Dee321ca in Oakville

We have used Brian Dale from Element Heating & Gas (formerly Park Mechanical) several times in the past few years. He installed our pool heaters, gas line and hookup to our BBQ and also installed our gas range. For each job he was professional, did great work and came when he said he would. He is also a super nice guy. We will continue to use him ourselves and highly recommend him to others.

We had a very disappointing experience with Ashley Oaks Homes as well. This was our third builder home, most expensive house we've bought and was, by far, the worst experience. We have had a very similar experience to another poster below, and our house was built the same year (perhaps same subdivision?). There were major cracks in the basement and major ones in the garage floor that were only patched up and not repoured as they should have been. Like the other poster, there was garbage buried in our topsoil too (tires, mudflaps, paint cans, rebar and wires). I even took pictures because i just couldn't believe it. After calls and emails to the builder didn't produce any results, I had to email the owner and the town of Oakville to get some action (it was an environmental hazzard). It was finally resolved but after MUCH work on my part, which shouldn't be the case ever. We paid for an upgraded glass shower and it constantly leaks (even to this day) and completely ruined the drywall. They installed our bathroom mirror in two pieces (a 40/60 split) because someone decided to install an electrical outlet in the middle of the wall where a mirror would be hung, we paid for flat ceiling and you can see almost every drywall seam. The drywall tape is peeling in the ceiling corners in almost every room (especially the bathrooms). We had a big leak in one of our upstairs rooms and when they sent people to repair it, they used our shelving unit as a ladder to climb up to fix it and ended up breaking the shelves and then just patching it with some sort of compound and leaving it that way - not even telling us. This is only the tip of the iceberg and even though the experiences were more than a few years ago, they still bother me to this day.

We had our onground pool installed by Rob Moffat from Smart Pools in June of 2012. We were originally set on going with Pioneer, but after speaking to friends about their pool, they highly recommended Rob and Smart Pools to us because they had such great service from him. They met Rob while he was working for Pioneer (as a previous reviewer mentioned, he worked with them for 25+ years) and our friends said that it was working with him that made all the difference in their pool buying experience. Based on that, we decided to meet with him and were instantly impressed with his personal skills, professionalism and knowledge about his product and services. He also had really good and honest advice about what you need and what you do not. Smart Pools was several thousand dollars less than their competitors (and we researched them all). They also offered more for the money we were paying. For instance, you get more choices in stairs and liners and other possibilities (we wanted a waterfall). It's all the little details that made a difference to us - such as: we were very concerned about damage to our lawn with the machines going back and forth. When we discussed this with competitor Pioneer, they just told us that they just consider the lawn "a path of destruction" (their actual words) and it's up to us to completely replace it after they're done. It would have cost us $1500 to do so (we have a long side lawn that leads to the back where the pool would be). It made their expensive pool that much more expensive. When we discussed this with Rob from Smart Pools he gave us the option of renting lawn-protecting metal plates and our grass had very minimal damage when it was all done. Smart Pools was also very good about working around our schedule and installed our pool in a very reasonable time frame, while still making sure that it was done right and with care. Rob (the owner) was there for every step of the process as well, which was beyond our expectation. Just talking to him you know that he actually cares, and this is exactly what you want when you are making a big investment in something for your home. Now, two years later, we are still enjoying our pool and very happy with the work - it still looks and feels brand new. There were only a couple minor hiccups - our pool heater (a well respected brand) malfunctioned during the first season, but that was due to a manufacturing flaw, and was replaced the day we called about it and was under the pool heater's warranty. Also, we had a pool light bulb blow out last year. In both cases, Rob stepped up to the plate and arranged the heater replacement and even came to replace our light bulb for free a year later. Plus, if we have any questions, he always answers our emails, even two years later. We had a very good experience all around and would definitely recommend Smart Pools/Rob (and have been). Smart Pools also recently started offering pool openings/closings for their pool installation clients as well. We hired them for that a few weeks ago and had once again, another great experience. Trevor was so thorough and did such an excellent job. In the past we used a competitor and were not thrilled. We will be booking our pool closing with Smart Pools as well.

We purchased our second home from Mattamy Homes, a new home builder here in Oakville. We were somewhat satisfied with their work but I cannot say that they were all that easy to deal with. We had a few problems with the house during and after it was built and those problems were dealt with promptly by the on-site forman and his crew. They were great. However, whenever we had to deal with head office we always got snubbed and our concerns were ignored. A paperwork mistake by head office resulted in our house being bricked the wrong colour, we were told by head office that they weren't going to fix it because they could easily sell our lot to someone else who won't care what the brick colour is. However, when we appealed to the site foreman (the guy who works with the actual contractors) they were sympathetic to our cause and went and corrected the brick mistake, thank goodness. I, myself, wouldn't buy from them again based solely on how we were treated at head office.

Our first house was a GreenPark home. The price was average but the workmanship and quality of the work done was substandard. We had very crooked walls, things installed where they weren't supposed to be halfway through the bricking of the house they started bricking it with a slightly different colour (visible from the back only). Whenever we had a concern it seemed as if nobody wanted to help us. The site foreman would actually walk away when we would go to express concerns about things. Also, compared to other builders, they seem to do a quick and dirty job. The painters they used were very sloppy (they got paint all over the windows and carpet). Also, compared to competition, they don't offer you a lot for your money - most things standard with other builders is an upgraded cost with Greenpark. I would never recommend them.

We consulted Canac kitchens to design a pantry for our kitchen and quote some costs. We stopped by their showroom in town and the person working there would barely get up from their seat to help us out. We weren't shown a lot of options and were quoted a ridiculously high price. It seemed like they didn't want our business for such a relatively minor project. So we took our business elsewhere.

We had a series of plans drawn up by Home Depot for a kitchen pantry. The service from the kitchen design department was excellent and the service professionals there were very helpful. We were given different options and suggestions about what we could do and how we could work with the space we had. Even though they didn't necessarily have our money and a guaranteed sale, they still went well out of their way to help out out. It was a good experience