Heather in London

Their salesperson that we dealt with (Steve?) was very friendly and down-to-Earth. He addressed our concerns that many other companies steered clear of about whether or not it'd be worth completing an energy audit for a 2nd time or not in this home (for us, it didn't make sense to do it again because we don't have a second project left that we could do that'd increase efficiency). Their final pricing was also $4000 less than other competitors partially because we were on the border line of needing a large a.c. unit and after explaining the advantages and disadvantages of each size, we went with the smaller unit; this option wasn't offered to us by other companies. We have lived with the purchase for almost a week now and are happy with it. It's considerably quieter than our old unit and cools the house much more quickly than our old unit. They were able to accommodate our work schedule in terms of times to meet for estimates, measurements, and starting the install. Only giving them 4/5 stars in terms of satisfaction as they didn't really clean up much after themselves and when they did, they used our own cleaning supplies and then didn't put them back where they found them. Our two brooms had been used, and we think our Shopvac as well. Even despite all that, there were screws and nails all over the place that took a long time to clean up. They were also anticipating that they would be done around 3:30 on the install day, so I arrived home around 2:30 to meet them, but they called along the way that they were done. They said everything went well and there were no concerns. When I arrived home though, the house smelled so bad I had to call them back to find out why and wait in the backyard (the smell was that strong). Turns out there was oil on the coils that had to burn off, and that the fumes were originally so bad they set off our fire/carbon monoxide detector. So the smell was from that and the adhesives used... Would have been nice if that was stated as something to inspect instead of "everything is great and nothing went wrong!" To their credit, they did return to inspect/explain this in person within an hour. When they returned, I also asked that they finish repairing the duct insulation that was hanging off of the duct work. I anticipated that they'd have to dismantle it to work around it, but expected that they would have put it back when complete instead of leaving it for us to deal with. Overall, relatively happy with the experience, but an extra 15 minutes of care at the end of the day would have gone a long way for my overall impression of them.

Edited to add [Aug 2018]: We emailed in Aug 2017, with photos, showing pictures of cracking asphalt extending multiple feet. Over the last 12 months they have been extremely evasive in ignoring our phone calls and email messages. After months of promises to have a repaired driveway, they still have not made the repair, and their proposed method (repair just a small section instead of redo the entire driveway like we've had an engineer recommend) of repair is just crap. Really do not recommend. Original post {May 2017]: We had 2 other quotes within $100 or so of his, but Mike was by far the most personable and professional. He was one of the first people to gently tell us that we needed our foundation looked at and shouldn't continue with the paving job until we did so, even though it didn't benefit his business to do so. He was also really understanding with then having to delay and do extra work to accommodate the fallout of having 1/4 of your driveway dug down to the footings and then refilled with stone instead of dirt... I'd highly recommend him!

We were so impressed with Fred, both as a person and a craftsman. He guided us through making decisions of what needed to be repaired now, versus what really didn't matter and what should be done in 5-10 years. He easily could have convinced us that more work was needed as we're pretty naive when it comes to structural loads in our home, but explained in an educated and experienced way why we should keep the project to only include x and y and not x, y, z and a-u... He and the crew cleaned up when they were all done, and he came back and did a walk through with us when the work was all done to make sure we were happy and knew more about what they discovered about our home. As I'm the first reviewer for this business on HomeStars, I'll also share what he specializes in (listed from his business card): - chimney rebuilding and repairs - brick work - concrete sidewalks and driveways - wet basement repairs - home repairs and additions He and his crew are very busy but he accommodated our schedule to meet early in the morning and after work for our initial meetings & quote, as well as near daily updates. I would highly recommend him.

TLDR: Great service. Would recommend. We came home after vacation to discover a sewer flood in our basement. We called the emergency number for them after a recommendation from someone else and scheduled a visit for 8am the next day. Ted, arrived close to 7:55am and promptly began investigating our problem. He also provided advice on a couple of other anomalies in our basement plumbing while attempting to rooter our main sewer line. Unfortunately for us, the rootering led him to the conclusion that digging in our front yard would be needed to access the problem. Also unfortunate for us was that he didn't believe anyone would be available to do that for another 1-2 days given their staffing levels and quantity of jobs. Fortunately for us, we found out at about 6pm that day that workers would be available the next day at 9am. By 9:30am the next day, it was apparent the digging crew didn't bring the right tools for the job (they only had shovels, and we have a clay soil makeup), so there was another slight delay while they returned to the shop for heavy machinery (a bobcat and jackhammer to break through our driveway). Thankfully once this arrived, the digging and fixing went quite quickly and by about 2:30pm, sewer services were restored. One of the members of the digging crew pointed out a minor foundation issue and left it accessible for us to fix on our own at a later date. The men we dealt with were prompt, courteous, and knowledgeable. The invoice was within $100 of the anticipated verbal quote given by Ted on the first assessment. I've given 9/10 stars only because of not bringing the right tools to the job & the potential of having to wait 48 hours for a fix (even though that didn't happen in the end). I would definitely recommend them for anyone else requiring future emergency sewer drain repairs.

