Business ProfileforAlways A Sweep Chimney and Dryer Vent Service, LLC

Their technician caused damage to my dryer vent during a cleaning then charged me ******* to repair the damage he caused on top of the initial charge for the cleaning service and inspection. Period! The owner then proceeded to call me when I requested a refund and questioned this business practice, and tried to spin it as they did us a service. Their technician caused the damage then said it was more dangerous to leave it this way!!!! Had we known this was a possibility we would have not let them touch it! Do not let them in your home!

Thank you ***************** for the opportunity to serve at your home. We are certainly sorry that we were not able to refund your money as demanded. As discussed with your husband prior to him signing the contract giving us authority to repair the deficient and hazardous plastic dryer vent as well as with you both last evening (at your request), leaving an unapproved plastic hose connected to your dryer vent would have been more dangerous than just allowing it to vent into the attic. After explaining the various options to your husband including having your roofer come back and put on the proper termination that could actually allow a proper attic venting repair and connection our CDET certified technician would have been happy to go to his last stop of the day and get back for the meeting with his friend that he had planned, but following our policy to do what is best for our clients, he offered to properly install a proper dryer **** on the roof and to replace the un unapproved and unsafe materials. He also offered to remove the built service call from the standard repair price providing a $350 discount because we were already there and would not have to drive back the 1 hour each way to do the repair later. Again this is a standard practice of offering to remove this built in service call/drive time charge. We dont do this to pressure people into buying right then. We do it because it is a real savings for our business on gas, wear and tear-vehicle mileage, 2 hours of drive time cost saved for highly paid technicians, and all of the other business costs that have to be spread across the working hours in order to be paid for. We believe that if we can reduce our operating cost by eliminating drive time later then it is appropriate to provide that savings to our clients. Offering an on site discount is not a sales gimmick. It is an offer of real value. Since we daily find disconnected dryer vent hazards like this that cannot be connected without rigging something like yours was due to an improper roofing termination we have this conversation regularly and most homeowners choose to contact their roofer to correct their work thus saving them money. Often we get called back to these when the client cannot get their roofer to fix it or they just need the attic portion fixed which we are happy to do. We are really flexible and want to work with clients to meet their needs in the way that is best for them. However, we cannot do something as suggested that could make us a contributor to a home fire. When the dryer vent was cleaned using industry best practices and then video scanned afterward (exceeding those best practices), we found a 2 foot section of disconnected and damaged plastic bathroom hose that was disconnected from the rest of the metal venting. Stuffing another dangerous hose like that back into the improper termination and connecting it to the vent would have been exceedingly more hazardous than just allowing the lint to vent into the attic (which is also not allowed) as it would have added another very combustible material (plastic) onto a system that is credited with over ****** home fires a year. If there was a way to fix it and make it safe we would have happily done that, but since the roof termination had to be replaced first that was not an option. We were not the ones who illegally rigged that system in such a dangerous way. We do understand that it should have been caught on your recent home inspection but again that is not the service that we were providing. We were inspecting the chimney system and cleaning the dryer vent with an internal video scan after cleaning as explained during our recorded initial phone call. Though its certainly not impossible it seems a little hard to believe that your husband, working at a prison every day would feel the duress that you described to repair some thing on the spot. If you look on our ****** page, you will see dozens and dozens of of the 400 plus reviews scattered throughout the last several years specifically showing appreciation for our low pressure educational approach to explaining the need for repairs. Multiple times you will find that our clients appreciate not feeling pressured by our technicians. One might assume that with the constant manipulation that your husband would be exposed to working at the prison all day he would not feel pressure from a documented low pressure repair explanation. We can certainly understand your being frustrated. Multiple things went wrong that were mostly out of your control: the roofer put on the wrong termination; the handyman rigged it with a dangerous plastic vent; the building inspector missed it; the home inspector that you hired to protect you from these kind of things, missed it. Our certified technician found it because we go above and beyond and do an internal video scan that is beyond the requirements for a Dryer Vent cleaning. So it certainly is our fault that we found a dangerous situation and brought it to your attention. Its also our fault that we were prepared to an offered to fix something on site with the proper materials and a certified technician, instead of ringing something like previously done. The one thing that we would request that you take responsibility for is your husband giving us permission both verbally and by signing a contract for us to complete the work and then not stopping us while we were there on the property for the hours it took to complete the repair. Demanding that we refund the entire amount of a contracted repair because your handyman that said he could do it cheaper after we had completed it, is not something we can take responsibility for. We are really sorry about this unknown hazard that created this unexpected expense, and we also certainly feel the pressure of the rapid inflation of the last few years and can relate to your frustrations. We certainly would have understood and done everything we could to help if your husband would have told us (like many do): Sorry, we just cant afford that right now, we are going to have the roofers fix it. But instead he signed the contract for ***** to do the work avoiding the hassle of having to deal with the roofers and securing the $350 discount and a high quality repair exceeding industry best practices for both materials and installation. Demanding that we refund the agreed upon price and threatening to stop the check when your home is in possession of our goods and services that we have no way of getting back is not the right timing for that decision. We even often refund down payments when a client needs us to, but not when we have fully completed an agreed upon service. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions. I have instructed our team to direct all your calls to me. I am happy to speak with you anytime. Sincerely, ******