Colin in Toronto

Our project had a few little complications along the way (needing to redo our roof first, needing to work with the roofers so the wiring could run under the new metal roof, needing to track down a very particular Inverter we wanted to use) and Gopal was very patient and helpful with adapting to whatever we needed. He is deeply knowledgeable and happy to explain whatever we wanted to understand in more detail. If he has time in his schedule for you, I dont think you could go wrong working with Gopal and Herc du Soleil.

Our rental property had two very old fuse-box panels (one for reach rental unit). We were having some trouble with the baseboard heaters in the basement apartment and asked AC Electrical to come out to quote on fixing them, as well as possibly replacing the panels. We had noticed the way the panels were wired did not look right, and were also concerned that previous owners/renters of the property might have swapped out 15Amp fuses for 20 or 30Amp fuses (which could potentially burn out a wire in the wall and cause a fire). AC Electrical confirmed that both these things were unfortunately true and also pointed out some other problems with the boxes. AC provided a quote which was not the highest or lowest quote we received. One electrician quoted around the same price as AC, but then offered to charge $800 less if we would forego getting a permit and having the work inspected. $800 is a lot of money but hardly seemed worth risking someone's life over, or having our insurance company refuse to pay a claim because of faulty and un-inspected electrical work. Everything went off without a hitch and the new breaker boxes came with a *ten* year warranty against any future problems with them. My thanks go out to our electrician-for-the-day: Quinn. He was friendly, efficient and went the extra mile, taking the time to do a little carpentry, cutting the shelf we had below the old fuse boxes, to fit around the new breaker boxes. And Erin in the back-office took care of getting the permits, coordinating the power shut off/on with Toronto Hydro, and patiently answering an unreasonable number of questions from me. :-) We would be very comfortable with calling AC Electrical for any future work.

We have a huge Manitoba Maple in back whose lower branches are 2’ wide and travel 25’ horizontally before turning upwards 30' (and every which way). Last week the limb shown in the picture peeled itself off the tree by about 1” which was enough to lower it 3’ down onto our shed. The shed held it at first, but given that the limb and the branches that grew out of it weighed *thousands* of pounds, it was only a matter of time before gravity won and our shed would be splinters. (See 1st photo.) We had worked with Craig before and called him immediately. He was in the middle of a job but came over in the afternoon with steel support posts to stabilize the limb and make sure it didn’t descend any further. (See 2nd photo.) While waiting I trimmed off as many other branches as I could reach from the ground with a pole-saw, but there is only so much trimming it is sensible for an untrained person like myself to take on. In addition to the enormous weight of the branch and the fact it was in the process of detaching from the trunk (but needing to be scaled to remove the higher branches), removal was further complicated by a young tree and 3 bushes below it that would need to be avoided as the branches came down. Craig and his crew showed up the very next day to plan the removal, setup their safety rigging, and carefully turn the limb into (very very big) logs. Our tree and bushes got pushed around a bit during removal but all were fine at the end of the day. And our shed survived without so much as a cracked shingle! Craig has a wealth of experience with tackling challenging jobs like ours (though I’m sure he’d be happy to take on your simple jobs too)! He charges very fair prices to get the job done right.

If you're reading this review, you're probably freaking out over the discovery of bedbugs. Sorry. But the good news is there are a few options for how to treat them. One of the more effective treatments (from what I found to read on the subject) and the one we chose was heat treating the whole house. We only had a minor infestation brought in by one of our tenants but we wanted to be absolutely sure it didn't get worse or spread to the neighbour's (attached) house. It also got the problem resolved in one day. Was the heat treatment overkill in our case? Probably. Is the problem now totally resolved and we're able to move on with life? Absolutely. Bed Bugs & Beyond are apparently one of the few companies in the city actually licensed to perform heat treatments. This is something that you should probably ask before hiring a heat-treatment company since hooking up a 500,000 BTU furnace to your house poses certain risks if it's not handled correctly. (In the hands of someone who knows what they are doing it's perfectly safe, however.) Fortunately Cary Title (owner of BB&B) and his crew take their work very seriously. Cary is very knowledgeable and matter-of-fact about the situation as he sees it. He took the time to educate us about our options and we felt we made the right choice for our situation, even if several times more expensive. BB&B did a great job but I hope I never see them again!

Polite. Knowledgeable. Conscientious. Trustworthy. Craig and his crew just want to do a good job. They helped us with our sick trees 3 years ago and we were so impressed that, now finding their listing on HomeStars 3 years later, were still keen to leave them a review. We've passed on their name to neighbours and I've seen them at, at least 3 other houses on our street in that time. Good folks.

