the dips making a slipping hazard. 2. APRON & DRAIN - They accidentally broke about 16 inches of my asphalt driveway with their heavy equipment where the driveway meets the garage. The jagged ruins had to be cut off, shortening the driveway. The asphalt was replaced with cement, which created a much bigger apron. We had agreed during our initial meeting early in the summer that the only change in the apron would be a wider, deeper drain. When it was time to do the job, though, Chris said he wanted put the drain at the bottom of a "V." Instead of having a flat apron to walk on, he want to create a valley and put the apron at the bottom of it. I let him know that was not acceptable because my car has a hard time w/ inclines during the winter and would get stuck in a "V" with ice and snow in it. I let him know also that I have an elderly tenant & a valley would create a slipping hazard. As well, it would be to shovel in the winter because it's not flat. I pointed out that the previous drain did not sit at the bottom of a "V" and it worked well. He agreed not to create a valley. But the day they poured the apron, Chris called & asked me to come over right away. When I got there, I saw he had poured a steep "V" anyway. I told them to raise up the drain so it's not at the bottom of a "V." Chris agreed and called a crewman over who he told to raise the drain. The crewman heaved on the drain that was already set at the bottom of the valley in the cement. Chris told me not to worry, he would take care it. So I went back to work. When I got home, the drain was still at the bottom of a steep "V." The only thing that changed is that heaving on the one spot had created an air pocket under it. They had not removed the drain and put additional gravel under it to create a stable base for that area or made any correction at all to the rest of it. They gave me lip service while I was there, created a air pocket under the trench and did nothing else. I expressed to Chris that in addition to my concern about the car getting stuck and my tenant slipping, now I have to worry about the concrete cracking due to an air pocket. The valley is also not easily transversible by wheelchair or walker. I am concern that the elderly renter I currently have and elderly and/or disabled potential renters will not rent from me because of the hazard and difficult navigability. In addition, the drain doesn't drain into anything. During our initial consult, when I signed the contract, Chris said he would not leave me hanging, they would figure something out. Now I have a muddy, open pit that the drain hangs over at one corner of driveway. 3. SIDEWALKS - When they set up the concrete forms for the sidewalks, one sidewalk measured 23" at one end and 25" at the other, and 25" for the other. I pointed out to Chris that I asked for 22" walks. He told me that he could make the sidewalk any size I wanted and agreed to correct them. When I came home, though, I found they had poured two 24" wide sidewalks instead of the 22" I asked for. Again, I was told they would correct something to specification but they did whatever they felt like. Even when pointed out that and respecified. 4. DUMPING/LANDSCAPE DAMAGE - Sod & soil removed for the sidewalk job was dumped under and onto the lower branches of one of the trees. They also dumped concrete in the treeline from their equipment (wheelbarrows, etc.), creating a hard concrete surface in the treeline and coating the leaves. Chris told me he left it there because he thought I might want to use it, but it was sod and it was pitched under a tree with prohibitively low branches - low enough to hide what they did and too low to easily get at it to get it back out of there. I was not consulted beforehand on whether I might want to keep the dirt. The contract we entered states they would haul it away. They also removed a small tree as agreed but threw it over my fence into a protected wildlife area instead of hauling it away. There are two more concrete spots in the yard where equipment was cleaned out. I was not consulted on what to do with the dirt removed. It was my understanding from the contract that I was paying them to haul it away. Their heavy equipment chewed up the backyard, leaving deep indentations with the tread. Then they threw dirt all over it to try to cover it up. Now I have a great big mud yard. 5. SAFETY - They did not call 811 "Call before you dig" and had no plan to. When I brought it up with Chris he said they would just dig as carefully as they could. 6. POTHOLE AND BROKEN ASPHALT - In addition to breaking about 16" of the driveway by the garage, their heavy machinery created a pothole in the middle of the driveway and at the end of it near the road. I declined to have the company come back to fix the apron and garage floor because they have a pattern of disregarding my specifications and of messing things up. I have video of one of our conversations in which I pointed out the size of the sidewalk forms were wrong and said again what size I wanted. I said it repeatedly. But the contractor did what something else. The video also has me saying clearly that I don't want a "v" in the apron and Chris agreeing not to put one in it. So, I asked for my money back and was offered $2000. I don't believe that will be enough to fix the floor and apron, so I attempted to contact other concrete companies for estimates. I contacted about 10 companies from October to November. Only 2 even responded, and only to say they were closed for the season.

