Dirty Deeds Chimney Sweep

Description of Work: Chimney sweep and related matters, but what he did was nothing, because they never showed up for his appointment.

Description of Work: Lined 2 chimneys with new liners. 1 fireplace, 1 appliance for venting Reworked firebox and installed damper in fireplace chimney

Description of Work: Chimney Sweep, sealed our chimney and replaced liner on one of them.

Description of Work: THIS COMPANY'S NAME SAYS IT ALL......... Beware of this company owned by Patrick Murphy! We recently purchased a 14 yr. old home that had a fireplace with a wood burning insert installed. Our home inspector had advised us to have the fireplace cleaned and inspected before we used it, due to it having a lot of creosote buildup. When I called to schedule an appointment with Patrick Murphy, I told him we've never owned a fireplace before, so we weren't sure if we were going to keep the wood burning insert or convert it back to gas logs. Our appointment was scheduled for 8AM. He called me at 8:20 asking for directions to my house. He had driven PAST my house and ended up at the end of our deadend road, even though my house number is displayed on my mailbox and also on a post at the street. He didn't bother to call to say he would be late. When he arrived, he said he was going to clean the chimney from the top, so he went up on the roof. A few minutes later, he came back in and told me that the wood burning insert wasn't properly vented through the chimney and out the roof. He also said there had been a chimney fire at some point, and that sometimes it causes the chimney liner to crack. He said he needed to use different tools to clean it, so he could see if it was damaged. He went back up on the roof for a few more minutes (meaning less than 5 minutes), then returned to tell me that the terra cotta chimney liner was definitely cracked and the chimney couldn't be used due to it being a fire hazard. I told him we weren't sure if we were going to keep the wood burning insert installed, or remove it and put the gas logs back in that the previous owner had left behind. He then gave me 2 options/estimates. If we wanted to keep the wood burning insert, we needed to have it properly vented through the chimney by adding special vent pipe (3/16" titanium stainless steel wrapped with ceramic wool blanket and armour mesh). His written estimate for this was $1800. If we wanted to remove the wood burning insert and use gas logs or use it as an open wood burning fireplace, then the ENTIRE terra cotta chimney liner would have to be replaced. His estimate for this was $2400-$2800. He said there was really no need to clean the chimney, since it wasn't useable. He said he did have to charge me a "Service Call" fee of $55.00, which he did. He told me to let him know what we wanted him to do after we decided which route we wanted to go (insert vs. open fireplace). He spent less than 10 minutes (probably more like 7-8 minutes) inspecting and cleaning a small section of the chimney in order to come to this conclusion. Later that night when my husband got home, he went up on the roof to see the damage that Patrick had found. He found that Patrick had only cleaned the top 2 terra cotta "tiles" located at the very top of the chimney. The very top tile had an extremely fine hairline crack. The tile below that wasn't damaged at all. The rest of the tiles hadn't been cleaned at all to see if they were cracked. Needless to say, we got a 2nd opinion. The other company that came out cleaned the entire chimney to remove the creosote buildup, then inspected it inside and out. Our entire chimney is constructed of brick. The ONLY damage he could find at all was the extremely fine hairline crack in the very top tile located at the top of the chimney. He said it wasn't any type of fire hazard at all, and didn't need to be repaired or replaced. He said it was safe to use! The grand total was a whopping $110!!!