joe in North york

About two years ago we had to demolish our basement and during the reno it was found that the shower upstairs had a rubber sheet as a "shower pan" and it had a small tear in it and water was dripping thru. The tiler that the General Contractor hired started to work on it, demolished the shower floor and then announced he couldn't finish it because it was lathe and plaster. So we let it sit for two years, unused. During the summer I found a flyer from Mr. Handyman and gave them a shout just for an estimate. The person, Jeremy, came over, looked at everything and said it wouldn't be a problem to fix everything. We told him that we were thinking of doing this next spring. After discussing it with my wife for a few weeks we called up Steve at head office and scheduled someone to come out and do the work. Steve told us it'll be about a week and scheduled Jeremy to do it all. No problem. Jeremy came out right on time as promised and he was truly amazing and professional. He worked quietly and cleanly. He hooked up the plumbing and drainage, put in a new shower pan, waterproofed everything, tiled and grouted the new install. My wife is very, very happy with everything Jeremy did. Happy wife, happy life!!! Anyways, if you need anything done I highly recommend Jeremy & Mr. Handyman for all your home projects. They are true to their word, they are committed to the work they do, Jeremy didn't take lunch on two days, and totally professional. The work was done on time and professionally. I can't say that enough. Professional would be the one word describing Jeremy and Mr. Handyman. See you guys in the Spring after my "To do" list gets too much for me.

In July of 2013 my General Contractor called and hired Junior from Java Electric. Junior and his technician came out and removed the old wiring and installed new wires and increased the amperage coming into our house, just in case in the future we require it. Anyways, they did a good job, passed the ESA and we paid them in full. A few months later I happened to turn on a dimmer switch and realized how hot it was. I contacted Junior by text to tell him about it and requested he come out and fix it. Our schedules couldn't meet up and then I started getting responses like I'm too busy. At the same time that this dimmer switch was heating up our door bell stopped working. They had replaced the wiring for the door bell to a certain point and then kept the old wiring the rest of the way. I ended up replacing the dimmer switch and after repeated text messages, email and phone calls our door bell still doesn't work. Due to the wiring, or lack of wiring upgrade for the door bell, I have gone thru two step down transformers and I am still waiting for Junior to fix this. After a year of waiting I feel I can post this, normally I don't complain, I just won't hire the same contractor again but after spending over 10k I think a little comment is necessary.

I called Straight Up and Tony, Crystal and the crew were so professional and prompt. We have a home about 50+ years old. Visually from the ground you could see that the chimney was in rough shape. Tony came out and emailed me a very exceptional quote. I okayed the work to be done with Crystal who is so professional and nice and very helpful. She scheduled me in the following week. I wasn't home because of obligations but when I got home the work was completed as ordered and the area around my home and my neighbours was completely clean of any/all debris. They removed the old chimney and capped it. Prior to the work being done we had rain water drip down the old chimney. Since the guys at Straight Up removed the chimney and capped it the area is completely dry. All I'd like to say, if you need "lasting foundation or beautiful facelift" call Crystal and Tony. I'm actually scheduling them to do additional work in my garage(new pad) and reno the porch. I can't say enough good things about this company. Thank you Straight Up.

Ralf was brought in by our General Contractor to install in our basement bathroom a heating pad, floor tiles and tiling of a new shower. The shower stall wasn't studded properly but Ralf was able to work around that and installed a perfect tile. My wife is ecstatic and described Ralf's work as "perfect, just perfect!" Me, all I can say is wow. I can't wait to use it for the first time. In the spring when we are have our two bathrooms upstairs reno'd, we really hope Ralf will be available for the job. He is professional, clean and very, very prompt in his time and in the job he does. I so thank him for the job he did and for making my wife happy with our new bathroom downstairs.

Nev Budhwa and his whole team are angels! Our 30 year old water tank cracked on it's seam about 2" down from top. Maybe 10 litres got out before we noticed. I quickly cleaned up the water in the morning but in the afternoon the asbestos tiles in the furnace room were crumbling. I got worried and went onto HomeStars looking for someone to clean this up. I ended up requesting contact with an email to Accu-Star at 9pm on a Saturday night. Nev called us back at 10 that night. Ok, nice. He came out a couple of days later and confirmed that the asbestos should be removed and offered to use his camera to check for dampness in the walls. They were soaked. I explained that over the past 10 years we had a large clear water flood and two minor floods also clear water. He suggested the one plaster wall be opened up and let it dry out naturally. I agreed. The day they were removing the asbestos tiles, one of the crew came out of the containment area and called Nev. Nev showed up at our home, suited up and went into the enclosed are and came out shaking his head...see the photo's. Because our basement had a substantial under floor flood 10 years the areas under the floor and in the walls were a contaminated with black mould. He strongly suggested to clear it out immediately because it was a huge health risk. When I explained that my father raised the floor in the basement and the same tile was underneath the raised floor he became very, very concerned for our health and safety and again strongly suggested clean up. We agreed to have our whole basement gutted because of all the mould. He came over numerous times before and during the clean up to reassure us, answer our many, many questions and did a super wonderful job cleaning up all the mould and asbestos. He even brought in a gentleman, a very professional expert named Mike to do a designated source report to check for the possibility of asbestos in the walls and ceiling because it is a 50's style home. After everything was removed he sent in his crew to paint and seal the concrete floor and a week after that performed an air test to show that there was no more contaminants in our basement. Nev, The Crew, Mike(the DSR guy), everyone associated with Accu-Star are nothing short of amazing & professional. We knew we had a problem but when we found out how bad, we stressed out completely. Thank you Nev, Mike and Accu-Star for all your wonderful, caring work that you did with our home, Pandora's Box.

