armstrong in Ottawa

We thought the computer was gone on our washer. Technician did not listen and quickly diagnosed a broken pump, ordered part, installed part. When the washer still did not work he then pronounced it was not actually the pump, but our motherboard (computer). So several days and 200 dollars wasted on a faulty diagnostic and a part we did not need. He then told us to try to find the correct motherboard ourselves on the internet. When we said we would have no idea where to look for such a thing he agreed to look. After more and more days and several messages to him he finally called back and said he could not find the part so get a new washer. He failed to respond several days when he said he would, and twice called about 7pm after I had to call him and said he would come the next day - which he did not. At one point he removed a plate on the back of the washer and could not locate the screws to fix it back on. When questioned about it he told me to just set it in place it would be fine. It is not fine - keeps falling off. I do not recommend this company. Try ANYONE else. It is obvious to me these people do not know what they are doing. I emailed the company to try to get our money back but have not got a response after several days.

these guys are great. First off, they were the only eavestrough company to respond to our query on Homestars, so I had reservations as to how good they would be, but they were very flexible, showed up when they said they would, and gave me a thorough low-down on problem areas and solutions. when they did the actual job they were prompt, neat, cleaned up after themselves, and great to deal with. An outstanding company I do not hesitate in recommending.

Tree King has twice cut and removed trees from our wood and we are highly satisfied. They have fast response and turnaround time, they keep costs down, are friendly and clean up after their work. More impressively, they dealt with our problem neighbour with a smile and ease, even though he obsessively bothered them the entire time they had to access his property. My neighbour is a difficult and explosive man at the best of times but they stayed calm cool and collected and got the work done with a smile. I highly recommend this company for any job - big or small!

went to SC wanting the same bed a friend has. i was talked into getting a memory foam mattress instead with guarantee that it could be exchanged. it was horrible so i requested an exchange. the manager initially refused to gove us the 1200.00 credit back, then when they did they sent a mattress over that had obviously been used and was in terrible condition. after about 2 weeks i could not sleep on it due to the pain it caused in my back. i have been sleeping in another bedroom on a $500.00 bed i bought from sears which is about a million times more comfortable than my now 3K+ king bed. however, i would like to sleep in my own bedroom with my husband!! i contacted the company numerous times trying to get help but was frustrated every time. SC does not keep any records of complaints - every time i contacted them i was told they had never heard from me before. the reps answering calls were nasty and unhelpful. i am positive this mattress was not the one we chose in the store. it has been about a year since i first tried to contact the company and my husband and i were resigned to purchasing a new mattress (anywhere but SC) rather than try getting through Sleep Country's horrible wall of non-service. what a waste of time and money!! do NOT buy your mattress from sleep country! all their guarantees mean nothing - if you don't like the bed you buy you will be guaranteed to get a used bed that someone else has returned because they were dissatisfied. totally misleading guarantees.

Andrew is nothing short of amazing! When we bought our new house I hired another plumbing company to fix all of our plumbig and the price was exoribitant. (2800.00 on a much lower quote.) The plumber spent several highly-priced hours working on our ensuite shower stall only to tell me I had to replace the fixtures, leaving me with a phone number for Grohe in the USA where I was to track down a duplicate set of fixtures that wasted lots of my time on a wild goose chase, then eventually telling me I would have to purchase a new set if I could not get one from Grohe. Which I did just to cut my time-loss. I decided to try a different company because of the cost and hassle with the first one. Andrew anwered my query right away and came over promptly. He assessed the install and let me know that it was not possible to install the new set for several reasons - but he was determined not to leave me hanging like the previous plumber and set to work on the old fixtures. I was thoroughly impressed by this young man when he told me he had repaired the shower stall completely and it was in great working order! He explained that he had dowoaded a PDF of the manual and taken the entire thing apart and reassembled it correctly. Apparently between the person that installed it originally AND the plumber I had called in previously neither could get it right and Andrew dilligently went back to the beginning, and step by step got it working! I was thoroughly impressed and even more so when I got the 200.00 bill (plus HST). I had already paid about that price to the other plumber for his hours spent on the stall. I returned the 300.00+ fixtures I had purchased on the other plumber's advice and came out 100.00 for the better. It is not often you make money back when you call a plumber! I will always use Andrew at Penta in the future and I recommend him highly to anyone who is looking for an honest, dilligent and intelligent plumber.

