Reviews

0/10

This is part of my new house purchase agreement from Home by Desantis for Lyon's Creek development in Niagara Falls, ON. The first coat was damage a bit by construction crew and then we got noticed from this firm that they are coming by to do 2nd coat for the 4 houses that was built the same time as our. When the crew poured the asphalt on the first coat they mixed some kind of wirings that stuck out of the driveway. I had to pick them out myself and ask them to repaved again. Then the driver started to give me attitude and doing the cross praying to our God and then gesturing me to go inside the house. I kept standing by watching him run his paving machine back and forth on the wet street with mud and sod that they cut from our front lawn. I can forsee this man is going to get mud stuck on the metal drum wheel and track it all over the newly paved driveway. Sure enough this man brought mud stuck to his metal drum in 3 spots about the size of a fist. I stopped him ask him to fix it immediately but he just got off and grabbed a handful of asphalt for one of the three spots. Left the mud filled holes there. He used the stomping machine once on everything other spot around the perimeter of the driveway. I am shocked considering they asked for water to drink and I did bring it out for them but this crew treated me so horribly. I called their office and took picture and email to Pina but she said site supervisor is still there and they would fix it but no one came back they just did the other houses in the neighborhood and left. Don't ever use this company if you are hiring them to do your house. There holes are over this coat look worst than the first coat. I guess I have to file a Tarion report with my builder. More hassle and time wasted.

Approximate cost of services:
$1.00
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10/10

Bought AC,Furnace,Air Cleaner,Humidifier from [competitor name removed--Ed] but they left me out to dry. Thank to Joel & Barb at York who had to sent Richard the owner out to inspect and correct error done. I have not seen a contractor who cared about work being done. Richard had his installer correct cold air vent damaged by AT, aligned the furnace to perfect level so it does not hum. Gave some great advise and actually took time to ensure proper setting on furnace control board such as fan speed. Also explains some maintenance schedules tips. I am refer his company to all my friends. Once I have my debts clear and ready for some duct work repairs and gas line setup for oven/stove and new water tank I will definitely call only Richard and his staff.

Approximate cost of services:
$3,000.00
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0/10