Mark came over at the end of August and the minute he walked on the property I knew I'd be satisfied with the work I wanted done. Our original driveway was done in the mid-70's and was all cracked with weeds growing thru it. It was at the point that I was mowing the lawn and the driveway. Anyways, Mark came over did his thing,and quoted me a great price. I have a neighbor who doesn't like downspout extensions so when it rains the rain drains onto our driveway and enters the garage foundation. My wife and I did what we could with bagged asphalt but when I showed this to Mark he added this problem area to the estimate and well, I accepted his estimate and ask him to do the work. Because of circumstances beyond Mark and my control the work was finally finished at the end of Sept. What a beautiful job! Everything is smooth, the rain water from the neighbors downspout runs down the driveway and doesn't collect, I couldn't have asked for a better job. I took Mark to a neighbor who is so happy with the work done at his house by Norton Paving that he still talks about how beautiful his driveway looks! Mark, Nortown crew, thank you very much for a job well done.

After shopping around for a new furnace and a/c we settled on Cozy Comfort in 2005. We followed their directions in keeping the extended warranty for 2-10 years on parts and warranty and called them for maintenance checks in the spring and fall. A few times even though appointments were promised no one showed up for the calls and we were told that we never made the appointment. Fine. Every summer however, the a/c would have to run literally for a week to obtain a 23 degree temperature. On the last service call a tech came out and when asked why such a huge difference in temperature between upstairs and downstairs, the house is a bungalow, he said the vents were improper and went on to recharge the a/c unit with 2 oz of puron(I hope) and charged me $40 for the 2 ounces(fyi, it's about $40 / tank). Anyways when asked for the maintenance package his job was as follows, he looked inside unit outside to make sure no leaves were inside a/c unit. He then came in look at the thermostat and went to the furnace room. He looked at the furnace and determined with xray vision that the drain was working, the blower was "ok" and filters were "ok". In order to see these things one has to remove access panels but Jay was able to tell by standing in front of the furnace. Now remember how I said there was a huge temperature difference in our bungalow, he stuck a thermometer probe into the venting system and declared nothing was wrong with the temperature. The probe was placed into the vent 4 feet from a/c condenser. Now after 7 years and a "floating" maintenance rate between $90 and $190 I've had it. I went to a neighbor who had a similar system put in a year after me. His house no matter how hot or cold outside was always comfortably cool or warm. I called another tech in. After arriving and me explaining to him what my concern was he removed the panel and said and showed me that the dip switches were not reset from the default factory settings. He reset the switches so that the blower would work during the a/c or furnace operation. The house started to cool a little over the next couple of days but as per his request if it didn't cool to my satisfaction I should call him back. The techy came back and placed a jumper wire on and wow the a/c and blower were going full steam and for the first time we had cold air flowing from the vents upstairs. He went to reset the Infinity thermostat and found it was never set up to begin with. This is the second thermostat from Cozy. No matter what he tried with re programming it wouldn't work. He put on a thermostat and now we have a/c, an actually cooled house after 7 years of being told it was the "vents" and the a/c was working properly. My question is why at installation was nothing reset from factory setting by Cozy's technicians? How can they charge a floating maintenance fee when they never open any access panels to determine if things are fine? At time of installation government was giving rebates to help offset the cost. We were told by Dan that we shouldn't apply for the rebate b/c it would mean an energy audit and blah, blah, blah...We found out afterwards that we were entitled to a substantial cheque. I have nothing but praise for the Carrier Infinity HE furnace and Puron A/C system but if you go to use Cozy Comfort think twice. There are lots of companies out there. Believe when I say for the first time in 7 years we have a cool house! Buyer beware when dealing with Cozy.

