Marie Ho from Richmond

I have just had Westmount Heating to replace my aged old furnace with a Lennox high-efficiency furnace and at the same time to also add a high-efficiency central air-conditioner. I have done quite a bit research in order to find quality equipment and more importantly a quality contractor / installer because installation is the key trouble source for equipment failures according to the Consumers’ Report. Based on many expert advices, I obtained 4 quotes. With what I learned from my research, I found that most of the contractors like to recommend more expensive high-end equipment and also over-sizing the equipment. (Over-sizing the furnace and air-conditioner units is a very bad idea because it causes the equipment to go on-and-off too frequently and thus reducing the comfort in the house.) I have to say that I was lucky to find Westmount Heating. Westmount Heating was the only company recommending me with the right sizing equipment and also a very reasonable estimate the first time. There was no need for me to do any further negotiation as I was satisfied with the estimate. Westmount is actually an owner-operator business. Laurenzo is the owner and does his own installation. Laurenzo did his best to fit my installation in his schedule. He came in the morning and completed all the installation in just one day. He surely knows his trade. He removed all the junks and cleaned up everything before leaving. I was quite impressed with that. He made sure that he show me all the key aspects of the control and maintenance before leaving. Overall, I have to say that I was very pleased with the quality of his work (at least judging from the completed work) and his professionalism in dealing with me as well as his pleasant personality. I am very impressed to the point that I will have no hesitation to recommend and endorse him should any of my other family members and friends need any furnace and/or air-conditioner work. I will write a follow-up review after a year about my experience on the performance of the equipment. A final note, I would highly recommend that you do some research on the internet before you call the contractors for pricing. It is extremely important that you have some basic knowledge about different types of furnaces and air-conditioners on the market and also some rule of thumb for sizing. Your knowledge will help you vastly in selecting the contractor. Based on my research, I decided to install a simply high-efficiency air-conditioner and not to go with the popular idea of ‘heat-pump’. This decision alone saved me between $2000 to $4000, because (1) The limited number of hot days in Vancouver area; Thus a simple high-efficiency air-conditioner will do more than adequate job in Vancouver area. So, why spend extra money on heat-pump?) (2) The much higher cost of using electricity than natural gas as the fuel; (3) The higher capital cost for a heat-pump.