Reliance Home Comfort

For starters, those individuals who gave positive reviews either work for the company or have never experienced anything out of the ordinary with Reliance. In other words, commenting on the quick and clean installation is not a valid review because true customer service kicks in after you've signed the agreeement and installed the equipment, not when you are a new customer ready and willing to throw your money at them.

Background information
- I am moving into a home where the current owners have a lease agreement with Reliance for equipment and the term is up in approx. 4.5 years.
- I noticed that the rental cost were high compared to other companies

Here are the scenario's encountered:

1. Call to customer service as "new customer" to investigate cost:
- Cost of the equipment is $15 less monthly for newer equipment
- When inquiring about Air handlers, I am told that they dont provide those. Funny, because an air handler is currently sitting on the property and on the equipment lease. Am I going to be paying for something that the company does not know exists?

2. Call to the Sales representatives that handle property transfers:
- Left 4 voicemails and no response for 3 days
- Got a response 1 day later at 4:55pm (5 minutes before closing) when I finally sent an angry e-mail indicating that I "Would not sign the lease transfer until I have spoken to someone". We all know that the rep called at this time to minimize talking time.
- When asking what my options were, this is what I was presented with:
(a) Continue overpaying with the lease - $3,000
(b) Buyout the lease - $3,000
(c) Buy the equipment at market value $3,000

So here are my options, pay $3000, pay $3,000 or pay $3,000 and in option (c), I get to keep equipment that is worth $500 at most since it is already 6 years old.

Ironically, while writing this review, I got a call from another rep. When asking the very same questions to him, I get a different response. Apparently to buy the equipment will cost me $3,000 + market value of the equipment to be determined by Home Reliance (What a joke!). Well that's clearly much better.

Lease agreement indicates that the equipment can be purchased at market value with no indication AT ALL that this has to be after the lease term. Can someone explain to me who would want to buy a water heater after 10 years of use and abuse when it costs $1000 to buy a new one at Home Depot?

Summary of my experience with Reliance Home Comfort
1. They overcharge
2. Service reps have no idea what the company's products and services are (there's someone you can trust when making a major purchase)
3. Sales reps are completely useless and have no idea what is happening. I suspect that they are just glorified paper-pushers
4. Trying to get a few questions answered means waiting 3 days and getting the wrong answers
5. There is absolutely no customer retention because once this contract ends, I will definately be moving on to a better company.

The bottom line - After this contract, I will go with another company even if it means paying more money because Home Reliance provides poor customer service and exercises poor business practices (in other words, they rip off their customers).

To give you a summary of what has been going on, since last winter, my furnace was having issues, coming on then shutting off after 5-10 minutes, Of course the techiniicians have a tendency oh it's the air fliter, etc.. expect upon removal of the air filter, the furnace should go back to normal. These are typical high flow rate cutoff issues and indeed the temperature is hitting 185 degrees. Nothing was done other than replacing the blower motor. This seemed to have "fixed" this temporarily, however the air flow from the ducts and intake was never very high after this.

This summer, the AC went, and the capacitor was replaced on the unit. However, this does cause an ice up on the condenser within the furnace, which was corrected and inspected.

This winter again, the exact same issue is happening, the limit rate is being triggered and causing an error code 14, then a 33. I must be honest, if you go through all of our service records, you can this has been one mishap after the other. I keep hands off the furnace apart from changing or rinsing the fliter for the furnace. The previous technician suggested a camera be reuired to look at the exchanger and the ac condensing unit. Yet, the person who arrived this morning, did nothing of the sort, suggesting it was because of the filter(s), and that the fan blower needs to be cleaned. I might add, I just had the ducts cleaned approximately 3 months ago.

All in all, to say I am dissatisfied is an understatement, being a senior engineer myself, if I left a customer like your company has done to me, I would honestly fear from my job. This has been to say a dismal and appalling experience. Last year it took 2 weeks, and again this year another it's going on to 2 weeks, which during the winter is totally unacceptable. If air flow is an issue, then why not simply measure the air flow from the blower motor? Was the blower motor that was put in, the correct one, was it installed correctly? All my troubleshooting instincts tell me no, but I am not the person who should be guessing at what the issue may or not be. This is why i Pay a monthly fee to insure that I do not need to look after this myself, and I have a reasonable expectation that this should be resolved in a timely manner, by a qualified person. This certainly has not been the case, and I trust this issue will be resolved in a timely, and prompt manner.

