No heat on the coldest day of the year
We woke up to a frigid house last Friday, January 5th. We've had good service from Belyea Bros in the past so naturally they were on our list of people to call. They gave us a window between 12 and 5 and were at our house by around 1:30. The technician determined that there was no gas coming to the boiler and that I would have to call Endbrige, likely because the meter froze. He also smugly said that they would also issue a warning tag. Frustrated that he assumed I knew what that was I asked him to explain. He said that because a carbon test was long overdue and the boiler may need to be serviced that Endbrige may not allow the boiler to be turned back on.
He handed me a $150 bill for the service call and asked me to initial a work order ( another $160 for the carbon test plus around $450 to service the boiler). I decided not to initial since he couldn't determine what would need to be done yet.
Endbrige sent someone over within the hour and quickly determined, sure enough the meter was frozen. The man who came said he may not be able to replace the meter because of how cold it was. I insisted that I couldn't just shut down the house and that if he couldn't do the work to send someone else. He was able to replace the meter and got the boiler running again.
He then decided to shut everything off and issued the warning tag, just as the Belyea technician said.
By now it was just after 3pm, I quickly called Belyea Bros back. I spoke to the receptionist who said that they couldn't send anyone, it was too late and due to the number of calls because of the weather no technicians were available. I would have to wait until the following work week. When I explained that it was an emergency she said she would see what she could do and call me back.
They called back and said they could send someone but it wouldn't be until the next day and since it wasn't regular business hours there would be extra charges. (I was speaking to the same receptionist but could here someone coaching her) The service charge would now be $200 instead of the $130. After objecting to that, she admitted, it would have been waived had I authorized the work order from the technician earlier that day. The carbon test would be around $160 and since the water pressure was too high as determined by the Endbrige guy, any further repairs could run upwards of another $600 to $900.
I get that there would be a cost if repairs needed to be done but they hadn't determined what those were yet. I didn't think another $200 service charge was fair either. They advertise emergency service on their site but don't specify it costs more. I felt like they knew they had me over a barrel and I was being taken advantage of.
I opted to look for someone else to help. We contacted a 24hr emergency service and someone from someone came within the hour and got the Boiler up and running.
Incidentally their cost for doing a Carbon test was only $40 compared to $160 from Belyea Bros. Quite a substantial discrepancy which makes me wonder how fair their other costs are. They have just lost a loyal customer and someone else gained a new one.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $150.00
- Company Response
The deep cold (-21˚C before wind chill on Friday Jan 5) created many frustrating situations for clients and unfortunately Mr. Chu’s rental property was one of these instances. We were called out for a “no heat” boiler and Mr. Chu was obviously anxious because of his tenants. When our technician, Deo, arrived he quickly determined that there was no gas to the boiler and explained to Mr. Chu that it was likely the meter had frozen in the extreme cold and that he would have to call Enbridge out. Deo also explained to Mr. Chu that because he had a natural draft boiler that requires an annual Carbon Monoxide (CO) test, Enbridge would likely issue a “Red A-tag” (and shut down the boiler) once they restored gas to the property because the unit had not been maintained or tested since 2013. Deo also noted the pressure relief valve had been leaking all over the floor, so he gave Mr. Chu pricing for maintenance, a CO test and replacing the PRV. Because there was no gas to the unit, Deo could not perform the maintenance or CO test at that time. He instructed Mr. Chu to call Enbridge and to call us back once gas had been restored. When Mr. Chu called us back in the late afternoon, all technicians were on other emergency calls and Mr. Chu was offered emergency service at after-hours rates that night or on Saturday and he declined. This situation is an important example to landlords for why annual maintenance is so crucial. If the boiler had a current CO tag for the winter of 2017-2018 then Enbridge would simply have turned the boiler back on once they were able to restore gas to the property and the immediate issue would have been resolved.