I cannot say enough good things about this company - they exceeded all my expectations. I had a long list of repairs to be done on our recently purchased house generated by our building inspector. One was a dangerous exterior problem that involved Hydro Ottawa cutting the power to our home while the repair was done. I called 3 companies and got quotes and Ring was not the most expensive quote. When reviewing the services and costs I noted the charge for Ottawa Hydro ranged from 450.00 to over 600.00 between the three quotes, Ring's was the lowest and the only one included in the quote (making Ring's total the lowest overall cost.) I liked the fact that Ring Electric would look after all the coordination with Hydro Ottawa, and cover payment to Hydro and I would not have to do a thing. They also had high recommendations on Homestars, so I hired them. They set the first date Hydro Ottawa had available, let me know what time period our house would have no power, and three electricians arrived promptly that morning. After a rundown of the to do list and a few more items I had added (such as lighting installation) they got to work and did a bang-up job. They consulted me on outlet placement, fixtures and preferences, and made sure I got exactly what I wanted. I added several more items throughout the day and each one they happily did, no humming and hawing like I have experienced from other companies about the change of plans and add ons. They were eager to do the extra services. Another member of Ring Electric dropped by at one point in the day and without me even asking, he made an excellent recommendation for lighting in a room that has been bothering me since we moved in. He nailed the problem in the room and had the perfect solution. He even offered to have the crew do the work right then and there - which would have kept the them there way past dinner time! The crew were professional, friendly, courteous, and respectful from start to finish and I would highly recommed Ring Electric to anyone needing any kind of electrical work. I will definitely get them back soon to do the recommended changes in the bothersome room (the crew was so nice I didn't want to make them work past dinner that day) and anything else I can dream up for our house's lighting. I had expected with all the additional switches, plugs and light fixtures being fished through the walls we would have some minor painting and drywall fixes to be done afterwards but there is none, because Ring was so careful. That was a big relief since I just had our entire house re-painted! Also of note: the guys wore booties all the time they were in the house and their cleanup was par excellence - my house was cleaner after they left than when they arrived and there were no forgotten scraps needing to be trashed - perfect. After the guys left I walked around marvelling at how our home felt like a new place with all the changes they made. Lots of beautiful light and all the switches in the right places. Some of the services Ring did: - replaced outdoor electrical box - casing had come apart & exposed wiring (had Hydro Ottawa inspect after and certify) - added several new plug outlets in various rooms - changed added and coordinated light switches - installed track lighting to kitchen, and overhead lighting to bedroom, exterior lights (to brick walls) - fixed and replaced badly installed sensor lights to house exterior - fixed dryer outlet, reversed polarity outlets (or GFI's?), replaced several unoperational outlets, - added outlets in garage to replace dangerous extension cords - added breakers to our electrical box for our sump pump & backup and installed new outlet for them, hung power bar on the wall to get it off the basement floor - installed cable outlet in wall (Rogers had strung it up through a heating vent) - and more. These guys can and will complete all your electrical issues! Thanks Ring Electric! I will see you again soon!