I have to described something first. We bought a new furnance and a/c from a local company in 2005, a Carrier Infinity series 96 and a 2 ton puron a/c. After several years of their "maintenance" service this past maintenance check pushed me away from them. They were asked to come in and do yearly maintenance on a/c as part of their warranty. The techy came and checked the temperature by literally sticking his finger thru a hole in the vents. He didn't open service panel or physically check cleanliness of air filter, apparently they have xray vision and can see that everything was alright. He went outside and hooked up a pressure gauge to our a/c and said we needed some puron and he put some in at $40 for two ounces. My understanding is it is about $40 for two pounds. That really doesn't matter. Said everything was good and we paid the company close to $200 for "looking" at a/c. Over the years we always asked this company why there was such a temperature difference between our main floor and basement. Their reply was that it was the vent system in our mid 50's home. Ok I said what do I know. The last "heat wave" the temperature soared and the main floor wasn't cooled at all. We keep our temperature set to 75F. I went to my neighbour who has an identifcal system and house and his house was comfortable. I asked him why and he said that the company who installed his system had reset the fan speeds and we should get a techy in to check ours. My research on Home Stars led to Culzac Heating and A/C and Dwayne. I emailed Dwayne because it wasn't an emergency call and he asked that I call him the following Monday to explain the situation. I did and he was willing to come out the following day. I wasn't in a rush and said the following Thursday was good enough. The other company would say they were coming out and they would miss calls or claim we never made appointments. Anyways Dwayne came in, and when I described our problem he knew almost instantly what the problem was. The fan speed wasn't reset from factory default settings when installed. He checked specs and reset the dip switches and went upstairs to check air flow from the vents. He fixed the problem and was done in about an hour. He even went as far as checking to make sure the a/c condensor wasn't plugged up something the other company never ever did. We went out after Dwayne left and came back about 4 hours later expecting to having to run downstairs to cool off. We walked thru the front door and my wife and I just stood there. The upstairs was cool and the A/C was actually off! I've lived in this house since 1960 and this was actually the first time the upstairs was comfortable when it was hot outside. Dwayne was professional, clean, he insisted on taking his boots off eventhough we told him he didn't need too, and I was very, very impressed with this young gentleman. Culzac is who we will be calling from now on for maintenance and repairs on our heating and air conditioning needs. The guy was amazing!!!

We called Frano who literally came running to snake out our drains which was backing up into our basement because of city line blockage. Literally within minutes he had the drains flowing again and even came back the next day, a Saturday to ensure everything was put together properly. We then called him to install two new low flow toilets which he did like within an hour with no trouble whatsoever for us. And then a undersink pipe broke, which was when we called Hero a third time. He came gave me a estimate for free and said it might cost this much but because of the age of the sink he warned me that it may cost a little more if he had to replace the sink traps from the 1950's sink. Eventhough it took him longer than expected because everything was siezed, and eventhough he went thru four saw blades because of the seized parts, Frano didn't charge extra for his time like the big companies do. Honestly, I have a '50s ranch style home and because of the age of the home I have Hero Plumbing on speed dial in case anything plumbing goes bad. Frano is an outstanding plumber and a outstanding person, honest and hard working. If you need a plumber don't waste your time and money calling the big guys, call Hero. We've dealt with the rest and honestly Hero plumbing is the best.

Salesman that came was somewhat helpful but not knowledgeable of services provided by Casa Bella. He repeatedly told my wife and I that the crew will install screen doors if we have them when the crew arrives. They don't according to the crew. Our original back door was about 80" with a 47" doorlite on top. The salesman convinced us to put in a 92" door, regretfully we agreed because he told us a storm door can be fitted. After a week and a half we cannot find anyone who makes storm doors that big. The crew that came was professional, sort of. Two of the three were. I understand the house is old(mid '50s) but after they left and I looked closely I found cracks in the walls where none had existed before. The floor tile by back door is broken/chipped in two different places. The front door now sits about two inches higher than the original one and is a concern because if someone comes over and doesn't see this they will trip. On the third day one guy was left to do the trim. While doing the trim, 80% of the mitre's on the trim didn't match up; nails were protruding and/or not covered up with putty. Also while doing the trim he broke an old light fixture given to me by my late mother that can't be replaced. When the salesman called and he was informed of it his answer was I'll inform the installation supervisor. We have not heard anything from Casa Bella about this. I just spent the last week puttying up and sanding trim for priming. All in all, the manufacturing of the windows is above reproach. The house is definitely warmer and more air tight. Would I personally recommend Casa Bella, for the windows yes but for the crew I'd recommend watching them more carefully and getting everything that is to be done down in writing. Update: In all fairness Mike from Casa Bella called after job was finished to talk about my concerns and such but I didn't hear the message he left. I installed a screen door where we wanted one and the windows are perfect, it's so warm in the house now that we have dropped our thermostat to 68 degree's F because we are too warm. Go figure...If you need your windows done do it with Casa Bella!