Heating Plus Heating & Air Conditioning

Around this time last year, my husband and I visited this site to find a company to install A/C and possibly a water heater. At the time, Heating Plus was the highest rated company on the site and seemed like the right choice. They were great all the way to getting the job booked- then things went radically downhill. The installation was a three day long disaster, to the extent that the owner's wife/secretary offered us a water heater at cost with free installation by her husband personally, to show us that our experience was 'not how they usually do business'. However, when we later tried contacting them about it they did not return our calls. One can only assume from this that a few hours of their time was worth more to them than their reputation.

Here are just a couple of examples of the shocking carelessness demonstrated by Heating Plus during our A/C installation.

- worker unwittingly disconnects our gas water heater chimney exhaust pipe (in the wall), resulting in our home being filled with noxious fumes overnight. This was only discovered the next morning when I noticed a chemical smell on the first floor.

- thermostat was initially miswired, causing both the A/C and heat to turn on simultaneously. My husband had to reconfigure the wiring on the thermostat and fish wiring himself to finish the job!

We were left with 1000$+ worth of damages as a result of their incredibly sloppy amateur workmanship. We sent a registered letter to their office address on Finch to advise them of this (since they were not returning our phone calls) and it was returned as undeliverable. We sent the same letter with Purolator (who made numerous attempts to deliver it) and they deemed the space unoccupied and returned it to us as well.

Heating Plus' website boasts a satisfaction Guarantee: “At HEATING PLUS we work hard to make sure our customers are completely satisfied.” Well, attention Heating Plus: WE ARE NOT SATISIFIED. As you know, we were incredibly patient and fair with you during this installation. Make this right.

In conclusion, here is an excerpt of the original letter we attempted to send to Heating Plus, describing only one of the problems encountered as a result of our dealings with this company.

Mr. Walters:

On a recent visit to our home by an electrician, we were informed that our electrical panel is no longer up to code as a direct result of the installation of an air conditioning system by your company.

The panel was modified (with tin snips) so as to add more breakers than it was designed for. Because of the extra breakers, the “city side” of the panel can no longer be physically shut and contains breaker wiring. All of these modifications violate the electrical code.

Because it is an older panel, parts to render it safe and up to code are no longer available. Our only option is to replace the current panel.

We were never informed that these code-violating modifications were being made and would never have agreed. We hold your company fully responsible for all costs we will incur related to the replacement of our panel.

We are contacting you directly to advise you of the above, should you wish to settle the matter between us. Should we not hear from you, be advised that we have every intention to pursue this matter in court.
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**JUNE 3, 2009**: Heating Plus has posted a response claiming that this is not a real review and that it was in fact posted by a disgruntled ex-employee. This is false. Looking at their similar rebuttals to other negative reviews, one can only conclude that they either need to keep better records or they have a lot of disgruntled ex-employees! At any rate, our installation was booked for June 18, 2008 at 10:30AM (although the workers arrived at noon). The technician's name was Angel. I can say all of this with great certainty because a) I keep great records and b) it was our wedding anniversary and you were supposed to be done by dinner time. Instead, your workers were in our home until 11:30pm that night and still did not finish. If this is not enough information for you to retrieve your “file”, we can post a copy of our contract as well as pictures of the work and damages caused, at your request. We also have saved a voice mail message from Lucy (owner's wife/secretary) that we can upload as well.

No A/C installation should take three days indeed! I imagine this was one of the reasons that we were (falsely) offered compensation in the form of a water heater installation.

You ask why we waited a year to post a review. We never intended to post a review at all. That had been our first (and last) experience with this site until now. We were relieved to be done with you and the whole situation! But, when an electrician who was at our home on an unrelated matter advised us of what had been done to our panel and what would need to be done to repair it, we began trying to contact you. We spent a few months trying to reach you by telephone. We then spent a few more trying to reach you by mail and courier. After that I was at the tail end of a trying pregnancy, which took priority. So here we are. We only posted this here now because it seemed to be an effective (and perhaps the only!) way to reach you. Looks like we were right.

We await your response with regards to how you intend to address the damages caused to our electrical panel.

3 weeks ago, I called Heating Plus because the A/C they had installed only last June failed. The tech came quickly enough to confirm that it is a warranty item, and promised to return but hasn’t. They either can't take the time to service a warranty item, or they don't want to return because the A/C was poorly installed the first time around. My wife and I have called them 5 times, emailed them 3 times, voicing our frustration, yet they have not scheduled an appointment . I cannot recommend this company. Their websites touts their exemplary 24/7 service, but don't believe it. If the company posts a rebuttal asserting that my claim is untrue or inaccurate, or that I'm a disgruntled ex-employee, posting false stories to get even - don't believe it. I'm simply a frustrated and ill-served customer telling a true story. I will be contacting Goodman to request another service provider.

I called in a second company, which determined that the problem was that the A/C had a R410A refrigerant leak and that now there was no refrigerant in the system. So the problem was not the contactor; it was refrigerant loss (where its leaking from in the new system - not 100% sure). So Heating Plus also mis-diagnosed the problem!

