I called Belyea Brothers to come and check into reorganizing a hot water manifold and servicing my boiler. The "technician" showed up for the appointment, put cloth booties over his work boots on a snowy/slushy day, tracked dirty footprints through our house, reviewed the situation for all of 15 minutes max, informed me that there was nothing he could do, charged me roughly 150$ for the priviledge and, left me with a clean up job on our floors! From what I understand, there is no credit of the 150$ charge against any work that may be done in the future which makes the whole trip for this "technician" seem like nothing more than a money grab...especially when no work was performed! I will not be calling these people again and would warn others of their practices.
I am posting this now some 6 months after the above posting. In addition to the above, shortly after the "technician" visit, Belyea had my boiler red tagged which meant having the boiler replaced within 90 days. This was done despite having them over to service the boiler on many occasions and, having asked them for quotes to replace our boiler in 2016...on all of those occasions there was never any concern expressed that our boiler installation was to code. While they may have been correct on that point, I can't help but think that "red tagging" our boiler was done in part out of retaliation for a negative review. We have had our boiler replaced now, by other providers and are very satisfied with the results.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $150.00
- Company Response
Mr. Ainsworth’s post unfortunately seems to be a case of shooting the messenger: Our technician, Julio, attended Mr. Ainsworth’s home to investigate why a section of the home was not heating well. Upon arrival he took great care to double up his floor protection boot covers specifically because of the intense weather we have experienced over the holidays. Once in the basement, Julio found the wall-hung boiler was in a finished bathroom, and literally had a wall built around the middle of the unit, rendering the system piping inaccessible. The renovation work was clearly done after the boiler had been installed. This also meant the installation was now no longer to code according to the manufacturer’s specifications.
Julio explained there was nothing he could do to the system because of these circumstances (the wall around the face of the boiler will need to be cut away to achieve proper clearances and access to piping). He recommended having a system consultant examine what could be done to bring the system to code – which will likely mean replacing the boiler and rethinking the whole layout of the bathroom. Mr. Ainsworth was aware of this circumstance, yet still seemed to take this suggestion as an attempt to create more work for Belyea rather than solving the immediate issue he wanted solved. As it stands, no licensed company can work on this system without first bringing it up to code, or replacing it entirely.
This is an important and useful example for homeowners finishing or planning to finish their basements. Often inexperienced general and mechanical contractors will simply slap something together knowing they will not be the ones solving any of the future issues that will inevitably arise. In this case, the solution will likely be extremely invasive, and cost Mr. Ainsworth thousands of dollars more than it should, whomever he chooses to unravel this unnecessarily complex installation.