When the honest answer was "call an engineer"

This customer called and explained they weren't happy with their current contractor and asked us to provide an estimate to fix a crack in their chimney. Simple enough phone call. It stopped being simple about a minute after I got out of the truck.

The first thing I noticed was that the chimney was separating from the house. Not a hairline crack in the mortar, but an open gap running the height of the joint where the stone meets the siding, with galvanized angle brackets bolted across it to hold the two together. So I explained to the customer that the issue was likely beyond a simple crack repair and that a Professional Engineer should be consulted. My concern was that the foundation was dropping beyond normal settling and that the chimney could eventually fall over.

The customer then told me they'd already hired a contractor to fix the crack. Once he got into the work he realized the problem was much larger, and told them the whole chimney needed to come down and be replaced. That's when the customer called us.

Even with over 50 years of experience, there are situations where we aren't the ones capable of determining the best and safest solution. In these situations, instead of doing the job wrong, we make the appropriate recommendations. This one got a recommendation instead of an estimate, and I've never once regretted that.