Michael

Got maintenance service with Chris C. from Reliance. I felt very comfortable with him and felt that he knew his stuff. He recommended a few things to me and gave a great overview of my furnace, what could go wrong and some advice on future furnace replacements. All in all he did what I expected and then some.

So in the winter our garage door was having issues, thought it was dying. Called a few companies but Garage Door Geeks came first. He was the only one who said, you know we could repair it but really if you can manage you can just grease the tracks and it should keep going. If you really want we can replace it but any repair I do will just likely lead to a failure again. So save your money and call me when it fails. The other companies all wanted to replace it or repair it. None of them told me this option. Well I bought the grease for the chains and it worked. This May it failed. So without hesitation I called Garage Door Geeks. He was busy but said he'd come by. My wife was home, he talked her through the options, cheapest (replace the springs and put torsion bar), and three new garage door options. We settled on the torsion bar because we were going to deal with our siding at some point and didn't want to pick colours yet. So his installer came by at 4pm, was done by 6:30. He had to replace a bent rod and got it working. When we finally get that new garage door, they will be my only call. It was a pleasure.

Was recommended to him by our popcorn ceiling removal company. He came out, took a look and quoted us, we also had an issue with one of our kitchen plugs and Hans fixed it (tripped GFI, was so simple). Anyways had a really good feeling and the quote was comparable. He warned us that they might need an plate cover for the existing light but might be able to move it, would see on the day of the install. On the day of the install he brought his associate. He didn't let us know that it wasn't going to be him, which was a bit surprising. They did the job fairly easily and no plate cover was requires putting the three potlights in and moving the existing junction to one of the new pot lights. Ideally I'd have liked the pot lights to be matched to the mainfloor but it's something I should have specified. The job still looks good. And can say his company is someone I'd trust to do more work.

Alex came out to quote the cleanup and smoothing of the ceiling above our stairs (relatively small space but really tricky with the open space. Our mainfloor had been redone but we held off on our stairwell. We also asked him about putting in pot lights and he worked with an electrician but would work with anyone. He gave us a quote which was reasonable. Other quote didn't come to the house. My wife and I decided to go with Alex. We arranged a date and decided to go with his electrician. The job took a two days, he prepped the jobsite, no dust really escaped to the bedrooms or the rest of the home. We had to put up with the mess (it was expected) only for the one night. He was really good at communicating, letting us know what was expected of us, and coordinating with the electrician. it worked out really well. He cleaned up and left the space pretty much the way he found it, it was a pleasure and we'd recommend him as you get what you expect. It was a really good job.

We previously had Adam quote and replace our exterior doors, and my wife has used them in her town home. Adam came by quoted us on all our windows and we moved forward with our most problematic windows. He knew that our windows were installed on the old window frames and not on brick so was able to tell that the windows would need to be larger. His team came to measure and since they were exterior windows they didn't need to come in. About two months later his installers came and did a great job, putting in the windows and putting in spray foam and trim around the windows. Despite getting attacked by wasps they were able to get the work done in an afternoon. Really happy with their work, they have always been prompt, pricing is competitive and they stand behind their product.

House has been really hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Got a few quotes from different people and Jason Sweeny came out. We had him come before to have a look three years before and he said to wait and call again when you felt it was cold. Really honest guy. He came back and took a look, said yes we can top it up and put baffles in. Got a quote at a great price. The crew was really good, and professional, swept for nails and got it done pretty quickly. Showed me the work, outlined what they did. They did the work at the beginning of May and the upstairs has been much cooler this summer than the previous year, Can't wait to see how it holds up this winter. Might bug Jason about helping with the baffles on the other side. (we have a split roof). I really like this company.

Eaves troughs needed some work and the team found a couple issues with the flashing. Got the Leaf Guard system. Been seven months and few rain storms, the work has been really good, and professional. The knew their stuff and got the work done across two days, for the roof and the eaves. They provide a good report with pictures of the work before and after. They responded to my emails about the products and calls. I have no regrets using them and recommend them to my friends.

Water heater tank leaked after 20 years (was in the home when we bought it), previous company wasn't proactive in replacing the tank and the service tech who came, came in and said yes you need a new tank. So wasn't thrilled considering we were still paying for the rental. Looked at Homestars a year ago and called Reliance. Had a previous quote from Lina last year for a tankless but during the installation appointment they realized that they couldn't easily install the venting so suggested we wait until the tank failed. So we called Reliance after the tank failed, Lina got us an appointment for the Sunday, Ottavio and Austyn came in and within 2 hours replaced the tank, got the details to return the tank to Enercare, cleaned up and we had hot water again. Honestly the experience was so good, hope this carries through our entire ownership of this water heater. (The price I put is the total cost over the life of the contract.)

Had leaky corners of my eaves. Had another well reviewed company come to clean them and provide an assessment. They didn't announce themselves, got the roof went around and wrote a small paragraph and forgot to give a quote for the replacement and repair. I also called Mr Roof Repair, talked with Gerard and got Mellisa Parker out to do the work. She introduced herself, said what she was going to do, called out what she wasn't going to do, said what would happen if we needed certain options and said she report in before she left. About 40 minutes later she said that we needed the eaves replaced and we talked about other issues. She said she'd have the quote in by the end of the week and Gerard would take it over from there. Got the quote in email, along with her assessment. It was very thorough with photos and explanations. I was thrilled with the company and their attention to detail, and have asked them to go forward with planning to have the eaves replaced. Will write another review for that work.

So we had decided on a main floor renovation and our original kitchen designer/builder fell through. So it was mid-October of 2014 and reached out to a bunch of well-reviewed kitchen companies. He came over in the first weeks of November after we had gone through a few different quotes and concepts. What stood out from the start was that Piero came in to do an in home concept design. He spent the better part of the evening working on it, by talking to us, going over placement of shelving and appliances and working out with us what an island could look like. No other company invested that much time and thought into creating a vision of our kitchen previous to signing a quote. Mid November he had us come in for a review of his drawings and get the quote. After humming and hawing for a few days we agreed to go forward. We picked Valentini mainly because the attention to detail in the drawings, that they were a family company and looking at their previous work/reviews had a sense that they had been doing this for a while and put allot of thought and preparation into what they did. He let us know that his brother (Tony) who builds the cabinets was more detail oriented that he was. Boy what he right. If Piero is the vision guy, Tony is the guy who makes it all happen. He came a few times to measure and re-measure as they built the cabinets. Now solely not the responsibility of Valentini, we had an issues with plumbing, a HVAC exhaust that was going to be covered by the cabinet next to the fridge, an extension to our central vac so it would have a toe kick plate under the sink, and a few other details that he had solutions for and had the guys to make it happen. They had our kitchen installed by the end of January and a few odds and ends that carried over. The actual install went smoothly, the three of them didn't really speak just knew what they were all doing like a hive mind. There was a small issue with the quartz counter but they had it fixed the next day. We added complications with our going back and forth on quartz countertops, crown molding that we wanted unified through the whole house, window/door/baseboard trim that we wanted to align, and we later got a backsplash installed and had gas line and exhaust vent issues. They either handled it or worked with us on a common approach and solution. After living with it now for most of the year, it at the end cost more than we'd have initially envisioned but we got to customize and pull the space together so at the end of the day we are really happy with it and are comfortably looking forward to many family meals prepared and shared within our new kitchen. If only the pendant lights would show up in the pictures (not sourced from Valentini, solely my issue agreeing with my wife in a timely manner).