I’ve been a lurker here for quite some time and have gotten so much good advice that I wanted to give back. I live in a small co-op in Park Slope. Our building hadn’t had any significant upkeep for 30 some years. After a couple of apartments started experiencing some water damage, we began to get estimates for roof and brick pointing work.

We’re now just about done with the work and are very happy with the results. We originally got quite a few estimates, did a lot of research on our own, and agonized so much over the choice of contractors that I want to save others some of that work by highly reoommending who we used. We ended up using Premier Roofing Co for the new roof–Fred Ciliotta is one of the owners and he’s been such a pleasure to work with. He thoroughly answered all of our questions, big and small, and never once made us feel naive and inexperienced (which we were!). Their # is 718-638-3711. And any little issues that we had were dealt with promptly and happily.

The brick pointing job was much larger–it involved pointing the parapet walls on the roof, which had been covered and recovered over the years with tar; rebuilding a dilapidated chimney on the roof; replacing window lintels for the entire building; and pointing the entire facade of a 5 story building. We ended up going with Burda Construction (www.burdaconstruction.com). They were not the cheapest, but we felt that they were very professional, communicative, respectful, and thorough, and that was very important to us, especially after all the horror stories we’ve heard and read about on sites such as this one. Jack Scibor was the manager for our job, and Burda’s # is 718-222-3220. They’re finishing up this week, and we’re very happy with the results. As could be expected, there were a few small snafus along the way but they were incredibly minor, and addressed immediately.

Please post a comment if you have any additional questions!


Comments

  1. Has anyone worked with Guaranteed Roofing before? My landlady has got them working on the house I live in right now, but we live in a historic district and yet they don’t seem to care about that fact. So far they’ve just been painting, but we don’t have a finalized contract with them and we need some repointing and minor structural work done.

    They have proposed using red cement to cover the exterior wall of the parapet, above the cornice that runs around the facade about 3 feet down from the top of the four-story red brick house, and also to install metal brackets to hold up the sagging cornice. I worry about running afoul of the LPC and also just that these guys are a bit shady and my landlady didn’t really shop around at all. Anyone have any info or suggestions?

  2. For masonry I’ve used Park Slope Brownstone – VinRoy Baronette. His crew are very careful workers & don’t leave a mess & I particularly like the way he doesn’t say he’ll be there when he won’t be able to make it. Good work, good prices – I’ve used him for several projects over the last 3 years. 646 554 4513
    For roofing I’ve used an independent named Jacov who is excellent: speedy, reasonably priced & does good work: 917 257 7049