For several years now we've been dealing with a house that, despite having a decent AC unit, stays uncomfortably hot during the summer. We have a cooling maintenance plan that includes regular "checkups" but none of these have ever helped. Over 7 weeks ago our finished basement, which included an office and bathroom, got flooded. That was a nightmare but thankfully we made it through it thanks to Restoration 1, whom I highly recommend (as I have written here on HomeStars). As part of the restoration, Mike from Restoration 1 recommended AccuServ to check if any damage was done to our furnace due to the flood.
It was Rahul from AccuServ who came out for the inspection. Thankfully there was no serious damage to our furnace from the flood (a few gauges needed adjustment) but Rahul quickly noticed that something was wrong with our AC and opened it up (something that the company who we've been paying for many years to make sure our AC is working properly has never done). Rahul noticed immediately that the line set was too narrow and the coolant was freezing up at the point of entry - upon further work later AccuServ found that our evaporator coil was a heavy solid block of ice. This was causing all sorts of other problems too (water dripping onto the furnace, putting undo strain on our AC unit, ...). At the very minimum we needed a new evaporator coil and line set. We had been thinking about getting a new, more efficient, furnace and AC for some time. In the past I have never felt any sense of confidence with the annual inspections done of our furnace and AC. I felt that the people performing them were always in a rush to get in and out and never seemed to actually do anything, let alone offer any useful suggestions for improving our heating and air conditioning. But I was very impressed with Rahul who took the time to really examine our equipment and explain how things are supposed to work and why ours wasn't. Rahul gave me the clear sense that AccuServ might be just the company we had been looking for. After doing some checking online (BBB, HomeStars, etc), I became even more confident that AccuServ was the solution to our problems.
And so as soon as my basement office was restored, I contacted James at AccuServ. I had been in touch with James throughout the time my office was being restored, including to seek help/advice with cancelling our existing rental plans. We were renting our furnace and water heater and owned our AC unit, on which we were paying for a "cooling maintenance plan" (what a joke that turned out to be). I called James on a Thursday afternoon, who was on the road at the time, and within a few hours I had an appointment made for Saturday morning to have a full evaluation of our specific situation and advise us accordingly. Our appointment was for 11am and a few minutes before 11 I received a call from Aaron from AccuServ to inform me that he was running a little bit late, was on the way and would be here in a few minutes. As someone who has owned his own business for 24 years, this is the type of courtesy phonecall that I appreciate very much (yet another indication that AccuServ was the type of company that I want to deal with). Sure enough, within a few minutes of calling me Aaron arrived, along with Rahul, and they began their inspection. As with James and Rahul, I immediately felt at ease talking with Aaron and had deep respect for his professionalism, friendliness and his effort made to explain things to me in a manner that I could understand. After their analysis was complete, Aaron said he would have James send me a proposal that he felt best met our needs. My wife suffers from MS and has very limited mobility (with stairs being a nightmare) so we (reluctantly) plan to move within the next year or two. Accordingly for us, renting the furnace and AC makes the most sense. We also asked to have the water heater replaced and rent this too from AccuServ since we were so fed up with the company we have been dealing with for the past many years (we wish we had made the change years ago!). Later that same Saturday, James emailed their proposal. It contained all the information Aaron had already talked to me about so we had no hesitation in signing it immediately. The installation took place on the following Wednesday.
In the meantime James helped me with getting the necessary paperwork signed, and also was there to assist me with cancelling our existing rental agreements. This later step once again proved to me what a bad decision we had made staying with the previous company we had been renting from for so long. I was several times told stuff that was in direct contradiction to a letter they had sent me when I originally called them to get the cancellation process started. I even had to quote from their own letter since they obviously knew very little about how things worked.
Here's one specific example to try and illustrate how frustrating dealing with this company was. This is what happened when I called on the Monday to try and get return numbers for the furnace and water heater. After being passed from person to person and being put on hold for over 15 minutes, I talked to a person who told me that their company HAD to come out to remove our rental furnace (a direct contradiction to their own letter - the letter specifically states that they don't remove furnaces unless they are replacing them with their own equipment). When I quoted their company letter, the person then admitted that they only know about water heater equipment, not furnaces. I asked if the person could give me a phone number for their furnace department and was told that they don't have one (?) and that they would put in a request for someone from the furnace department to contact me within 24 hours. I stressed that their furnace was going to be removed on Wednesday and returned to the dropoff location indicated on their letter. The person told me that I'd better wait until their furnace department contacted me just to make sure I could do that (even though their own letter already told me I could). At this point I asked if I could speak to a supervisor/manager to which I was told, after again being put on hold for awhile, that all their supervisors were busy and that someone from their furnace department would call me within 24 hours. The phonecall came THREE DAYS later (on the day after the furnace was already removed). The person left a message that basically said we heard that I am interested in having my furnace removed and that I could call a given phone number to talk to someone further about any questions that I might have. The phone number they left was the company's main phone number that I had called on Monday before being passed around from person to person. I am so glad I am done dealing with this company!
Back to more pleasant things. Aaron and Rahul showed up 8:30am on Wednesday (nice and early like I very much appreciate) and by 6pm my old furnace, AC and water heater were removed and replaced. Once again I was impressed with their professionalism, friendliness, and so much more. They always kept me up to date on their progress (including even letting me know when they were stepping out for a quick lunch and when they were back - I have a separate entrance to my basement office so they could have come and gone without doing that). They checked to see if I had a fire alarm tied into the fire department since they were going to do some welding and didn't want to set off a false alarm. They tested the new equipment to make sure it was working properly, gave me a walkthrough of the work they had done, and spent the time to answer any questions I had when they were all done. Aaron asked if I had had our attic insulated and I told him that I thought we had it done several years ago. Aaron did a quick check and even I could tell that the insulation in the attic was far from adequate (we have already scheduled Aaron to come back soon to fix that problem). They cleaned up after they were done, including taking care of getting rid of our old AC unit and dropping off our old rental furnace and water heater.
Apologies for this review turning into a novel, but I can't say enough about how impressed and satisfied I am with AccuServ, and in particular with those I have dealt with .. Rahul, James, Aaron (and also Amanda who has helped with scheduling). Highly recommended .. 10/10 .. A++! They say every cloud/flood has a silver lining .. mine was AccuServ!
I close this review noting that it is very hot and humid outside (37 celcius with the humidity at the moment), and my family and I are able to thoroughly enjoy the comfortable coolness of our home .. thanks AccuServ!
Note: Since an approximate cost must be given, to avoid confusion, please note that I have given our total monthly rental (including HST) for the furnace, AC and water heater. There was no charge for the removal of the old equipment and installation of the new equipment (not to mention all the helpful advice along the way).
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