I hired a painter on the recommendation of another contractor. After 6 days and a few mishaps (falling off the ladder and spilling paint all over my uncovered possessions for one) I realized that contrary to the first eta of 'about 2 weeks' the painter was settling in for the long haul alla Murphy Brown. I did a quick calculation of how many walls were partially finished vs how many were still to go, and realized a month was probably being a conservative eta for completion. After a search on Homestars I called Daniel at Strokes of Genius. He came right over, looked at the job, put a quote on the table with an all-in number and a guaranteed end date and I signed on it right on the spot. Dan cleared a place in their schedule for the next week. He even sent Sabrina, a colour consultant over to help me make my final choices. She was really great help. She sent all the info to SOG and they showed up on time, on the day, with their materials, ready to go to work. Steve and the guys worked like the pro's they are and finished the job one day before schedule. My husband and I are artists with a combined 60+ years experience in our business. We both have sharply trained eyes for judging a bad line or teeny inconsistency in colour. I can only say Steve has one of the steadiest hands I have seen for cutting a colour and all the crew worked to the highest standards. I am not someone who tollerates people in my house while I am working either but I was impressed at how professional and personable the crew was - I was shocked to find I didn't mind them being there at all. Steve was in charge and lovely to deal with - he patiently listened to all my comments, answered questions and kept me well informed. Dan was in the background making sure everything went well and on time - even after a couple of colour changes they still came in a day early! I knew I could call him with any little detail and he would address it seriously. I would recommend this company for any job big or small. They know their stuff and they get it done on time. A rare experience these days! So refreshing! I will always call on SOG when I need a paint job done!