The job was well done. Christopher and crew were nice and good to work with. We had detailed discussions to make sure we were on the same page.

Everything went fine initially--the job was done professionally and was the high-quality work that I had been expecting. The concrete was laid well, graded nicely; cuts were good & well placed, garage work was excellent and just what I was hoping. I even paid him about 7% extra. One fine point about the garage saw cut, however. I was glad to be advised to move my car out of the garage because of concrete dust. I never expected a fine layer of this dust to get on hundreds of tools, small items & the usual garage clutter. It would have been very helpful to have C. Brown spend 10-15 minutes putting a dust sheet /barrier to save me hours & hours of rinsing, dusting and generally cleaning off the concrete dust from everything in the garage, It's very fine & gets into all cracks and crevices even 20 feet from the saw cut. The major problem with my experience was that about 2 weeks after the job was finished and paid in full for, I noticed that several cubic feet of extra/waste concrete had been dumped in my backyard flower bed. By the time I discovered it, there had been a couple of rains and a grayish-white wash from the cement had run onto the grass area extending 5-6 ft. from the dumped cement. I called the co. twice--about 8/12 or 13 and was told they'd get it taken care of by the weekend of 8/22-23. The second call was made 8/26 and was met by a loud criticism of him accusing me of "threatening him" by mentioning that I had yet to make my Angie's List report. In addition, I reminded him of the $150 extra that I had paid him. Again, he used the term "threatening" and said he would get to it. I waited 4 full days for a response-- no call, no removal of cement debris, no time frame of when the job would be finished. Finally, I decided to remove the 80-100 pounds of debris with a pick ax, wheelbarrow, & shovel-about an hour's worth of hard labor. I also had to hoe-scrape the grass/dirt area where the cement wash had rained out. I don't mind doing this type of work once in a while but absolutely NOT when it is part of the job I contracted with C. Brown to complete in good faith. And especially when I paid him substantially extra for the actual concrete work. It felt like since he had received payment, he no longer had any interest whatsoever in me as a customer except to attack with the word "threatening". Of course, I inspected the concrete job when it was done, but would never have guessed I needed to check around my property for dumped cement.

I did not get a call back until weeks later. On the phone, I was quoted something I consider to be absurdly high- $1200-$1300 for such a small area is just crazy, even with labor. The materials could not be more than $150, and even with removal the job can easily be done in half a day by someone with experience. Regardless, Mr. Brown agreed to come out the next day to see the job and give me a better estimate, and I never heard from him again. With this lack of professionalism and high prices, I would not hire this company even if he did eventually show up for an estimate.

Chris Brown and his crew did a great job. We met in early April and he said he would get to our project in early May. We were very happy with his timely performance in the mist of his very busy schedule. I was fortunate to get on his schedule early in the spring before the heavy and extended schedule he has now that we are in May. This is the second project he has done for me and I will call him again when his services are needed.

In short there 3 people that I will tell them I did the work even though chris did in less than 5 hours and did not look exhasted. I wish I could show the before when I did the work. When you are amazed at your sidewalk or your sidewalk looks better than your house. thank Chris Brown

It was perfect. I have absolutely no complaints. They came when they said they would. Christopher was great to work with and recommend him.