One particularly hot day, our air conditioner decided to end it's life. I'm sure many people know that being boiling hot and without an air conditioner is a major pain in the butt. So I called Paul up, as I had heard of him through a friend of mine, and he came round. Within a week, we had perfectly working air-conditioning in our house! We didn't have to mop the sweat off of the floor anymore, and we saved money on popsicles. ;] Thanks, guys!!

Paul installed our new system on Dec. 29, 2008. It stopped working in early May, 2009 and we phoned them on that cold Sunday. After chasing them with a few phone frustrated calls, we were told that they cannot service our system for 3 weeks as they are very busy doing installations. This was shocking because this company seemed to have an excellent reputation. We urgently phoned the Goodman distributorship and they put us in touch with Dave at[competitor removed - ed] who responded quickly and did an outstanding job in fixing the problem.

When we found ourselves without heat in the middle of the night (2am) we started making calls to every heating company in the yellow pages, only one heating company answered live, that company was Heating Plus, lucy handled our request and within 1 hour Paul from Heating Plus was at our door. The part was replaced at a great price, and the service was without question the best!, Paul also mentioned homestars to us in case we are ever in need of a contractor (plumbing or electrical) but for heating we will always use Heating Plus, Thanks

On Sunday our Carrier Furnace Broke down leaving us with no heat!, we called a heating contractor who came out but did not have the ignitor we needed to make the furnace repair, not wanting too wait we called Heating Plus which we found through the homestars site and was very happy when a live person ( lucy ) answered the phone she explained that they stock the most common repair items in their service truck and had the carrier furnace ignitor that we needed, within 1 hour Paul Walters the owner of Heating Plus was at our door part in hand , installed the part and we were back into heat! the price was half the cost the other heating contractor wanted to charge us, Heating Plus is very professional, Paul wore boot protectors, was very knowledgable and went over and beyond the call of duty, we highly recommend Paul of Heating Plus if you are looking for a hassle free repair with a warranty on top! Thanks again Heating Plus

Our Lennox furnace is approximately 9 years old. The ventilation motor was squealing from worn bearings and I knew it would not last much longer.

Based upon a recommendation from a family member, I called Paul Walters at Heating Plus. On the first service call, Paul confirmed my diagnosis and would return with a replacement motor/housing. Surprisingly, he called the next day with the part in hand. He had ordered a number of these motors earlier as this problem is common with Lennox (other furnaces also suffer maladies common to their brand). On the second visit, it took him less than 15 minutes to replace the motor.

I highly recommend Heating Plus and will definitely keep his company's number in my Rolodex.

After reading reviews on homestars, I decided to call HeatingPlus back in Oct 2008, for maintenance on a furnace that was about 4 yrs old. I had never done a maintenance prior and most probably the previous owners did not do one. Angel, the technician, got to work and explained what he was doing as he went along. At one point, he noticed that one of the part might need a replacement. He went back to his truck and got a new one, but concluded that the old part was normal and manufacturers make it look slightly different. He could have easily coned me into changing the part and about 300$ out of pocket. The furnace I have right now is a mid-eff. Angel took time to explain the rebates available for high-eff furnaces. Since my furnace is only 4 yrs old, I didnt feel it needed to be replaced yet. However, if and when the time comes, I am sure to give heatingplus an opportunity to earn my business.

It was a very cold, wintery day and our furnace was on its last legs. Christmas was right around the corner so I called Lucy at Heating Plus late Friday afternoon (finding them on Homestars). She was very helpful and within 2 hours a technician came. We had never done any furnace maitenance for 15 years and so Angel spent 2 hours cleaning every part hoping to extend it's life. He got it operating but by Saturday morning it had still conked out. I called Lucy at 7am Saturday morning and within 2 hours, Paul, the owner came and diagosed the problem: a new motor to extend its life or a new high efficiency furnace. We went with the new furnace with $1000 in rebates and 20-30% saving on our energy bills. Heating Plus was amazing, they installed the new furnace the next day - Sunday! Paul gave us space heaters to keep our house warm over the next 24 hours and he cancelled the fee we should have paid for Friday's maintenance. Heating Plus has also filled out all the rebate forms for us, arranged for an energy audit to be done (so we could qualify for the rebates), and then came back the following Friday during a snowstorm to pick up our old furnace (once the audit was done). In short they were amazing from Lucy to Angel to Paul. You couldn't ask for better service, expertise and value. I'd give them an 11 out of 10!!!

My realestate investment and property management company has been using the services of Heating Plus for over three years, most of the managers and employees of our company have also used Heating Plus in their own homes and have always relayed to myself that they are more than pleased with their work and pricing, we receive many calls over the winter months from our tenants requiring service on their furnaces, we place a call to Heating Plus and they take it from there, they set up an appointment that is satifactory to the tenant and always offer fast service if needed, the tenants are happy and as landlords so are we. They have installed over 12 furnaces for us in the last three years and the pricing and service we recieve can't be beat in fact we no longer accept any quotations from other heating contractors we are that pleased with their service, Thanks goes out to Paul and Lucy of Heating Plus keep up the great work!