Fireplace Doctor

I first contacted The Fireplace Doctor in February 2012. On March 10, 2012 three Technicians came to inspect one fireplace and two chimneys. We live in an older home and wanted to have a working fireplace and at one point I asked technician Robert ?Do you think we should put a liner in the chimney?? He said we didn?t need one. He stated this after shining a flashlight down the chimney. That was the inspection. Again I said ?Don?t you think it needs a liner?? Again he said ?No, the liner you have is fine.? I agreed to have waterproofing and a lock-top damper installed and to have the other chimneys capped for a price of $1950.00. Robert said he would be back in a week with two other tech?s to do the work. Robert came back alone to do the work on March 16, 2012. I came home from work early to supervise. He told me he would not be able to complete the work. I reminded him of what he said the week before, about coming out with two other tech?s to complete the work, and he said ?I never said that.? During the time he was here, he asked if he could borrow a hammer...then he asked to borrow a tape measure...then he asked if I had a masonry drill bit! I thought, ?What kind of a company is this that doesn?t even carry basic tools on their truck?? After a while he said he had to leave. I asked ?When will you be back to complete the work?? He said ?Call the main office in a week or two.? After he left I inspected the fireplace: there was a hole he had made in the firebrick and a wire hanging down the chimney. During this time I decided to call the Area Manager named Mark. I asked him to come out to the house to look things over. He said he would be out on Saturday between 8am-12pm. Saturday came and he no-showed. I called him at 12:15 to see if he was coming and he said ?Didn?t anyone from the office call you? I can?t make it.? I called the office on Monday and set a date for the work to be completed. The date was April 21, 2012. I called Mark again to ask him to come over on that date as I wanted to make sure the job was done correctly. Mark said ?I will definitely be there.? April 21, 2012 came and two tech?s arrived and no Mark the Area Manager. Again he couldn?t be bothered to call me to say he couldn?t make it over. This time the main tech was Alex. He finished installing the lock-top damper, but the other cap for the chimney on the other side of the house was three times larger than it should have been, due to incorrect measuring by Robert (using my tape measure that he borrowed). Alex returned on June 10, 2012 to finish the work. I asked him ?Do we have a safe fireplace now?? and he said ?Definitely.? At the end of November 2012 we started having fires in the fireplace. After about ten fires I went upstairs one evening and noticed smoke in the upstairs bedroom and in the attic. I called the company and told them about the smoke problem and they said they would send someone out. On December 13, 2012 two tech?s arrived and one of them was Mark the area manager. I told him about all that had transpired and he looked everything over and said ?That chimney doesn?t even have a liner in it...it?s just brick! Do not use this fireplace as it is very dangerous and I will give you a good price on a lining.? He said the price would be $500.00 and that the stainless-steel liner would take care of the smoke problems. He and the other tech came back out on December 22, 2012 but they had the wrong liner. I asked Mark when he would have the correct liner and he said the first week of January. I said ?My family was hoping to have the fireplace working on Christmas Day.? Mark said, ?I?ll tell you what...I will see about getting the correct liner and install it on Monday, Christmas Eve. I will call you tonight to let you know for sure.? He did not call me as promised. December 24 came and went and no call or new liner. On December 26 I called the office and set up another appointment for the work to be done. Mark came out on January 5 and installed the liner. He said to wait 24 hours before we tried it. On Sunday, January 6 we started a fire. After about 30 minutes I went upstairs and there was smoke again in the bedroom and attic. I went outside and saw smoke coming out of many places on the chimney. I called Mark and left him a message. He called me back and said he would come out on Monday January 7 at 4:15 to check it out. Monday came and he no-showed again and didn?t bother to call me. I called him at 5:15 and left him a message. He called me back and again said ?Didn?t anyone from the office call you to tell you I couldn?t make it?? I said ?Mark, are you really planning to come back out here to fix the problem?? Mark said ?Oh yeah, Boss! I?ll come out there.? I said ?How about Saturday January 19?? He said ?That should work...call me on Friday to remind me.? I called him on Friday to remind him. He said ?It will either be 8am-12pm or 2pm-5pm.? I said ?I need to know because of a pending visit with friends.? Mark said ?I will call you back at 5:30pm this evening to let you know what time I will be there on Saturday.? 5:30 came and went and again no call. I called Mark at 7:15pm and left him a message. He called back about twenty minutes later and by that time I had decided enough was enough. I said ?Mark don?t worry about coming here as I am finished with Fireplace Doctor.? If I had known the chimneys were in such bad condition I NEVER would have put a dime into any of them. I feel completely ripped off by this company.

This was a great experience. The technicians were punctual and efficient. A couple cleaned while one was on the roof inspecting and afterwards I was given the lowdown on what was unsatisfactory and how much it would take to fix it. There was no high powered sales pitch just the bare facts. They informed me the repairs needed were not any kind of fire hazard as yet but will eventually need attention and how to contact them should I want them to make the repairs. I really respected that and I will be allowing them to make the repairs next summer while the fireplace is not in service. Best of all...they cleaned up behind themselves!