DONT GO WITH RELIANCE IF YOU LIKE HEAT!!! What is the reason I take work off all day and wait for someone to show up to my house (they will come in between 11-5) just so when i call at 5pm they tell me they cannot show up??? Why didnt someone call me to cancel?? I have better thing to do than sit around all day. Now they expect me to wait tomorrow? this is ridiculous. What kind of business calls themselves reliance when they aren't reliable at all. My house is 7 degrees in the middle of winter. this is not how you should treat cutomers. there are many other places that would love my business. And i will take the unit out myself so you cant charge me more money for nothing. DONT GO WITH RELIANCE IF YOU WANT HEAT!!!!!!!

Consumer Beware! This protection plan apparently does not cover damages incurred while replacing a leaking water heater.
In short, sub contractors sent to fix a pressure problem days after the burst heater was replaced, damaged first the water heater then my home pipes. After creating a problem that did not exist, they tried to blame the condition of my relatively new homes copper pipes. During three separate house calls they smashed and banged the pipes until the house shook. Only after they showed me the water leak in the pipes did it occur to me that something was not right with the installers. They refused to fix the leak and took a powder as fast as they could while I was calling Reliance. This was 11PM and had to shut the water off until I could find plumbers at a cost of $400 to come and repair it.

This was bad enough, but the customer service was worse. Ten emails and several phone calls later, they continue to ignore me. No returned calls, NOTHING! At first they said they would reimburse me, then repeated what the sub contractors tried to sell me. As far as Reliance is concerned, the customer can be ignored and above all, believe what the sub contractors say because the customer always wrong. After emailing me that they were going on the sub contractors word, total avoidance. They need to realize that poor service will cost them customers. If I can help with this, so be it. This is the second time the heater has burst. We called them several months before this one went.They sent someone who said it was fine. Then it flooded my basement AGAIN! Then there is the yearly rebuilding of my furnace because of the poor installation, but that's for another time.

So customer be forewarned, damages caused by Reliance while doing repairs will be your responsibility. And be prepared to be avoided if you encounter problems caused beyond the performance of their equipment. It’s in the contract you will sign when renting and paying for the COMFORT PROTECTION PLAN.

Hi,
got my hot water heater on rental from Reliance. The Sales Supervisor Yuri was very informative and sincere.
The technician Aman Sidhu was good, and cooperative. Clean job done. Offcourse there was a small damage to my basement wall while moving the old water heater, but took responsibility. Nice guy.
Works perfect and Good company to deal with.

we purchased this house and the water heater was on rental of witch we where not told ,so we paid the rental until now 77.00 every 3 months .I havw now purchased my own tank and was told by Reliance thta the tank that was on rental was 18 years old ,called them to pick it up ,was told there was a charge of 65.00 plus tax or i could take it to a address they gave me at no chrge.Well turns out the address they gave me was the wrong one ,so after travelling 30 milles and loading that tank I took it back home ,now up to them to come and get it.

We bought a home with a reliance rental. We paid ~$75 to keep the tank for a few months while we lined up a replacement, most of which was an 'account opening' fee.. Even though the previous owner had an account.

I called and asked for fees associated with returning a hot water tank rental and was told that if we returned the tank emptied there would be no charge.

A week after returning the tank, we received a ~$220 bill for 'account closing and tank inspection'. No mention was made of this on the call with the rentals department.

These guys will take your money with hidden fees. I would avoid them at all cost.

We just sold our condo and the new owner is saying that she does not want to pay the rental fees of $25/mo and refuses to sign off on the paperwork to set up the Pre-authorized payments from her bank account. As a result, Reliance is still withdrawing $ from our account every month even though we no longer own that property. They say they are legally allowed to do that??? Anytime I call I just get their voice mail with no option of waiting for the next available rep and then I get told someone will contact me back within 48 hrs. It is impossible to contact a live agent in the billing dept when I wish to. I have called 5 times over the past 3 days and I have gotten "disconnected" 3 of those times. Their customer service reliability is garbage. Apparently they said our only option to get the $ back is to take the new owner to small claims court. I much prefer Direct Energy - they are a lot easier to get in contact with. Based on this - I will not refer any of my friends to Reliance.

Woke up to a "hissing" noise, went downstairs to investigate, found that water heater was spewing water out of the top vent, turned of the supply and called Reliance (we rent our tank from them) Repair man was out to our house within three hours of call, replaced the water heater, since we rent the heater from Reliance we had no charge for the repair.