The job was delayed by weather which of course was not his fault. But once they started, it was done very quickly and efficiently. The crew was friendly, hardworking, and willing to answer any question we (or our neighbors) had. In fact, one of our neighbors said they were going to start saving their money to hire Chris and his crew to do their driveway. There was one snag, which Chris handled very well. We hired an outside person to remove roots under the driveway, who then backed out the day he was supposed to do the job. Chris immediately rented equipment and did the removal, so he and his crew could proceed as planned and on schedule. We paid Chris the extra cost of equipment rental and added work, but we expected to, and he did a good job. The concrete looks great, and Chris really went out of his way to make us happy. He even used his Bobcat to even out our backyard which had some mounds that we wanted removed, for no charge. We highly recommend Chris and his crew for any concrete work. They are knowledgable and professional. We are very pleased.

He explained everything that he did along the way. He originally quoted $3,800 and the job was actually $4,250. There was a clause at the end of our contract that said that if they find some exceptional things, there may be an extra cost. They found a bunch of exceptional things and Chris had a lot of extra labor and he had to replace 7 additional inches of gravel and take out 8 inches of cement rather than 4 inches. And he explained this along the way. I didn't expect this but I can't blame Chris for something he couldn't see. I would suggest for customers to read the contract because if you haven't dealt with contactors like these, you may find some extra costs. He did clean up a lot of extra things for me and did a quality job. The price was just a shocker.

Mr. Brown was very professional and honest. He gave us an estimate on the proposal and basically followed through with what he proposed to do on the project. I liked his ideas on the planning and the way he worked right with his employees. Mr. Brown and his crew are very honest and hard working people who are all business, which is what I like. This project involved a rather large driveway, which is the longest on our street. The project called for replacement of a sixty by sixteen feet or nine hundred sixty square feet driveway along with approach, gutter and curb. This was a four to five day project. The crew stayed on schedule starting on a Monday and finished up by Friday of the same week. Mr. Brown discovered that after removing the old concrete, the base needed to be entirely replaced. So in order to do this the right way and not cut any corners, he dug all the old pea gravel and mud out and replaced everything with seventeen tons of 304 packing base. The base was packed down extremely tight, and when the cement mixing truck backed into the driveway to pour, you could hardly see any tire track impressions and those trucks are extremely heavy. Along with the good base, the driveway was sectioned off in fourteen different sections by making the joints approximately eight and a half feet long on both sides with an expansion joint running horizontally about halfway down the drive. This all made for great planning and should minimize any potential cracking of the cement. With all the extra work of replacing the entire base, he had to charge a little bit more but we both worked together on this to minimize the extra cost of a few hundred dollars above the original estimate. The bottom line is Mr. Brown has built me an outstanding driveway with a good base that is very attractive and should last for many years. I would highly recommend Christopher Brown Cement LLC to do any of your future concrete projects. Satisfied Columbus Ohio Resident!

I contacted Mr. Brown on 3/12/14 along with several others to obtain an estimate on what it would cost to have my concrete driveway removed and replaced. Mr. Brown promptly called me back that same day and we set up an appointment for him to look at my driveway to see what needed to be done so that he could give me an estimate on how much it would cost on 3/14/14. Mr. Brown was very prompt on the day of the appointment. He discussed what needed to be done and even went over some ideas with me of other things I would like to have done and talked about the date when I wanted the work to start. He provided me with estimates of the driveway along with the other projects I had discussed with him. I would also like to compliment Mr. Brown on how courteous he was, whether we talked on the phone or in person during the estimate appointment or during the period of time he was completing the job. Mr. Brown impressed both my husband and I with his professionalism and his complete knowledge of his trade from the first time we met with him along with the times he and his crew of workers were here completing the job. Mr. Brown kept us completely informed all during the process on how the job was progressing along with any problems that he would come across and discussed with us why such unforeseen problems would cost us an additional sum of money. Mr. Brown was chosen over the others, even though he was not the lowest bid, due to how impressed both my husband and I were with his knowledge along with his character as coming across as being professional and very honest and straight forward. His price was also very reasonable. Since we hired Mr. Brown in March of this year and didn't want the job to start until the week of June 23rd, Mr. Brown contacted us a few days before the start to make sure everything was OK for him to start that scheduled week. Due to the wet weather we have had, there was a couple of delays but Mr. Brown and his crew were completed in the number of days that we had discussed it would take to complete the job with Mr. Brown when we signed the contract. The driveway looks fantastic now and my husband has already been approached by someone, who came to the door, and asked who did our concrete work. When I decide when and if I would like to have some of the other projects completed, that I discussed with Mr. Brown, he will be the first one I call to see if he can complete the work. I would gladly use his services again and gladly recommend his work to anyone.

