CHIMNEY MAN

My condo association hired the company to inspect and clean our chimneys and dryer vents. It was a nightmare. Apparently, the work was less than professional and one of my neighbors in my side of the complex has complained to the board about leaks near the chimney which weren't there before. I had disconnected my dryer vent and when the company's employee failed to show up, I had to hire another contractor to complete the job. I was without laundry service for two months. The final insult was finding out that when I tried looking up the company with LNI to check on their contractor's license (since they also do repair according to another report and thus registration is required), Department of Revenue (B&O taxes that my business pays), City of Seattle (you do business in Seattle, you have to have a business license), and the Secretary of State, I could find no information about them. How does a company like that end up putting their ads in the ValPak envelopes. I guess someone at ValPak is asleep.

After making the initial appointment to look at 3 buildings on a Saturday we decided we wanted to stagger the buildings by time block so that residents didn't need to stay home. The receptionist (who was very nice) first informed us that only one building, not all three would be done on that day and that they could not give us time blocks because they did not know how long each inspection would take. After I pointed out that to bid the job they must have had an idea of how long it would take she spoke with the tech and they agreed to time blocks but still to do only one of the three buildings that day. A technician (not the one originally scheduled) arrived 2.5 hours late and lacked a ladder long enough to reach our top floor. He also had to leave for a period to get screwdrivers. We had talked about cleaning the dryer ducts from the inside and outside because they bend three times inside our walls; but the only vents that were cleaned from the inside were those on the top floor because they couldn t get on the roof to clean the top floor units from the outside. The dryer ducts were cleaned with a vacuum sized hose with a wire brush attachment. And the chimneys were inspected by shaking the damper a few times, not lasting more than a few seconds. Clean up was insufficient. In a follow up they said that the wire brush and chimney inspection method are standard but we were expecting more. They are returning to do the job to our satisfaction and have been pleasant to work with but we are using a different company for the remaining two buildings.

This company came out and spent about an hour at the house looking at the work I had. They never returned my phone call despite several follow-up calls asking for a bid.

Poorly. 1. After the "Chimney Man" cleaned my chimney, he said that my fireplace was unsafe and needed repair. The estimate included the following breakdown, which was offered to me from a woman who called from their office a few days later: $125 to fix the sidewall $50 to patch the floor of the fireplace $125 to install a heat reflector $325 was the offered total including labor. However, I wanted to get a second opinion and another bid on the repairs. So a few days later, I had a chimney sweep come over from another firm, and he said that my fireplace and chimney were safe as-is. He said that he had been cleaning chimneys for more than 10 years, and he even used his cell phone to call his supervisor at the office to ask if there were any new codes that might apply to my fireplace. He said there were none. 2. When the "Chimney Man" originally entered my condo, he did not even have a flashlight to look up the chimney. I offered him one of mine and, when it did not work, I offered him another that did. Clearly, he did not have a working flashlight on him, which I think indicates the man is less than fully-professional. 3. I originally found out about "Chimney Man" from a coupon I received in mail in the "ValPak" envelope. Although I did not necessarily expect the coupon to have the company's physical address, I was surprised that the receipt-work-order copy that he gave me after the service (about 8-1/2 x 14 inches) also did not include a physical address--which I think is rather odd. It includes only the name "The Chimney Man" and the phone number 1-888-234-4050, which is different from the coupon.