World Of Comfort Ltd

My name is Melvyn Ing and I am the President of World Of Comfort Ltd. I am responding to your review of World Of Comfort Ltd. which you posted on the “Homestars” site on Dec. 19, 2013. I have investigated the facts regarding this review and I wish to state my findings. I will be brief and poignant.
Your call was received on Wednesday Dec. 18th for a “no heat” service call. The call was dispatched and a window of time was given as between 1:30-4:30 pm. Being a new homeowner you were not able to give us particulars about your boiler as to make and model number. This information would have assisted us in servicing your equipment. Your concerned call was duly noted at 4pm to check the status of your call and you were told the service technician was on the call before yours and he should arrive soon. Heating service calls are difficult to pinpoint times because of the varying degrees of difficulty to solve problems.
Our service technician arrived about 4:45pm. It had been a long day with traffic delays and extended service situations eating up his time. He diagnosed the problem and found a blown glass fuse which he replaced, only to have it blow again. He explained the situation to you and then had to look for the problem which caused the fuse to blow. He found the low voltage wiring under the burner had been over heated and fused together and caused a dead short in the low voltage circuit. This caused the fuse to open or break. He made the repair and replaced the fuse and started the boiler and ensured its operation. During this time he told me that he was in constant communication with you and he explained the process in detail to you. You even told him “that you were stupid when it came to these things” and that your husband used to take care of these matters. At this point our technician’s job is complete because he has solved the problem of “no heat” and the boiler is working normally. The total time to this point is one hour.
But because the boiler has not been CO checked and tagged since Feb. 15, 2009 for a carbon monoxide (CO) emissions evaluation, he is obligated by Technical Standards Safety Authority, Fuels Safety Program, Director’s Order FS-072-06-R6 to conduct a CO evaluation and to take action if the reading is greater than 100 ppm. This test and any subsequent corrective measure is at the homeowners’ expense. He quoted you approximately two hours to do this cleaning which he explained to you. If you refuse the test, our technician is empowered to shut down the boiler and issue a “red tag” and leave the boiler inoperable.
A CO test was done on your boiler and the reading was over 2000 parts per million and he indicated this to you by showing you the meter and the beeping sound. This is could be a dangerous and a fatal situation. At this point there are two (2) options for you the homeowner. First you can purchase a new boiler (yours is over 20 yrs old). Second the CO reading must be brought down to below the 100ppm threshold. This later case is by cleaning the boiler, reassembling it and take another reading. If the reading does not fall below 100ppm, the process must be repeated. Some boiler’s heat exchangers are badly deteriorated and cannot reach this limit. There is no guarantee of success. Generally a service technician’s job is to perform service and repairs. Cleanings and carbon cleanings are done by maintenance technicians. He could have left the cleaning for another technician to follow up the next day, but you were expecting your son home and didn’t want him to come home to a cold house. He said he would do the work in spite of the lateness.
I think at this point, he had put in almost a 10 hour day, is tired and anxious to get home. He now is faced with a boiler that needs to be opened up and deep cleaned, not a nice situation to be in. You had a choice ... clean it or replace it. Either way, the result is more expense for you. You saw the condition of the boiler (he took pictures) and you know the conditions he had to work in. Your home inspector advised you that the boiler needed maintenance and that the Styrofoam insulation surrounding the boiler had to be removed, which he did because it was not safe. As a licenced gas technician, he is compelled to leave his work site safe for the occupants.
In conclusion, I understand that you were perturbed because we did not arrive in our window of time. Your “no heat” call took 3 hours to complete. Sometimes - to do the right job ... it takes longer. Nevertheless, you stated “the technician showed up and got my furnace working”. Yes, he did and he had fulfilled his duty, at least the first part. You acknowledge that our technician was “well qualified” but didn’t want to answer all your questions. Probably he just wanted to get home, maybe he had plans to go Christmas shopping or just, to go home and have a shower and a hot meal. After all technicians, as I have experienced, have a life too. So in fairness to our technician, who in doing his job and perhaps help prevent a terrible tragedy in your home, deserves more credit than he was given. To the Company he represents, World Of Comfort Ltd., who has a good reputation for doing the right thing, deserves a better review rating than 4. To you, our customer, we would like to consider this as a misunderstanding and hopefully keep you as a repeat customer, as we value your business. Merry Christmas.