Dishonest Amateurs. We had Cunningham & Sons come out to redo our chimney crown, grind out damaged mortar joints, and fill them with mortar. Also spraying the brick with a silicon barrier was imposed on us as a condition for their warranty. Alan performed the job with another technician. The crown was replaced, but the tooling was terrible (see pictures).
Areas of Concern:
They missed the majority of cracks in the mortar; when it was pointed out, I was told not to worry about them because the water barrier (silicon spray) would take care of it - for the record I did not hire them to spray the brick, I am definitely able to spray the brick myself;
Only some of the old caulking on the damaged mortar was removed and in many instances, the caulking was just covered with a thin layer of dry mortar;
On the crown, the corner around the chimney's clay liner had a void, right between the newly installed crown's mortar and the liner. It collected water because of the void and the fact that the crown was not profiled to divert water from the liner. Consequently, a puddle of water was gathering after the rain, right where the void was at the liner (see pictures). This would destroy the chimney in a short time;
Spots that were grinded out were left without filling up with new mortar in a few instances. They did not have a proper size blade to perform the job effectively anyway ;
Old, cracked mortar was not grinded out but just covered with a thin layer of dry mortar in the majority of instances;
The mortar was applied mostly with a finger and was too thin and dry, resulting in weak bond, shrinkage, and erosion;
Promised color matching of mortar, especially on the front of the house is not even close (see pictures)
A cracked brick in the chimney corbel was left behind, even though spare bricks for replacement were provided;
The job had to be completely redone by another company. They needed 3 days to complete it. In contrast, Alan and his mate did this job in roughly 5 hours with many breaks in between and a 2-hour lunch break.
I actually had a roofing contractor visiting at the time, looking at my roof. He was cracking jokes at Alan about his "pretty finger job" on mortar.
The pictures documenting their poor performance were sent to Cunninghams and their response was they wanted to send someone to fix it. Any company that would allow such an unskilled and unprofessional worker on their team was not welcome back to do any work. We were flabbergasted at their poor quality and lost faith in their craftsmanship and decided to go with another company to redo their work.
The total for the job was: $3,250 We rightfully asked for a full refund when we sent the pictures that documented their poor job and a copy of the invoice from another company to redo the work. Their response was that they are refunding us $800 for the silicon barrier spraying part of the job, they did not perform. Of course, we did not receive that check. We filed a BBB complaint and they did not have the professionalism to respond to this third-party agency to resolve the problem.
After a certified letter was sent to them outlining our issues and demand for a refund, they did not accept the letter. When we confronted them about it via email, they claimed that they had not received any certified letter. Finally, after many exchanges of emails, they promised to refund us $1000. We reluctantly agreed so we wouldn't have to continue interacting with them, that was at the end of 2024.
When the check never came, Cunningham told us they sent the check on Jan. 10th and asked us to verify the address. We did so, and we requested that they send another check via priority mail with a tracking number. They never did it. Instead, they informed us that, quote (including their typos and grammatical errors): "We remained a new check to the address provided abeve on the 7th of February. Check #1083". Needless to say, nothing came.
When the second check didn't arrive by mid-February, they said they would send the money via Venmo. Of course, that money was never received.
Be aware of having any work done by Cunningham & Sons. Hopefully, our loss will prevent you from having a terrible experience as we did. Cunningham & Sons are unethical and unprofessional. We are done being strung along and wanted to warn others about this company. Do not do business with Cunnigham & Sons that's the bottom line. We are currently preparing a case for the Small Claims Court. read more