Eddie of General Brick Designs did a fantastic job building a gravel driveway at our house. He lives up to his rave online reviews. He is a great communicator and friendly. He is prompt and thorough. He immediately understood the look I wanted and gave me a recommendation for achieving it in a way that would be easy to maintain. He explained how a gravel driveway is engineered and carefully talked through the challenges of my space, which needed grading so that water wouldn't pool in the center. Ultimately, the work was finished well ahead of schedule, and it looks terrific. I know that if I have any questions or issues, I can call Eddie and he'll respond right away. He's now my go-to guy for masonry or paving work. I'll encourage my friends to use him. Heck, I'd probably call him for advice on stuff unrelated to paving. He's that good. Hire him. You won't regret it! read more

General Brick Designs - Our new gravel driveway - Masonry/Concrete Near Me

Eddie is the absolute best! He is a superior mason with an unmatched knowledge base and, most of all, a man of excellent character. You simply will not find a contractor like Eddie. He has devoted countless hours to our project. To say that he is committed to our job is an understatement. Without him, we would've faced enormous difficulties. He saved us from that. If you're looking for a mason you can implicitly trust and will treat you like family, call Eddie. He is in a class by himself and his crew is top notch too! We cannot recommend them enough! read more

We found General Brick Design and Ed through Angie's List. Our house was dealt a bit of blow when we discovered our home had significant foundation damage and structural issues. I started my search for a contractor on Angie's List and General Brick popped up first. I wasn't sure they could repair what we would need done so I started reading the reviews. Most every review on this list is a short essay on why you should hire Ed and his crew and this review won't be any different. One review below mentioned that this contractor has now set the bar so high for contractors and I couldn't agree more. So here is our story. One Friday not too long ago, we have a home inspection and find out its bad, like real bad. Saturday, after drowning our sorrows I start researching contractors determined to get this done. Sent an email and within about 2-3 hours Ed was on the phone with me. I explained what the issue appeared to be and he gave me his background. He was on his way home for the day and offered to stop by and give his opinion. By hour 4 Ed was in our basement showing us around and explaining what he preliminarily thought could be wrong. By Sunday, Ed had called us back with a price and a scope of work. I am fortunate that I work for civil engineers and architects and have related expertise at my disposal. I took the scope of work and had someone I trust, review the work to be done. The scope of work was very clear as to what needed to be done and in my colleague's opinion was that it was a solid way of fixing this type of issue and the price was very fair for the level of work. Armed with some reassurance and knowledge on just what it all meant, Ed came by Tuesday to give us another tour of exactly what he was going to do and explain everything. Being in a similar field, I had a bunch of questions and Ed took the time to answer every single one. We were lucky he had an available slot in July and put a deposit down. I just didn't see the point in finding anyone else because Ed has such superior knowledge on this work there just wasn't any point in my opinion of looking elsewhere. So at this point it has been 4 days that Ed has been in our lives. By the following Saturday (exactly 1 week) Ed called to tell us that he knew we were under a bit of a time crunch and rearranged his schedule to start the work that Monday. The work went so smoothly. The guys showed up on time and ready to work. It was neat to see all the progress being made each day. We weren't quite ready for the work to start thinking we had a few more weeks and really didn't have the basement super clear. The crew moved everything to the side themselves and even moved it back when the work was done. Part of the work required the deck to be removed and they did that too and even put it back nicer than it looked before. They even replaced a bored or two in the deck that needed it. I mean who does that!? Ed showed up with extra people on a few days just to make sure the work would get done in a timely manner. Ed worked along side the crew for our job and of course was onsite each day all day. They finished the whole job in 4 days and the work looks absolutely amazing. Our house feels so solid feels so safe. I had no idea it needed this work, but glad we ended up doing it. Everyday he would wait for my husband to get home and explain everything that was done that day and give him the run down. Needless to say a bunch of my engineer friends at work want his number for some of their projects after showing them his brick work. Honestly temped to throw him some money to get on his schedule to do something next summer...anything I don't even know what. Don't hesitate. Just give the man the money. You won't regret it. read more

Working with Ed on a reasonably large job has been a genuinely unique contractor experience--and I mean that in the most positive way! If you're looking to hire someone who has an impressive background and extensive masonry experience, who cares about your job, who you can entirely trust, who will give you more than you bargained for, who pays attention to detail, and is just plain nice to be around, then just go ahead and hire Ed. You will never regret it! I've done construction on and off since I was in high school. My dad was in construction, my sister does architectural design, other family members are involved in various aspects of design and building. There are a few traits I find most valuable in those I work with. One is that they be proficient at their trade. Another is that they be more committed to doing a good job and paying attention to detail, more than they are to finishing the job. Third is that they are pleasant to work with and really enjoy what they're doing. Ed at General Brick gets extremely high scores on each of those. He is absolutely proficient at his trade. Any time I asked Ed a question about any aspect of the trade, he not only knew the answer, but the reasons for the answer. His high level of expertise as a mason and engineer are the result of decades (& generations) of experience. That's a very good thing when that wisdom is being applied to your job. On point #2. Ed is incredibly committed to doing a quality job and cared about the details of the job as much as we did. His workers move quickly, but not at the expense of doing the right thing. That attitude made our job so much better, and so much easier. We started this job with only rough plans. And the understanding was that those plans were a work in progress. Ed was fine with that. Beyond that, he was supportive and helpful at each stage, when it came to dealing with complicated details of the job. Regarding point #3 about how important it is to work with someone who is pleasant to work with because they really enjoy their work. Beyond not complaining about us not having final details for him until the last minute, Ed was actually really helpful at those times. He'd offer his advice, his opinion, and somehow never rushed us. Contrast that with contractors who have a fit when some detail or another changes. If you've done any construction, you know how bad that can be. I'll give you just 1 example of how positive it was to work with Ed. When laying the bluestone in a random pattern for our front path, they worked from a straight line on one side, while the various sized pieces projected beyond the planned line on the other side. When the path was completed, those random sizes were to be cut to the planned width. When we noticed that most of the stones projected 4" beyond the originally-planned line, we asked if instead of cutting those all back to the original line, the path could be made wider than planned by cutting less of the projecting stones. That created a bit more work, as they needed to remove and replace a couple of the shorter stones, to widen the path in those areas where the random stones did not project to that 4" line. Ed thought that was a good idea and happily did the work-- without charging us extra. And that was the least of the incidents where Ed went the extra mile. General Brick Design's work comes with a 10 yr warranty. But that doesn't even give the full picture of how Ed stands behind his work. Since the job has ended, Ed has called in a few times to find out how everything is looking, and how the rest of the job is proceeding. He's even offered to make some repairs on his work that might be damaged by another trade, and to fix brickwork that might be damaged by removing trees. And FYI, my sister hired Ed to do an even bigger job than ours. I'll finish by saying that I had not met Ed prior to this job. I'm not a family member who's trying to help him out with an over-the-top good review. What I am, as you can see, is a very satisfied customer. (PS: His workers are very skilled and nice guys too!) read more