Red Robin Masonry

Hired Red Robin to do spot pointing on my house. Quick response to my enquiry, and what I felt was a good session when Dave came over to give me an estimate. He pointed out that because of the ad hoc repairs over the years (our house is pretty old) and the various mortar colors already on the house, that we could do the whole thing so it would look nice (for $$$) or we could do just a functional job, where they would grind out the joints and spot repair as needed for much less ($). We went for $.

Alas, the guys who showed up to do the job showed up an hour late, told me they weren't sure what they were supposed to do, disappeared for an hour after they arrived, didn't grind out any joints (as far as I could tell), colored the mortar a fairly bright peach color, which didn't really match any of the existing mortar and stuck out like a sore thumb (i.e. made it look worse than it did before), slopped mortar all over the place, trowled mortar an inch over the edge of many bricks, half filled joints, ignored spots I pointed out to them, left a haze all over the bricks, etc. In other words, they did such an amateurish job I believe I could have done much better myself. When they were finished, they disappeared quietly before I had a chance to look at their final work. Suffice it to say that I was not pleased. The best thing I could say was that their work looked more-or-less functional (except where they have missed courses I pointed out to them where the mortar had severly deteriorated), although who can say if the mortar would have lasted....?

Now the good news. I sent a check thinking I'd never hear from RR again and that I'd just fix up things as best as I could. But I also complained about the work. RR sent a guy around to see what the other fellows had done and told me that he agreed their work was unacceptable. Then, over the next few weeks they sent guys to redo all the work and they did a great job, grinding out the joints, using a colour that was much better suited to the house, etc. These guys clearly took pride in their work. Mark (one of the partners) apologized in person for the original work. And all this even though they already had their money. So I'm sure they didn't make much, if anything, on the job given that they had to redo the whole thing....but I was pleased to see that they were as good as their word, and that they did a great job the second time around. In fact, they did such a good job I'm considering hiring them to redo the whole front and back of the house in the spring, and have already had Mark out for an estimate.

So, yes, I'd hire them again, because I like a company that stands behind its work. So they get a 9 out of 10 for that - and it would have been a 10/10 had the first crew done as a good job the first time around.