East Hamilton

I moved to Hamilton in February and inherited the previous owner's water tank from Reliance. I called to put my name on the account and they started sending me two bills. One addressed to me, and the second to "home owner" for the same heater. I called them several times to assure them that I have only one tank and to stop sending the second invoice. In the end, they stopped sending it. Months later I get a call from a collection agency looking for money owed to the imaginary account. Then I decided in May to get rid of the inefficient energy hog and install my own tankless gas water heater. I had the unit removed and I returned it to the Reliance water tank return centre in Burlington. They gave me a receipt. That was in May. Now in July I get a new bill for the tank I returned. I called their customer support and they have no record of the tank being returned. I've heard stories of other people having the same problem - of them returning the tank and then continuing to receive bills and the return not being processed quickly. I would never recommend this company to anyone. It is far cheaper in the long run to own your own water heater and frankly, they aren't worth the hassle to rent from.

I hired John Bell Painting to paint the entire interior of my mother's 30 year old townhouse. It was a huge job as many of the rooms had bits of wallpaper, half-finished paint jobs that my mother had started but never finished, a grease-laden kitchen with ugly doors, stucco ceilings and on and on. They finished the job in about 3 days and were meticulous. The job completely transformed the house and helped us sell it for almost 100% of our asking price. They were not the cheapest quote by any stretch, but shockingly, they were one of the only ones who measured the rooms and provided a detailed quote in writing. They were highly professional and I'd gladly work with them again.

The installers themselves were very good, very polite and they did a top notch job. The process of getting them to the house to do the job was not so smooth. I think Consumer's Choice has a bit of a problem with the hands not talking to the mouth, so to speak - they strike me as being more than a little disorganized. There were several scheduling mishaps, several miscommunications about the scope of work (some pieces of fascia were not in the quote but obviously needed replacing). The guy who came to measure the windows was flat out rude and left window dressing laying on the floor for me to pick up. And they started the job about a month and a half later than expected. That said, they did a great installation and stuck to their quote. I would recommend them with some caveats: if you're going to work with them, you need to be more diligent to make sure it's clear to everyone WHEN you want the job done and you need to make sure everything you need them to do is on the quote. They cleaned up the mess well and took good care not to wreck our brand new roof. The new windows and siding are of excellent quality and have transformed our house.

I recently had the front, shingled part of my roof replaced by Juff's roofing. I found them on Homestars and was impressed by the good reviews. Although I had a bit of trouble shceduling to get an estimator over to my house, when I finally did, I was impressed with the knowledge and professional Neil brought. Unlike many other quotes we got, Juff's Roofing acutally GOT ON THE ROOF. (Hard to believe, but many didn't). They took pictures and came up with a plan for venting our old attic. The price was good, not the cheapest, but I would never hire the cheapest company. The installers were very fast, very clean and very courteous. We had a very belligerent neighbour who screamed at them for putting some shingles in the shared laneway between our houses (she screams at everybody) and I was impressed that the lead installer remained calm and managed to diffuse the situation. They cleaned up their mess and according to a separate company that I hired to do my siding, "they did a really good job". The price ended up being slightly more than quoted because they found two more layers of shingles on the roof (which were not visible from the sides) - including some of the original cedar shake. All in all, a very good roof installed by a very good company.