Four Seasons Air Control

Four Seasons Air Control, really left me and my partner with something to be desired. I thought long and hard about writing this review, it's not all bad, but not all good.

We recently purchased our first home which has an older compact high velocity furnace, and we wanted to have it serviced/assessed. Had one other company come out who took one look and said they weren't licensed to work on such a unit. The we met Four Seasons representative Illidio at the Home Show back in March. Illidio spent a long time speaking to us, listening to our needs, and assured us that Four Seasons Air Control could definitely help. Between that time, and the time we scheduled the technician to come out, we noticed our gas fireplace was having some trouble staying lit. I was clear about both issues when I called their office to schedule the appointment. The woman at the office was friendly and helpful and assured me this would be no problem, and the technician would arrive between 10-12 on the day of our appointment, so I made arrangements with work to work from home in the morning and come in in the afternoon.

On the day of the appointment, I received a call at 12:30 (just as I was about to give up on them) saying the technician was on his way and would be about half an hour - which turned out to be an hour. 1:30 the technician arrives, takes one look at our furnace and says that he can't do anything with that unit. So I politely pressed on and explained we spoke to Illidio at the Home Show for a long time and he assured us Four Seasons could do a furnace tune up and inspection for us, and the fan (I think), is making a loud unnatural ticking noise sometimes when it comes on (of course, I could not get it to do it while he was there). He just insisted it was "maintenance free unit" whatever that means, and that there is nothing to work on.

So we move on to the fireplace, I told him it turns on fine but after a few minutes the whole thing, including the pilot light shuts off, and we have a hard time getting it to relight. I turned the fireplace on to show him what it was doing but he immediately warned me I would make things too hot for him to work on, it just needed a new part. Okay so I left him to it, an hour or so later he's replaced the thermophile, pulled out an old melted flashlight somebody must have forgotten inside the fireplace (ugh!), re-painted/re-sealed the interior walls, cleaned the glass it looks great. Low and behold when he turned it back on to show me it was fixed, the whole thing shut itself off just like it was doing before. So he asked me "You say the fireplace is turning itself on and off?" I said no, it is only turning itself off, just like what it did to you there... He points to a piece of paper he has (probably from the office, I'm assuming) and says "this says it's turning both ON and off", to which I said I'm not sure where that paper came from, but as I said, and tried to you show you, everything just turns off after a couple of minutes. He goes back in to the fireplace, checks some other things, makes some phone calls, replaces another part, and another hour or so later we are up and running.

I was frustrated that 1) they showed up almost 90 minutes late; and 2) could not perform work on the furnace that I was assured could be done by Illidio at the Home Show; and 3) that my explanation and demonstration of the problem with the fireplace was dismissed by the technician because he had a piece of paper from the office, which caused him to spend double the amount of time, fixing a relatively minor problem.

Guess we'll just have to keep shopping around for somebody who's qualified to service compact high velocity furnaces, used in small spaces like condos and town-homes....

Be careful if you go with these guys. With an appointment between 10-noon, I thought it would be safe to arrange with work (who are quite strict), to work from home in the morning, and come in to the office by mid-afternoon.

I am happy our gas fireplace got a thorough cleaning and is now working properly.