Very well, Chris was very down to earth and provided a reasonable quote. It was a little bit of a wait but I certainly didn't mind with the quality of the work at a reasonable amount of money. I'd certainly use them anytime I need concrete work in the future!

Christopher Brown Cement LLC poured a sloped walkway along side of our condo to prevent water/moisture from penetrating the foundation. Mr. Brown was, first and foremost, professional, honest, and punctual. He was easy to work with and comes across and knowledgeable and respectful. His crew was equally respectful and professional. We are very impressed with the quality of their work. I would highly recommend Christopher Brown Cement LLC.

The service went well, the only thing they didn't do properly was the sealing. I didn’t realize that when you purchase concrete services that I was actually purchasing a load of concrete from a truck. This provider typically does big projects so in addition to him having do work on my concrete stairs I had him replace the floor in my garage because of how much concrete I had purchased. It was a large job, he used a nice type of concrete and we negotiated on the additional charges. They worked consistently for about three days because there was a lot of concrete they had to dig out.

Mr Brown is very nice to speak with. He was extremely busy every single time we spoke. The driveway seemed to be a bit of a challenge and additional materials were needed to help make the ground more stable. Apparently too much settling occurred and the driveway cracked across the entire main surface. Based on the disclaimer at the bottom of the contract, they are not responsible for cracking/settling. I called Mr Brown to come out to look at it, which he did after 4 calls. He said he would "help" me out and make a saw cut line. He never came back for that. I called a few times, but each time, received, I will be there soon to fix it. It now has been over 3 months since my last call to him. I finally just gave up on trying to get his assistance with fixing this crack. When I decide to sell the house, I will call another concrete company to re-do the main part of the driveway to fix the crack. I could understand cracking, but it was the I will help you out and not helping me that gave me the very bad feeling about this business relationship. Within the last month, the sidewalk/step now has also cracked. Sadly at first I thought it looked very nice, but with two areas now cracked in less than 8 months, I am very disappointed.

The end of my driveway where it meets the curb had large potholes and needed reshaped. There was also an area near that trims the asphalt driveway that is torn up as well. Chris was very responsive and rebuilt the entire landing area, as well as the trim. Highly recommend.

Very professional, would use again.

Driveway looks great. Mr. Brown and his crew were prompt and professional.

I called about an estimate for a patio to replace an old deck. Mr. Brown called me back the next day and scheduled an estimate a few days later. He came out and gave me an estimate for the work, and also discussed some options and gave me some additional ideas. He gave me an estimate and wrote up a contract for the work. He was able to schedule me within a couple of weeks and complete the work in 2 days. I was very happy with the finished work. Mr. Brown is very professional and responsive. I would recommend him and his crew.

Estimate seem to be fair. He explained all details which came with doing the job. We decided to go with other provider

Chris and his crew were prompt, efficient and professional in their work. They did tear out and haul away one day and the new pour the next day. It looks great! Chris was very nice to work with-communicates well, friendly yet professional.

It was an Angie's List Big Deal that I purchased. They're pretty good. The work was pretty good.

Everything about the experience was good. They were upfront and they knew their stuff. They were pretty conscious of Angie's List.