Hansen and Sons Chimney & Fireplace, LLC — Attraction in Monona

Quick summary: We had an outstanding experience with Hansen &Sons this fall. We had a fair price, excellent service by very considerate, polite, careful workers. In particular, they were really accomodating to our schedule when setting up initial appointment, installation and for all the follow-up work. The gas insert itself works great and looks great. I'd recommend them to absolutely anyone for this work. If you want the long version, read on.

We have an older Arts and Crafts home with the classic wood-burning fireplace. It was rarely used, caused cold drafts and made our living room the coldest room in the house. We decided to install a gas insert in early Sept and went to several chimney/insert outfits in Madison. Hansen was the easiest to work with from the start, as Bill (owner) was willing to stop for the evaluation and estimate after we got home from work. (the other place we talked too insisted that the estimate could only be done at 2 p.m. -- not convenient for us with our jobs!) We got a reasonably accurate first estimate immediately and found Bill to be charming and very helpful when choosing our insert style. He suggested that we could save money by getting our own electrician for outlet installation (which we did and saved $250!) Part of our incentive for the gas insert was that my wife needed to stay at home during November/December and the insert would make it much more pleasant. Although it was the high-season for his business, Bill took it as a challenge to get the unit in ASAP. It took 6 weeks for the unit to come, as he predicted, and it was installed in one day. It turned out the decorative faceplate for the insert was not yet in stock, so Bill offered to install it with an alternate faceplate temporarily. The two workmen for installation were great -- polite and kept the house clean throughout. The exterior work for gas hookup was neat and professional. The replacement faceplate arrived 6 weeks later and was a tricky install as it was a brand new design for them. Ultimately it took a few extra trips by them to get the fit right. Through all of those extra trips, they were unfailingly cheerful and a bit sheepish about it all. But there was no attitude issues, because you could tell that they weren't going to be satisfied until it was just right. I've never had a better experience with a construction outfit than the one we had with...

If the quality of the work had been poor, this would be a 1 star review.

Hansen & Sons is expensive! We were facing an emergency situation with our chimney and felt pressured to find a place ASAP. If we had more time we would have looked for a different business that charges less. It seems like Hansen & Sons have really embraced inflation pricing while their competitors have not.

Before the job was started - We were told before we would receive communication the week workers would be coming out and get a text the day of so we knew when people were on the way. We made it very clear that we had dogs and the gate to the backyard absolutely needed to be shut at the end of the work day. We were assured this would be done.

We were notified that the workers would come one week and they never arrived. We reached out that Friday and were told the workers would be coming out that day and no one came. We were told the following Monday they had call ins and didn’t make it to our house and someone would be out the following Wednesday. Workers arrived on Tuesday without notifying us and we weren’t prepared (dogs needed to use the backyard, garage needed to be accessed, water needed to be turned back on). While we were assured that we didn’t need to be home, it’s clear that they would not have been able to do anything if we both had been gone.

On day 1 of the job our garage and gate were left open. We did not receive any communication if the workers would be back.

On day 2 the gate to our backyard was left open and we didn’t see this until the dogs were let out into the yard (in the rain and the dark).

The job took 3 days - we didn’t get any communication about how long the job would take.

An employee came over on day 3 to give us a gift box that contained dog toys, treats, a $25 Mounds gift card, and Hansen & Sons merch. We returned this box with our final payment. I understand the sentiment behind the gift, but it was insulting to receive a $25 gift card when we were paying almost $5,000 for this chimney.

The actual work on the chimney was solid. We have no more leaking when it rains. Our biggest issue is with the administrative side of the business. The actual workers are great despite struggling to effectively communicate with a language barrier. It gives you the impression that Hansen & Sons admin staff also struggle to communicate with...

All of folks at Hansen & Sons were great. I'm a picky guy and can find imperfections in just about anything, but overall we are quite happy with the work they have done and how they handled the installation challenges.

I was able to talk to an estimator and an installer the day we first showed up in the showroom, which was a nice change from the usual sales folks you might expect. They provided valuable insight.

We purchased a gas insert through them and also had them install new stone over our old, painted brick, a mantel, and a new hearth. Pretty big job.

They worked with us on installing a mantel and hearth stone that we obtained from elsewhere. The owner was nice enough to come out on a Sunday evening and help us measure for those items to ensure there wouldn't be problems during installation.

The fireplace frame we bought was brand new and my installation was the first they had used it. When we all saw the gap it left near the inside-bottom of the unit, they were nice enough to go to their favorite metal fabricators to have an additional piece welded on at no cost to me. The result looked much better.

We're quite pleased with the new stone installation. There were some tricky, narrow cuts but they did a good job. Each panel is 4 rows of stone. The installer did a great job making sure he did not need to have cuts through all 4 rows by breaking off individual stones and cutting them to fill the gaps, making everything look more real.

Lastly, when it came time for final payment and there was some discrepancy over prices that were previously discussed with my estimator, and what was on the bill, the manager was very accommodating and not only adjusted the final payment price but also provided me with new ledge stone back-plates for the fireplace to replace the black enamel ones that were initially installed. Note: only get the black enamel if you plan to go in there and clean them often; they get dirty quickly.

Everyone I dealt with during this project were pleasant and seemed to really know their stuff. Management seems to be very customer oriented and willing to do what it takes to help the customer with choices, and to make them happy. It was a pleasantly refreshing experience...