Laird & Son Heating & Air Conditioning

Ron came to our residence and gave us a quote, after comparing other contractors... we picked Laird And Son knowing that they were more expensive than others, mostly because they provided better quality furnaces, they agreed to do the design work and heat loss while with others I had to look for other contractors to do the parts they wouldn't and also based on the reviews on this site.
The work took longer than planned, the workers didn't put full hours during the day. They stopped mid project to go to a different project leaving us without AC during the heat wave, but to be fair they came and made a temporary hookup so we had AC to one room in the house until they came back 6 days later.
The quality of work was to our satisfaction, they were courteous and addressed all our requests and concerns.

Dave the salesman was helpful and informative. Instal crew was excellent. Final product was clean and neat. Customer service was prompt and kind. Got all the rebates. I highly recommend Laird and Son to anyone looking to replace Furnace or AC.

My wife is heavily pregnant and the A/C went down and she was suffering! We phoned Laird and they came out and fixed the A/C unit without delay, even though they were super busy. Bryan, the technician, was very helpful in explaining what was wrong and in saying what the final price was going to be. I would highly recommend Laird & Sons to anyone, very reliable and honest.

We needed to replace the original boiler (a 70 yr old cast iron brute). Dave's initial recommendations and estimates were very helpful. There were no pressure tactics and he certainly encouraged me to check in with previous customers (clearly, he has confidence in all the great work his team has done). Marco and his boiler removal team were very professional and polite - and they did an amazing cleanup job. I was worried about the light coloured carpet in the finished part of the basement. But they had dropcloth down over everything from the start and they got the old boiler out, without a problem. The installation team was very efficient. Again clean (more dropcloth), polite, friendly (even joking with the family as they came home from school)...but mostly just doing great work at a very competitive price. The result is working fine and looks goods.

After tendering the replacement of an old furnace and A/C system (from a 1980s renovation) to three different HVAC companies we decided on Laird & Son. They had been recommended by our Home Inspector (Rob from HomeCore Inc.) and we were warned that while they provided good service it would be expensive. Of the three tenders, we decided on Laird & Son because of their knowledge base. They were not the cheapest but made us feel the most comfortable with such a large project. In the end everything was seamless, they came and replaced the furnace and A/C with a new high efficiency system. We have a very small basement (it is a 100 year old house) and they were able to install everything with very little change to the existing use of space, leaving us more room than we expected. Although there were a couple of scheduling problems I would recommend Laird & Son to anyone seeking to replace any HVAC system.

The salesman sold me a furnace and A/C to replace my old units. Price included 3 new registers, condensate pump and retain existing thermostat (better than the one they were offering). Asked for a quote on a tankless water heater and got one from a guy on site after he called his office. Then the office sales guy told me the price I was given was no good and had to go up. He made it very clear he was doing me a favour by even quoting on it. Went with [competitors name removed - ed] instead for the tankless water heater (and very happy with [competitor's name removed -ed]). Installation of furnace had problems that were unresolved for several months after repeated phone calls. I finally just didn't pay the bill and finally got someone out to the house. They also quoted me "a couple hundred dollars" for some additional duct work on site. I said yes and then got a bill for $1000 extra. I refused to pay it (paid them the $200 they quoted me). Installer took off my existing thermostat even though the order said not to - I told him to put it back and it hasn't worked right since (it was one year old). They put in 2 registers instead of the 3 quoted and didn't hook up the condensate pump. Had to call repeatedly to get that done as well.

Dealing with Laird and Son was painful. Never again.

your instalation crew were terrific, They were prompt,courteous knowlegable and very professsional in removing two old furnaces and installling new ones . Ifound your pricing both fair and reasonable. TThank you for this job and for very good service over many years.

They did a great job, and showed up on time. Came within the hour to repair a broken furnace on a cold day. Repair was done as estimated and they saved us money by using existing pipes insteadof replacing them

We converted to a natural-gas furnace in the fall of 1992, and Laird (who had been handling our earlier oil burner which was in the house when we bought it in 1986) handled the switchover, too. We have subscribed to their basic Annual Furnace Maintenance Plan ever since. The annual cleaning and inspection includes checking carbon monoxide levels in the combustion chamber.

On our last annual cleaning, the Laird guy said the CO was too high, probably due to corrosion on the cast-iron heat-exchanger plates. My wife has a friend who is a combustion engineer, and he came by and said it looked like the original furnace installation in 1992 had neglected to install a "shunt valve" between the hot-water and cold-water lines such that the water going into the boiler would be at the designated (as per the furnace installation manual, which I still had) temperature of between 120 and 140 degrees F. The fact that the water going into the boiler at first start-up each heating season was too cool (about 100 deg F) was the cause of the heat-exchanger corrosion.

When I pointed this out to Laird & Son, they very honorably agreed to send a technician by to clean the heat-exchanger plates for free (usually about a $400 charge) and next they sent someone to install that needed shunt valve, also for free. So, from here on out, the rate of corrosion on the heat exchanger plates (which produces the carbon monoxide) should be significantly slowed.

We used Laird and Son as the previous owners of our house had the furnace installed by them.
I'm not sure if this was normal, but they re-scheduled our maintenance appointment 3 times after not having it written down on their work order during the first visit. The rescheduling was somewhat problematic, as there was not a lot of notice in each case.

When they finally showed up, the first person to inspect the furnace, commented that the previous installer (now a former Laird and Son Employee) did a really poor job installing the furnace. I had to ask him to repair a number of issues with the ducting and poor joins. When he was done the maintenance he stated that there was a leak in the gas line and he had to get someone else in to repair the leak as he couldn't do it himself.
The second person showed up and said that the fitting was old and they would have to replace it with a more recent type and left. They nicely provided me with Electric Space heaters. In the afternoon, two older service men showed up, took a look, tightened the pipe and said it was good to go.

I asked why the first two guys couldn't fix the leak, they said that they didn't know - they simply tightened the valve and it was fine.

This experience did not inspire confidence in their operation or the types of people that they are employing.

UPDATE - Laird in Son did manage to get a hole of me, I spoke with their sales manager who did indeed offer to 'make it right'.
An appointment was booked, the two technicians came by on time - as promised and plugged up the holes in the duct work around the furnace. This has led to better heat distribution and less wasted heat in the furnace room. I appreciate the fact that Laird and Son followed up and were willing to correct what needed correcting.