Our first home, so I did check around about 12 or more companies. Choose them since they only had one BBB complaint and it was resolved! So there was hope. First install went perfect with Ali in Oct 25/08. Rebate from York never came, started chasing both Kimberly and York, found out that my unit was rejected because serial# was already claimed with York USA offices. Kimberly said not to worry and fudge some thing on her end, and the cheque for $1500 came in late May, 2009 after submitting complaints to BBB case #1195524. I thought things cannot get worst. In October 2009, Min came out for regular maintenance check and discovered we have a cracked heat exchanger that Yuri from York insisted it has to be replaced. Min assured there is no cost as I have 10 yrs labour & parts warranty and that this regular maintenance call would not be charged as the unit needed to be replaced. Fast forward to Jan 25 2010, after email customer service at York Joel & Barb assured that there are units available at there Oakville warehouse and that what Glen was saying it being not instock was not honest. Take note as other have also said in previous post. Another excuse which is understandable that other customer are suffering from no heat so my issue was not a priority! But look at the time line Oct 2009 - Jan 2010 and I paid $8000(sorry forgot to -$1500 cash rebate from installer, -$1500 from York -fed & prov'l, net should be $4000). Well Jan 25 2010, installer came took out old defective unit but when they (can't remember their names)started they fail to secure the existing duct work, using some aluminum wires with holes they drilled into the duct work and suspended the a/c coil unit. This is a heavy unit and it partially rip the duct vent. I brought that up with them and they assured me that they will fix it when they get the new unit from Oakville. While they were gone I cleaned up as much after them and notice the strain was ripping down the cold air return as well. Believing what they later said that side of venting is not critical and let it go. When the got back the assistant was reparing the vent with those aluminum channels that join these sheet metal together. I remember they were commenting how bad Ali install was because it had so much aluminum tape all over. I laugh to myself as it was me who did it in the first place when Ali was installing the a/c after he finished with the furnace in 2008. Then they said we won't be doing that for sure. Well they did just that and left after making sure the unit is working. Within 15 minutes of them leaving the furnace started to vibrate like car with bad muffler. I remembered right away about other people with similar issue from researching on the web that installer did not aligned the unit properly causing the air intake fan manfold to be at certain degree causing the fan to die prematurely if not fixed. Well I called service right away to have these guy return. Couple minutes later they came back and started to look for bandaid solution instead of addressing true matter. Part of this problem is that the original furnace was sitting on cement and I had tiled installed right to the border of the old unit, this York YP9C model has a bigger foot print and hence it was not perfectly aligned. Ali the first installer had ask and I provided some small left over tiles from the bathroom, in which he laid them out in 3 seperate area to prevent the slight slope causing vibration, hence the defective unit hardly hummed at all, even less noisy than my computer. Eventually, the two installer insisted it is the ElectroAir Media filter is the cause of the vibration. So to prove them wrong I went to Home Depot and Lowes but neither store carried the brand nor the size of this filter, though I did buy 3M version which left such gap that I had to return it. While I was gone they ripped some copper pipe foam insulation that I bought to insulate the pipes and stuffed it underneath the furnace to prevent vibration. In the end I decided that these two installer had no interest fixing the true problem and I would have to call Glen to deal with this vibration. They came to the conclusion that the air filter is the cause as when we took out the filter the vibration stopped. I check with a neighbor whom I did not know at the time that he own his own furnace & A/C company and he did say it is a problem with rookie when then run into issue like this. When I called the manufacturer ElectroAir in Vaughan they assured me that the filter has nothing to do with it. In fact it is suppose to seal that compartment so the air intake fan churn and suck air into the furnace, the tighter the fit the better, and vibration is caused be installer not doing setting furnace in proper place. After chasing after Glen for weeks and noticing that the installer did not leave his name & license number I contacted TSSA for inspection as I was waried about this install since I found holes all over the duct work using a kleenex test. My wife and I were also having more headaches as well. Rest assure when Paul came he opened the unit and showed us that the pan underneath the furnace which manufacturer made it removable for unit that are install on top of duct work would not required installer to cut out from left of right side of furnace is the cause of the vibration. The reason that it vibrate is also when this unit kicks in 2nd gear so to say as this unit is variable unit so it spin very little but when it needs to will spin alot faster. Paul assured that carbon monoxied was not leaking and that the unit will not fuction as efficiently as it should since the duct work has so many leak, though these leaks are there they are not life threatening. Ironically as I am typing this Paul called when he received email that I had just sent to BBB, York and Active Temps. That is great following up customer servicing. I will upload picture later since they are on another pc to illustrate the alignment issues and holes. If the owner Farzn [last name removed -- Ed] can keep great staff like Min, Ali, and Kimberly then maybe this company has a chance but expanding too fast as this rookie who did my replacement said we are installer not servicing company. It is so true! I believe Min also said that their bread and butter is installing not servicing. But to bill me $131.20 for something that Min already said it is covered under warranty is ridiculous! I will update both rating and experience as it come! Oh my, another 9 yrs to go! 03/05/2010 Just got off phone with Kimberly, she assured me things will be taken care. She needs to talk to the owner, so I know things will be done. I was told my call for crack heat exchanger & regular maintenance was put off because it is not an emergency so when the technician came out after the one yr period it is a cost I must pay, but if it was done before one yr from installation then it would have been free. So the fact that Glen put it off for 2 wks because they were swamped with emergency calls cost me $131.20. In light of this Kimberly will check the logs to see if I did call or not and possibly get that amount reduced. This is some what reasonable for me. But it is up you to decide who will support your household.

