Complaint Review: Ron's Fireside Shop

This company is a joke.

I live in an older home downtown Wilmington with 2 fireplaces that are not “fire ready”, so I called these guys out so they could inspect them and possibly get a quote for getting them up and running. They said it would be $150 for the visit and inspection. I thought that was a little steep, but figured it would be worth it to get them checked.

Two guys showed up and spent less than 5 minutes (total) looking at the fireplaces. Since we were inside, I offered to show them the top of the chimney that goes through the attic as they didn’t show a lot of interest in actually going on the roof. He poked his head in and for a few seconds and declared that it would be at least $10,000 to fix up.

I wasn’t ready to spend that kind of money, so I halted any “fixing”.

He offered to clean up one of our fireplaces that had been used by a previous owner and cap the gas line as I was about to have a baby crawling around. He said he’d do it for $150 and it’ll look like new. Again, I thought that sounded steep, but I figured these guys knew what they’re doing.

I hear a vacuum cleaner going and it sounds like they’re doing their thing. About 5 minutes later he hands me a bill for $300…um what? I look at the fireplace and as far as I could tell, they vacuumed up a bit and put a little screw top on the gas line. The fireplace still looked as dirty as ever, but I figured if these “experts” couldn’t get it any cleaner, those darker stains must be permanent.

I was fairly unhappy with their $300 results, but I reluctantly paid.

Later that day, I took a closer look at the fireplace and whipped my finger across the darker, areas and realized that they didn’t touch it. The darker areas we only soot and could easily be cleaned up in these lazy guys had any intention. I blame my self for not looking closer, but I wanted to put the word out that these guys should be avoided.

I searched around and also found another complaint online. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a lot more with a little digging.  Feel like getting ripped off? Give ol’ Ron's Fireside & Fireplace a call.