I contacted Chimney and Fireplace Leonel after they left a flyer at my parents house. I have my chimney cleaned every year, and decided to give them a shot.
They responded right away, and began cleaning the chimney. I asked how it looked, and they said it was very dirty. This should have been my first clue, because, like I said, I clean my fireplace every year and I only used the fireplace about ten times last year.
I brushed it off as exaggeration and they finished up.
They mentioned to me that my chimney cap and spark arrestor needed to be replaced because they were bent and rusted, and were letting water into the chimney. I trusted them and told them to go ahead with the repairs since I did not want to go up two tall stories to check it out.
They came today and did the repairs. When they lowered the cap and spark arrestor, I noticed there was no rusting at all, and the parts were not bent. I confronted them and they could not reply with anything logical and went as far as to say animals were getting into the chimney from the mesh around the spark arrestor. I told them we never had any animals in the chimney to which he changed his tune to well animals could get in.
Bottom line is that they didn't know that I'm a contractor. I use to install Marco fireplaces back in the 90's. Same prefabricated type of system. They were not truthful thinking I wouldn't check the pieces when they came down.
This was really stupid of them considering that I would have recommended them to my friends with cabins up in Wrightwood and Pine Mtn. Club. I will make sure the word gets spread about these guys.
Apparently the son has taken the business over from his father, I wonder if the father will be happy about this? read more