David Stambler from London

My 74 year-old-mother's furnace was 24 years old and probably couldn't have made it through another winter. Visiting her from Vancouver, I decided we had to act quickly, and I was only home for a week. On Monday, Reliance visited to fix an air conditioner leak successfully. On Tuesday, regular maintenance was performed and a sales meeting was set up for Wednesday at 10am. On Wednesday a furnace was chosen from several, with absolutely no pressure and just helpful information, and during the sale they mentioned that they knew about my short timeline and could install it the very next day, Thursday. Unfortunately it turned out that the install team was on training and I was told that it couldn't happen. I expressed my displeasure to Karl Masters, the sales agent who I had met with, and he made the impossible happen - he took it up the chain of command and got them to pull in another installation team who weren't even on the books at that time, and honoured their original commitment. The delay would only have been a few days, but making it happen before I flew back to Vancouver brought great peace of mind, and really made the difference between good service and great service. Thanks, Karl! BTW, I live in Vancouver and have no connection whatsoever with Reliance - and actually emailed Karl a special thank you as well. He made a difference. The install technicians were knowledgeable and friendly, and the main technician took time to explain everything and even installed an extra safety valve for the humidifier at a lower level so my mother could reach it, without even being asked to do so. I can highly recommend Reliance. UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 19th, 2012 - I have to downgrade my review of Reliance. They have really bad follow-through. They actually asked me to write a review on this site and promised me movie tickets, and as the overall experience was positive I agreed, but the movie tickets never came. Not a big deal, but still a detail. The thing that turned me off was that I had to leave town the day after the installation, and a 6 foot and a 10 foot pipe were left on the sidewalk outside. That was August 31st. I contacted the sales rep and he said he'd take care of it. My mother just called and said they are still there 19 days later. So, they failed. They failed by letting me down initially, and now have failed with follow-through. To be honest, that's two of three strikes, and I'm sure the next will happen if I give them another chance. If you use Reliance, make sure you watch them, and don't trust that they will do what they say until it's actually done. Initially I rated them high, but now they just hit 6. Barely.