Nov. 2016 (General Tune-up and Review): The technician showed up on time and seemed to be very knowledgeable. Our home is new to us and we'd never had anyone inspect both our furnace & A/C unit other than the basic stuff done by our home inspector. We learned that the furnace gas intake had not been calibrated properly the last time it was serviced (... if ever) and now, we might save as much as 1/3 of gas when the pilot has to be lit. The only down side was although he was able to say we'd have 1-3 years left on both units, he wasn't able to even ballpark what a replacement would be to save for replacements. Still grateful for all the things we learned and to know that everything is running more efficiently. Update, 11 months later (June 2017): After having our A/C unit disconnected for foundation work, we recently tried multiple times to book an appointment for an A/C reconnect and repair and kept getting appointments cancelled or rescheduled on us. I gather if you call outside business hours, you get a call centre where the representatives have little to no comprehension of the English language. The representatives also didn't have access to previous technician's notes, which would have been super helpful in our situation to explain why we needed a longer than normal service appointment. It turns out that when our unit was disconnected, the advice of the technician was that we shouldn't repair it... this would have been great information for them to share with us! It is unfortunate that no paperwork, or email, was provided upon completion of the disconnect. Overall an incredibly frustrating experience with no apologies offered by the company. We will be taking all future business elsewhere and recommend that you do the same.

A project that we thought would be under $300 ended up costing $700 with no explanation or warning. They sent two people who took 5 hours to install a range hood fan. They didn't bring the appropriate venting to start with, despite knowing what the job was, and the time spent driving around to get the right parts was on top of the 5-hour install. The work itself was very thorough and we've had no problems. I would strongly recommend getting some form of written quote to hold them to for any work you'd consider with them.

Had an excellent one-on-one visit with the estimator. He gave us a lot of options and was very friendly. They weren't the cheapest of the three companies that we got estimates from, but were definitely the most professional and we felt right giving them our business. They were kind of busy in terms of scheduling a crew to come, and we ended up having to split up their work over two days when it could have been done in one, but otherwise no criticisms.

We bought new interior doors for our bedrooms and new bifold closet doors from North Pole last week. They advised on design, had them cut down to the proper size, and delivered them very quickly. One small criticism is that what was delivered, wasn't 100% what we ordered, by replacements were made available the same day. They were also able to recommend an installer, who did a fantastic job. Within one day, our terrible arts-and-crafts-project doors were gone and we now have beautiful doors that do great things like open and close. Not an easy thing to accomplish in an old home. Very happy with their customer service.

I purchased an upright piano through Kijiji and needed it moved. This company came highly recommended and the move was very very smooth. They were very speedy, professional, and made no floor or wall damage. The only two criticisms I have are that 1) It took a lot of phone tag to set up the move time and 2) They showed up over an hour late to the pick-up and then claim they were never provided the delivery address. They were pretty apologetic and professional though, so I've rated them kind of high here. For future movers though, perhaps have some sort of paper trail to make life a little clearer for all involved.

It was relatively easy to arrange for a date that worked and they were able to come within three-four weeks; not too soon, but soon enough for us. We had recently moved into a new home and noticed some oddities that we wanted to have fixed, so this gave us enough time to also refine our list of projects. On the day of the work, they arrived on time and did a walk through with me about the list of projects and everything seemed OK. We talked about having a $500 budget and that once they got to about that amount of work, to check in before continuing. This was not at all adhered to; they finished all of our projects, but our bill was $800 in the end. On the plus side, when replacing an aluminum wire that fed the furnace, they noticed we did not have a service switch for the furnace, so they did add that to make life easier in the future. I am disappointed that there was nothing written down about future projects to consider nor was there a final walk through to inspect what work had been done and to ask any questions about it. We haven't had any electrical issues with the work that they did. As a side note, it also took 10 business days to receive an invoice so don't expect a speedy confirmation of how much the services received actually cost.