Acadian Contractors

I am very pleased with the work done by Acadian on my 1920's semi in Cabbagetown, Toronto.

The project entailed grinding out long stress fractures in the mortar starting from the second floor, replacing five or six eroded and spalled bricks, including some beneath windows on the second and third floors, and parging our brick pillar on the front porch at ground level where the snow, ice and time had damaged the brick base of the column.

I called several different firms here on Home Stars claiming to do tuck pointing in my area. One firm claiming to do "invisible" tuck work said on the phone that their minimum cost is over $7,000, that they only book by the week, and that I'd have to agree to that cost before they'd even come and look at the house. They seemed proud that they'd done brick work at many historic 19th Century Victorian homes in Cabbagetown, but forgot that many of us don't want a full-on restoration with precise matching brick, but instead want a high quality repair. I took as pass on these fellows.

The second firm at least sent their guy to look at it. He quoted $6,000. I still couldn't believe it cost $6K to grind out and replace some mortar, replace five or six bricks and parge a small column. They also wanted to grind out all the bricks, which NO ONE does anymore - stay away from anyone who wants to do a total grind of your house.

Then I called Don at Acadian. The quote was $2,000. For that I got two hardworking, qualified and friendly masons for four full days. They inspected the bricks carefully, and repaired all the mortar cracks, replaced my spalled bricks and parged the column on the front porch. Now that the mortar has dried you can hardly see where the repairs were made, and the new bricks are already weathering in colour to match the original bricks. I highly recommend Don and Acadian Contractors.

The real lesson for me was to really shop around and to start with a basic idea of what things must cost. If I had received another five quotes over $6K I would have kept looking. In my opinion $2,000 for four days work, including materials is a fair price. I'm sure I could have found someone cheaper, but you still want quality workmanship. Acadian is the best match of quality and price for me.