Ray Brown Jr

Bad Experience — To being — Ray Brown sends out his minions to assess a situation with my pellet stove. They charge me $ 100 just for his staff to come out take pictures of it and tell me that «they don’t really know anything about pellet stoves and that Ray Brown would have to come and look at it and fix it». Why did I have to pay $ 100 for that? Mr. Brown scheduled an appointment a few days later came out and had to reevaluate the whole thing. I mean really what was the point of sending people to look at my problem that have NO IDEA HOW A PELLET STOVE WORKS? — In any case he «fixed» the problem — or so I thought — I cannot confirm this because like Ray Brown’s staff I don’t really know my way around the pellet stove and I am no expert — BUT… a few weeks later the stove malfunctioned and caught a part of the stove that isn’t supposed to burn on fire, filling my whole house with smoke (I am still cleaning up after it). I don’t plan on calling Ray Brown back. — One more thing — it look like 5 or 6 phone calls to schedule the appointments and they cancelled and changed the time on me twice and then still showed up late– Moral to the story stay away…

I recently rented a very large and tall (4 floors) apartment with my roommates. Our landlord was unsure if the fireplace was safe/​working and left it up to us to have it inspected/​swept if we wished to use it. I saw Ray’s advertisement on a light pole on my way home and as another reviewer pointed out there are not many reviews whatsoever for chimney sweepers in this area. I gave Ray a call, actually 2, as I only took down the number off the sign and found him on Unilocal as well and he promptly returned both calls! I discussed with him the price of $ 125 for the cleaning and also mentioned that I have a wood stove insert and he openly explained to me that if the service tech who came out needed to remove it that it would be around $ 25 — $ 45 extra but that they would clean it and replace it. I went ahead and scheduled my appointment for 8AM — Noon that same Friday and left Ray with some extensive instructions that our doorbell was broken and it is hard to hear the front door so calling my cell was really the only way to get in touch — we’ve had problems in the past with answering the door… Ray’s tech, Russell, gave me a 15 minute heads up call just after 8, arrived exactly at 8:15 as he stated, promptly came in, assessed the stove, managed to sweep the chimney without removing the stove, was super polite and clean, taught me what he was looking for and explained very easily how everything worked with the draft etc., and when he was finished he even left me with a magnet and some nice pens in addition to a receipt that explained everything he just did. I was very impressed considering our chimney is over 30ft tall. I read all of the other reviews and can’t speak to those specific instances but I deal with contractors on a daily basis and Ray and his staff that I met were very easy to work with, knowledgable, and open about all of my questions. I highly recommend Ray and his team.

He worked fast. That was his only upside. He lost the check we gave him and then hounded my wife on Facebook while we went through the process of canceling it. When we cashed out an account to keep the check from being fraudulently cashed, he found it and tried cashing it without telling us. He then again went through Facebook to harass my wife about the situation and accusing us of purposefully not paying him.(It was a cashier style check) In the end I refunded the account the check was for and he was paid the next day. I will not be using him again. He is condescending, rude and uses social media to harass customers.

Ray is great at hiring top notch workers who do clean, conscientious and professional grade work. Used them for chimney and fireplace services. Had them out to house twice and really liked the workmanship. Toughest part was getting these folks on the phone. It took 4 phone calls to get a price quote on work needed. The issue wasn’t the office workers blowing me off, it was Ray himself who caused the delay by not allowing his people to give quotes and then leaving them in limbo while I kept calling for a simple answer. This is a good business and has competent people who just need to be empowered by their manager. Other customers would have given up and gone somewhere else.

The lack of reviews here (or anywhere) for chimney cleaners was certainly frustrating when trying to find one.
I ended up going with Ray Brown Jr. based solely on the fact that his «Services» business is BBB accredited and I lacked any other guidance.
Anyway, I called to schedule an appointment without incident or trouble. I was able to make an appointment on the week day I wanted and was given a time frame of between 8 and 10 AM. I asked about weekend hours and was told they can do Saturdays but there’s a bit of a price price premium as they try to give the guys weekends off. I can appreciate that so I scheduled for a Wednesday when I could be home.
Two men showed up around 8:30/9. They went onto the roof to inspect the chimney and liner. They informed the the liner was installed incorrectly so they fixed that.
They then removed my wood-​burning insert from the fireplace to clean the chimney. They also cleaned the insert thoroughly and re-​installed it without incident.
Ultimately, everything appeared to be done well, thoroughly, and legitimately. I had no way of confirming the liner was somehow installed incorrectly, but I certainly have no reason to not believe them.