I’ll try to keep this brief and tell you what you need to know about Greg W. Stevens: - Greg is the builder you’ve been waiting for. - Greg is like a construction superhero. - Greg makes it right. - If Greg makes a mistake (and who doesn’t) , Greg still makes it right. - Greg ventures forth into the shady world of “the trades” and finds people who care as much about doing a good job as he does. - Greg is likable, kind, and easy to work with. - Greg is tough as nails when he needs to be. - Greg is both smart and wise. - Greg has our full confidence. - Greg is a great listener and sounding board for your ideas. - Greg tells it like it is. - Greg should have his own TV show. - Greg looks out for you. - Greg is the builder you want working with your money. I should add a little bit more about working with Greg: You may not know it yet, but you’re about to make changes to the plans you have for your home. You should definitely try to plan as much as possible to avoid changes, but trust me, it’s going to happen. If you don’t get the right builder, dealing with those changes may not be a pleasant experience. But Greg remains flexible during our project and always found a way to deliver what we needed. I could go on and on (and if you'd like me to, ask Greg for our contact information). I can't imagine anyone else could have built us such a great home! -Colin Foster

From the other posts I see on this site, it looks like Jerry's might have a big problem with their spray-foam division, but we thought they did a great job on the Loose-Fill insulation for our attic. The guys who showed up were friendly, accommodating and were good enough to hustle (where they could) because our baby needed to get down for a nap.

We were building a high efficiency home and had used ICF for all the walls right up to the loft area. As a portion of the roof, it had to be built in a more traditional stick-frame manner, but we wanted to make sure the walls had a high insulation rating both because this was the highest point in the house (where heat would collect) and to make sure it was just as comfortable as our R50 ICF walls. Foam Comfort were really great to work with and came back on short notice to add insulation to one extra wall that we had to skip on their first visit (long story). Really nice staff and they did a great job.

Charlie found time in his busy schedule to add in the railings for his 3 flights of stairs, plus our walkway on the 3rd floor. You know from these reviews Charlie's a great woodworker, but you should also know that he's a joy to have around. Friendly, professional and courteous. He was always respectful of the fact that our home is not a wood shop. He's careful about making too much of a mess, always asks if this or that "would be okay" before going ahead, and tidies up when he's done. For our railings the design kept coming back to "no, simpler" until Charlie got to the design you see in the attached photo. We're just thrilled with his work.

Called and talked to Joe about our new construction project and having him come and clean the drywall dust out of the HRV before it was turned on for the first time. He indicated that unless the system had been turned on, the dust would still be in the first few feet of the duct and easily accessible with a regular vacuum and that we should call him back in 3-5 years. Nice to know there are honest services out there. We'll definitely call him back when the ducts need a more thorough cleaning!

After our previous stair builder completely messed up our order (wrong materials, and one staircase was even 2' too short!), Charlie came in and provided some great suggestions for changes to the original design. We gave Charlie an unusual order in that we didn't want chip board or plywood -- these were to be solid wood through and through. No problem. He designed & built 3 great staircases in solid maple. I think the attached photos speak for themselves in terms of fit & finish. Absolutely beautiful. Can't wait to apply the finish and watch the maple really come to life! We'll be having Charlie back to do our railings for us, for sure. He's a man who knows his bois!

For a widely varying climate like we have in Ontario, there is no better window than a fiberglass window. Fibertec was on our list of companies to call from the start, just based on their reputation in the industry (recommended by our architect). The good folks at Fibertec (we mostly dealt with Steven Hall) definitely lived up to our high expectations and more. They were cheerful and interested in learning about exactly what was important to us in our home. (e.g., light, air flow, etc.) And they were just as eager to talk us out of bad decisions to help us keep our costs under control. (Not sure how many companies would do that!) Steven was always helpful and not the least bit pushy. His quote was put together professionally and was very easy to understand. We wound up going with one of their highest end products: triple glazed, krypton filled and with a u-value (insulation rating) so low, the windows will lose less heat that the WALLS of our old house did. (It's a good investment though: the math says the extra costs pays for itself over the life of the windows -- we're paying more on our mortgage but less on our energy bill. And the house will be a much more comfortable space to live in, too!) The windows showed up bang-on time and our builder had no trouble getting them installed for us. (Well... there was a comment about them being "the heaviest window he's ever moved" but it was said at least partly in admiration of the triple glaze. The other part was definitely just that some of the larger windows were REALLY heavy. :-) ) And they followed up to make sure all was well with their product after installation. It was a really good experience through and through.