Approximate cost of services:
$8,000.00
What could this company do to improve their services?
Have better trained installer, more staff as it is too stressful for Kimberly(she was great to deal with till I reported with BBB, then she had melt down. I had agreed with her in many ways about customer service till then).
Any advice to offer fellow homeowners facing a similar project?
Avoid this company like the swine flu
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
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5/10

The team that did the foam spray came on time start out fine, had full confidence on project manager and left for work. Big mistake that was. My wife informed me later that while one person is spraying foam in the top hole another is suppose to monitor the bottom hole by inserting his finger in to feel if the foam is reaching capacity. However this person went out for smoke break or something and did not assist his partner. The project manager is outside in the truck mixing and making sure mixture of water and chemical appropriate level, was not aware of this. End result is that staircase wall is warp significantly. So both upstair and downstair exterior wall along the staircase are warped. The crew did patch the holes and roughed in for us but after sanding down and patching over 2 additional time it was still visible in many spot in our house. Cosmetically our house is now in horrible shape but noise and warmth has increased significantly. Amerispec also gave me a hard time but project manager did assist in clearing up the issue and we did get our rebate back $1500 so total cost to us is $1500 or so. Would we do it again? No I would take down drywall and put new insulation and new drywall with noise control material instead.

Approximate cost of services:
$3,000.00
What could this company do to improve their services?
Have the team working together, take smoke break all together
Any advice to offer fellow homeowners facing a similar project?
Be there monitor project as it progress, get everything in writing
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.
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4/10

I favored James as he is an alumni and also came in at lowest quote for our starter home. Cut out window double hung was installed perfectly, and still looking great. The assistance installer dropped some stuff that cause a hole in our kitchen window screen and left some debris after the job was over including some nails on driveway. After complaining, James did bring a screen by for me to do. However, I do not know how and since then the hole is still there. The patio door was leaking but even though I had ask for a frame to frame, the studs were not replaced, though I now realized that it would have required taking out the part of the deck. The additional recapping was done but I had little confidence and ask James for some caulking which I attempted to do which now made the change over horrendously worst cosmetically. After the first winter we can tell you since the stud was not replaced, there is a huge draft that comes through that same corner that I had concern about. This year we needed the master bedroom 2 windows replaced, child's bedroom and front entry door replaced , but the wife decided not to give James another chance the prove himself as I had called on him once again and she forcefully removed him from our list.

Approximate cost of services:
$1,600.00
What could this company do to improve their services?
Pick up debris, reply promptly to inquiries and concerns.
Any advice to offer fellow homeowners facing a similar project?
Monitor the project closely, I must be there in person to supervised
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Company Response

Firstly I would like to thank Mr. Lam for writing a review, but obviously I do have some concerns with being given a poor rating.
We performed a cutout window into a bare wall on the 2nd floor and also installed a standard patio door. All of this by the way for $1600. Studs for all types of installation whether brick to brick, or retrofit are not removed unless in extreme cases when the stud is rotten. Mr. Lam proves that I completed what he requested by mentioning that he was promised "frame to frame", now obviously my question would be what exactly Mr. Lam thinks a stud is? You see the stud is the frame, and the frame is only removed if rotten, so I am a bit confused because Mr. Lam states he wanted frame to frame, but his patio door was installed stud to stud, again with the stud being the frame. I was also aware that Mr. Lam also had a siding issue at the bottom of his patio door (Mr. Lam's back area is encased in siding with no concrete sill, just wood). Many times the existing siding is not properly sealed so people get leaks around their patio doors, or above it due to a lack of proper flashing around edges of existing siding. The installer went back and did what he could, but obviously I could not re-side the house, also it is important to note that Mr. Lam was renovating the entire house at once, so I'm sure there were other issues related to the previous condition of the house. Also Mr. Lam asked me for just the caulking and screen, he requested no more, or less, most likely because I found him to be a very nice guy. If I am not told that more is to be done, how can I do more? Also the draft is probably caused by the area between the siding and the outside of his stud. Again usually this is because whoever sided the house before Mr. Lam bought it had not properly insulated below the siding. All companies in the Window & Door industry get blamed for a lot of problems we did not cause, nor were responsible for. I hope Mr. Lam would give me a call on my personal cellphone (which he more definitely has) and would remove this poor review, or at least adjust it. Either way I heard Mr. Lam is getting the rest of his work done by Home Depot, I wish him the best of luck. As a final note I would like to state to Mr. Lam that if he wants he can call me and I will try to take care of his draft free of charge as I would rather spend the money to send an installer to spray in some foam, than suffer a bad review.

James McKay