Stephen Caissie in Toronto

We had an unusual situation a spigot on the outside of our house that had been improperly installed by the previous owner and was almost impossible to reach had failed, and was leaking constantly. As it was installed too close to the house, I wasnt able to connect a secondary shut-off valve. And because it emerged from the side of a one-story addition, there was no way to access it from the basement, only a crawl space that was so full of junk it was inaccessible. None of these issues fazed Mr. Ellis, and he found very creative ways to deal with all of problems. He was able to remove the old spigot and installed a new one, several inches farther from the house, and while the wooden siding didnt stay entirely intact, he was able to put everything back reasonably well certainly much better than I would have been able to. And he did all of this in less than two hours. I will happily call him back the next time we have a plumbing issue.

We had our basement waterproofed in 2016, and while that company did a good job, the one thing they would not do was to repair the portion of our driveway that they dug up beside our house. After speaking to a number of individuals and companies, we felt most confident hiring Carl. He understands not only how to pour concrete, but all of the underlying issues and concerns that come with having a driveway in an older section of Toronto. He was very careful to grade the slope away from both our house and our neighbour’s, as well as both of our driveways. He was always patient, no matter how many questions we asked. And he was open to suggestions on aesthetics. Carl finished our driveway in the autumn of 2018, and while some of the stress cuts weren't exactly in the right places, we could live with it. And then, disaster struck. Over the course of that winter, the surface of the driveway crumbled and pitted to such an extent that we were worried it would degrade completely. Carl came by to look at it and immediately understood that the mix the concrete company had supplied him with was bad. So he agreed to re-do it, at his own expense. Side note: I don't think he's dealing with that supplier any more. While that fixed the issue of the crumbling driveway, it unfortunately introduced a new issue, which was that a portion of the driveway was now sloping away from the drain, causing water to pool near our neighbour's garage. Once again, Carl scheduled a time to come by and build up the surface. Once again, out of his own pocket. He did these two repairs without any complaints or wheedling because he wanted to make sure it was a proper job. There is no one else we would dream of calling for future masonry work.