I hired AMJ in BC to move us across country to Ottawa and they did an amazing job - I did not regret a cent of the 18K I paid for it (packing included), and I thanked goodness we had such a careful and competent head mover in Jake. When a month later we had to move 5km I was horrified. The movers showed up an hour+ late, (it was snowing, to be fair) they did not bring nearly enough runners to cover their paths inside the house and the floors throughout the house were completely covered with salt, dirt, and water. They asked for our broom and to my surprise, took it outside and swept their truck down with it but did not touch our house. (We never did see that broom again.) The head mover told me if I cared about my floors in the new house I should go get a bunch of drop cloths or something to cover them for the move in. I would have thought a moving company in Ottawa would have enough experience to bring lots of drop cloths on a snowy day, and if not, they should have had someone deliver them when they realized they were grossly under-equipped. Without thinking I did go out and buy some drop cloths, big floor mats and plastic tarps so that my new floors would not be treated in the way the old house's floors were, and by the time I got to the new house the movers had already been tromping through the house (new hardwood floors and all) and they were so fast they had already unloaded about 1/2 of our belongings. They were using the same soaking wet runners and some furniture blankets. The custom wood floor was full of salt and dirt. They were offloading the boxes into our garage, sitting them down in a puddle of water (even though it was the only puddle in the garage and there were lots of dry spots they could have used. Then putting them on their backs wet, and carrying them into the house. They had no slip-on plastic shoe covers like Jake and his crew had used and they were all walking throught he house from the truck and stopping in the puddle in the garage to pick up more wet boxes. I put a big mat down in a dry spot and they did eventually start using it, but not always, and by then it was too late anyway. The first thing one of the movers coming inside said to me was 'none of your boxes are labelled so you can't expect us to know where to put them and if we are carrying 3 or 4 boxes at a time you can't expect us to put them in the right place'. I said that most of the boxes were labelled but if they weren't sure they could ask me, or we wouldn't be too hard on them when we found an unlabelled box in the wrong spot. However, whether the boxes were labelled or not, they put them down wherever it seemed easiest. I kept having to tell them 'this says kitchen' it shouldn't be in the basement and such. I honestly thought they must have been illiterate. I even found two large sized boxes labelled 'master bedroom' shoved into our tiny powder room downstairs, jamming it so that there was no way to get in the room. When I pointed that out one of the guys said to another - 'start putting boxes in the right place' - he got an offhand remark from the offending mover, with an intonation leading me to think he didn't care one iota about where they were to go and was having fun messing around with them. After a while I gave up trying to deal with the crew offloading the boxes since they were not responsive, at least one had his earbuds in and the other two were less than helpful when I did ask them to do something. They grabbed boxes like it was a huge hassle to do their job properly and it was obvious they just wanted to get out of there fast. When they brought my desk in, which they had partially disembled, one of them asked where I wanted it (which in itself was amazing) and I said he could assemble it right there. I said the other movers had mistakenly assembled it wrongly and the level on the desk was wrong. He got what I can only describe as 'huffy' and told me he had picked up a desk that was already assembled and had only partly disassembled it therefore he should not have to re-assemble it differently. I found myself mourning Jake - who was helpful in every way, kept an eye on his crew and kept everything in proper check. His crew would certainly have put together the desk differently if I had instructed him, but I did not see their error until they were gone (back out west). I was so tired of dealing with this crew's bad attitudes I just said fine - just leave it I'll do it myself. So he did. I was actually relieved when they shoved the last box into the basement and left. I paid the bill but did not give them a tip and did not even really feel they had earned the price of the 1,300 dollars they charged me, even though they had moved the same 10,000 lbs that Jake had. The last thing Mike, the head mover (who had remained in the truck pretty much the entire time) said to me (pointing to the mess of slushy salty floors in our new house) was 'you should probably clean that up right away or it will (wreck) your floors.' Of course they had taken my broom so that was delayed until I could go out and buy another one. I thought of Jakes crew carefully sweeping throughout their move so that none of the floors got damaged, and putting on plastic booties when they were inside. I couldn't believe this crew were actually finished so quickly, since it had taken Jake (who was not on the clock, and charged by the pound across country) had taken four careful hours to place our possessions so that we could access them all and in the right rooms. It also did not seem like all of our boxes were in the house after the few hours (2 tops) it took this crew to move us in. I realized why later when I went into the basement - they had put most of our belongings there (it was closest to the door through which they brought everything) and the towers of boxes were crushed, wet and almost falling over. We had packed our large collection of reference books (many of them rare and quite expensive) in 'book boxes' supplied by AMJ and they had stacked them on top of items marked 'soft top' or 'top load', with delicate items in them. The AMJ literature explains how the size of box should denote the wieght of it and we had packed according to that method. Now the book boxes were staked on top and the soft top boxes were on the bottom with their tops crushed by the books. We found many many (many!) boxes clearly labelled 'master bedroom' or 'kitchen' or dining room that were all put in the basement in a truely careless manner. When I saw the mass of piled of boxes 5 or 6 boxes deep and about 20 long resting precariously on one another, stacked without any room to move betweeen them so that all our storage items were on top of, behind and surrounding our much needed items my heart dropped. The job had not even begun. What was the point of taking care to label things if they were not read? I phoned my rep Kevin and he said that was not how things should have been done, but that that particular crew was popular with many people because of their speed - something that added up to savings for the customer. I however, had just paid 18K to have my wordly goods shipped in good order and would much rather have paid a couple hundered dollars and had my items arrive in the same condition they had been in before this crew got hold of them. (The money they 'saved' me was less than half the tip I gave to the first mover for doing such a great job.) Now all his and our efforts were inconsequential. My rep offered to make ammends by sending the same crew back to put the boxes in their proper places the next week. (We moved on a Tuesday). I agreed but said I would prefer a different crew since this one had been so unpleasant to deal with. The rep said 'we like to make sure whoever made the mess has to clean it up'. Something that put me in the awkward position of having to deal with these guys that were difficult in the first place coming back after I had complained about them. So I was not looking forward to the day. To make the situation worse our basement flooded that weekend due to a faulty sump pump. We found our 7K scanner on it's side (how the movers had left it) in a puddle on Friday and it just got worse from there. I called Kevin in a panic on Monday telling him our basement was taking on water and that I needed the guys right away. He told me he arranged for them to come the next morning between 8-8:30. I need not have worried about dealing with the same crew though, since they never showed up. The next day I waited until 10 before I called Kevin asking where the guys were. Kevin said they were on their way and should be there soon. I explained it was my husband's birthday and I had to go out and make arrangements by noon. He assured me they were on their way. I waited. I called again when they weren't there an half an hour later, and Kevin once again assured me they were on their way. I waited. By 11 am I called Kevin back and he finally went to the trouble of checking on them instead of just telling me they were on their way, and he finally told me they had gone to the wrong address that morning. He said they were on their way again, but I was not convinced I could believe him after 3 false starts and I had to go out within an hour. At that point I told him I did not really even want those guys in my house again since they were so careless in the first place and now they were 2 hours late. He had many excuses and in the end I just said forget it, being too tired to deal with it anymore and needing to get out and to try to salvage the day. Kevin said he could still get them for one day that week but by that time I just didn't have the time or will to deal with it. We ended up moving all of the (almost 10,000 lbs) of boxes ourselves up two floors, but didn't get it done until after our basement had fully flooded and destroyed many of our rare books. I was so sorry that, not only had the move gone wrong, but that my faith in AMJ had disappeared. They had always been the one moving company I really trusted, and often recommended in BC. I usually stick to a company once they have proven to provide good serivce and it is such a shame I will have to find someone else when I move. If I go back to BC I will start using them again though. I would warn anyone using AMJ in Ottawa who care about their move day running smoothly and their possessions being handled with care to beware using the Ottawa branch. I am not sure how the rest of the crews are, but that particular one is cheap for a reason.

