UPDATED!!!
I only cannot comment on the work quality, as I just hired Mike to do the work about 30 minutes ago. He'll be back tomorrow once he's acquired the parts.
As for everything else, Mike's been great. He was early to our appointment, very professional in understanding the issues at hand and explaining both the causes of the problems and the potential solutions. I especially like that he didn't try to up-sell me to try to solve both problems at once. He wants to wait until the first problem is resolved believing that it will help mitigate the smokiness issue when using my fireplace.
I'll update with more information tomorrow when the work is complete.
**UPDATE**:
After Mike completed the work, I felt compelled to update this review. If I could give him 6 stars, I totally would. I'm definitely doing to miss something along the way but let me begin to list the amazing things about this. Mike professionalism started from the moment he walked in the door, the first thing he did (after taking his boots off) was put down plastic on all carpet between the door and his work area and around the work area. From there he explained again what he'd be doing, just to 100% ensure we were on the same page. Then he got to work, he had a few questions/comments along the way but nothing major. When we finished he cleaned everything up, and we showed me everything he had done; which was exactly what he'd said he do.
I have/had several issues I was attempting to solve. One is that my fireplace has these strange "vents" that were doing nothing except venting in 20° air from outside in... not good. Additionally, my fire place was not drafting well making it hard to start a fire without filling the room with smoke. We started with the vents, where Mike explained to me that filling these in would not only solve the cold air issue, but would also make the chimney perform better. Mike filled the vents and was able to amazingly match the artistic brick that my fireplace is made of. From there we did a few tests on the fireplace and he's begun to explain things we can do if I still have smoke when lighting a fire. But he didn't want me to spend the money until it was necessary.
Overall would definitely hire again.
G’s masonry & handyman
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