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Hoeffer recently did a project for St. Marys Catholic Church in St. Â Benedict, KS and your name was mentioned as a contact.
Your comments help us know what we are doing right or wrong in our service to you and other clients. Independent feedback is important to maintaining and improving our service and workmanship. Here is a brief outline of questions to consider while composing your thoughts.
1- How would you describe the experience working with Hoefer Stained Glass on your project? Exellent .. caring and complete dedication to make sure that the project was done with the highest standards.
2- How did Hoefer handle working with preserving the original design and architecture of this project if applicable. The transept windows are Bavarian and priceless. There was never any consideration or suggestion to change anything. Where additional cames needed to be installed due to broken glass, it was done in a manner that is not obvious to the casual eye. The windows were encased in large wooden frames, tightly screwed together with 2 x 4′s with styrofoam liners. Our only concern was to avoid any accident on the highway in transport to Scott’s shop, at the time in McPherson. Some windows were disassembled and repaired on site.
3-Did Hoefer offer insight and advise on the project? We could not have ever expected a more caring individual. We interviewed several other contractors. Scott’s work make better windows out of what we had than the originals were as he installed all new 3/8″ flat zinc rebar. The windows were totally releaded and a protective 1/4″ plate was installed on the exterior.
4-Any other comments you would volunteer would be helpful. It was a pleasure to work with Scott; we received what we believe is an excellent project at a competitive and realistic cost.
5-Would you allow Hoefer Stained Glass publish your comments on their web site on a page titled “comments from past clients” or included in printed material shown to other prospective churches? Yes — of course.
Preserving Historical landmarks are expensive so you need someone who is experienced and careful to keep from damaging it. If you hire a contractor who damages a window it may not be possible to restore to its original structure. After working with Scott, I know he has his heart in his job to restore stained glass to the best of his ability.
Scott Hoefer was by far the most qualified for our project. Two of the bids came from larger contractors who were the highest bids which you may think they would be more qualified, but the person bidding on the project may not be the person overseeing the project. They also subcontract portions of the project to other contractors. Scott is there and overlooks the project. He also has quality help who also take pride in their work.
Scott was a pleasure to work with. He not only explained his process in restoring the windows but also explained the reason why he does it that way. The stained glass windows we have today are reinforced stronger than original and look like they are new. Some of the stained glass had been broken and replaced over the years by other contractors but never matched the original. Scott matched the glass to the original and you cannot tell it was ever replaced.
We had two stained glass windows destroyed by a tornado in 1903 but was not restored to original. Scott restored the window from scratch to match the stained glass window on the opposite side of the church.
Eight of our windows had ventilators that let a draft in to the church when closed during the winter and never had screens when they were open during the summer. He was the only contractor who had a design to have more secured screened ventilators without changing the visual integrity of the stained glass window.
Scott over looked every detail. One example is when I went up to the church to see the progress and Scott had a paint brush in his hand. He was not satisfied with two coats of paint required on the exterior protective coverings, so he painted a third coat. It is impressive to see the contractor taking pride on the little things. It looked fine but he felt it would not last as long.
Scott advised us on what he thought would work best to preserve our historical church. All his suggestions are what we went with and are glad we did. Because it was a HTF Grant, we were reporting the progress of the project monthly. We never had one change from the site reviewer when we completed the project.