the weekend after we moved into our new house we found puddles and cracks all over the basement floor. A contractor told us we would probably be looking at a very expensive foundation treatment. We called a wet basement company that made several appointments and did not show up, simply wasting our time. I called Dave after reading all the great reviews here and he did not disappoint. He phoned back within 12 hours and came to assess the problem within a day. He gave us great advice and put our minds at ease that the problem was not our whole foundation leaking, but our sump was failing. He gave us an estimate and planned to get back that week even though he was very booked up. The next day he was proven correct when we woke to discover the sump had failed again and the basement was covered in water. I called Dave and even though it was Easter, he was there within an hour, he replaced the sump and said he would return to put a backup in that week. He was back to put in the backup within a couple of days and we have had a dry basement ever since. Thank goodness the other fellow never showed up! Dave is an outstanding contractor and boy does he know his stuff! He made a few other recommendations and pointed out some obvious flaws in drainage in our house that the building inspecor missed and I have absolute faith that he will get them sorted efficiently and for an excellent price. I wish all contractors were as reliable, friendly, efficient, concerned and reasonably priced! Hire this guy if you want exemplary service at the right price. You will not regret it.

I purchased a laundry machine and a dishwasher from Sears on separate occasions. I paid for both to be delivered and installed. When the laundry machine came I had to have my old machine pulled out for them to take away. I had to have a door removed in order to do that and called in a handyman to do that. Sears got here and told me they could not hook up my machine because they were not allowed to use the old hoses and i had not purchased new ones. I was not given that information previous to the appointment and although I had paid for an installation, they went away without performing the service.After I purchased the hoses I had to argue with them on the phone for the better part of a week trying to get them to install the machine - I encountered some extremely rude, incompetent people and it was thoroughly frustrating. When I had my dishwasher installed by Sears it started leaking out onto the floor within a couple of weeks. Once again it was a battle to get them back. When the repairman finally came back he told me it was my fault - I must have used too much soap and so forth, even though it was obvious the machine had not been balanced properly. He gave me several stern talking to's and I just kept my mouth shut in hopes he would fix the machine and get out of my house. The machine has been in my house for about 2 years now and although it no longer leaks water there is an odor that lingers around it. I thought it was the sink for the longest time, but when an inspector came in (I'm selling my house) he said the machine was not installed properly and it most likely has a loop in the hose (it was not cut to size) where waste is sitting. Lovely. My opinion is just don't use these buffoons it is not worth the time or money!

I tried 3 house cleaning services that were costly, unprofessional and difficult to book. After several incidents that i won't go into here I had ceased using any service at all. Then my neighbour recommended Bea and her team and I have been using them ever since. (2+ years) Bea's team is helpful, and friendly and Bea is a sweetheart. The team whisks in and cleans in no time, they do a great job, are careful with your valuable items, and always professional. They cost less than any of the other services I tried - no fancy backpack vacuums, no special cars, just great service! I would (and have) recommended them to anyone. (As long as they still have time for me!)