Allen from East York

I was enrolled in the Reliance Heating Protection and Maintenance Plan a few months ago, to take advantage of the annual furnace maintenance inspection and also with the hope to save time, money and frustration when the need arises. Unfortunately, my experience with this protection plan was an absolute nightmare and I did not gain any of the benefits I was hoping for. The lack of knowledge and experience of the Reliance staff on our hot water boiler furnace had actually caused more of my time off from work; a lot of frustration; a few sleepless nights without heat and the worst of it all, I ended up spending more money out of my own pocket to replace the old furnace, which was only about 7 years old. I put this so call protection plan to the test when our furnace started to behave erratically and fail to start periodically. I called Reliance and was happy that an appointment was arranged quickly. Unfortunately, that was the end of my positive experience associated with this protection plan. Over the next three weeks after the initial call, two different Reliance staff had visited our home in 5 occasions to repair our furnace. In the first 3 occasions, the service person sent to repair the furnace did not have any experience nor the knowledge in maintaining a hot water boiler furnace. After playing with the various furnace parts during the first 2 visits, this person was not able to determine the cause of the furnace problem but decided to replace one of the parts, hoping that would fix the problem. The part took about two weeks to get delivered. The part was replaced during his 3rd visit but unfortunately the furnace continued to act erratically. So, another call to Reliance for the 4th time and the same service person returned and admitted he had no experience in repairing our furnace and suggested I called Reliance again to request someone else who might have the knowledge in repairing the hot water boiler furnace. So, I called Reliance one more time for another appointment. On this 5th visit, a different Reliance service person came and he seemed to know the operation of the hot water furnace system, but unfortunately, he did not have any knowledge on the unit that was installed in our house nor know how to repair it. Again, he looked and adjusted a few furnace parts and also took a quick look at the installation manual for our furnace but still could not determine the cause of the problem. However, this time he decided to tag our furnace because he noticed there was an extra add-on fan to the furnace exhaust that was not part of the original equipment. He then basically said there was nothing else he could do until the add-on fan was removed by a licensed contractor, which I had to find on my own and complete within next 30 days. I was also told that Reliance would not come back to repair the furnace until the add-on fan was removed. At that time, the furnace was still working but was cutting out periodically and I had to reset it manually, which caused me a few sleepless nights. Although I was still enrolled in this protection plan, but Reliance left me out in the cold with this furnace problem and the risk of the total furnace breakdown and no heat during those cold winter nights. Over the next few days, I tried calling many contractors. Unfortunately, all of the licensed heating contractors were busy because it was winter time and removing a fan was a small job that no contractors would want to do during that time. I was unable to find any contractor to do this job and decided to replace the furnace because I just could not take the risk of the furnace break down and without any heat in the middle of the cold winter. It had been an extremely frustrating experience in dealing with Reliance’s service staff. They have been to our house to check and attempt to repair the furnace 5 times but decided to tag the furnace on the last visit for a small issue which I was not able to get any contractor to do during a busy period in the middle of the winter. Why was I not told during the 1st visit if there was a problem with the furnace? Was this an easy way for staff to get out of a situation that they could not fix? My opinion, unless you have a popular furnace model and the people maintaining them have sufficient knowledge of the product, this protection plan is likely useless for you. Joining the protection plan had wasted a lot of my time, caused additional frustrations, money and a few nights without heat.

We had a large window replaced by Total Home Windows and Doors recently. The crew arrived at 7:30pm even though we were told around 2pm. We were not advised of this delay and were about to go out for dinner when the crew showed up at the door. We assumed the installation was cancelled since it was a no show at the time we were promised. Anyway, the installation proceeded. The window looked good but the workmanship was poor and the crew was careless. The outside pipe for my lawn's sprinkler system was broken either by someone stepping on it or the ladder sitting on it during the window installation. The knob for the hot water radiator air release valve located just below the replacement widow was also smashed and broken off. Also, the clean up at the end of the job was terrible. Dust and chipped stones from the wall were everywhere...on the floor, behind the TV, behind the radiator. We spent a lot of time cleaning up afterward. It was a mistake to let them start at 7:30pm at night. At that time of the day, I am sure it was already a very long day for these people and they must had done quite a few jobs prior coming to my house. They probably just want to get the last job finished quickly, unfortunately for me, so they can then go home. However, if we did not let them proceed, we would not know when we can get them back again. The window looks great which why I gave a couple of stars. Other than that, I cannot recommend the company. I am responding to the Company Response below: Thank you for the response to the complaint I posted, however, I would like to clarify the reason which I rejected the company's offer to fix the damages. It was not because of the "damage being so minimal" but rather I already had someone in line to repair the works at the time when the company contacted me. Also, I did not have the comfort level to have the company coming back to fix the problem properly. I also want to note that it was over a month after my initial complaint and a few weeks after I posted my comments on HomeStars before I was contacted by the company. I do not disagree that it may not be possible to predict the exact time to complete the previous job and on the arrival at the next job. However, being five hours late and also encroaching into your client's dinner period should deserve a courtesy phone call during that day to give an update . As I said in my original post, we assumed the job was cancelled for that day and our family was preparing to go out for dinner when the crew arrived. It was fortunate that we did not cook that night. Imagine trying to eat when the window was being replaced and dust flying everywhere, it would not have been a good experience. I believe the crew was rushing and trying to get the work completed before the night set in and therefore failed to take the necessary precautions to prevent damages.