Dan W from Toronto

Following a 6-month half-the-house demolition and re-build, the ducts needed a good flushin'. RJ and Jamie arrived on-time and wasted no time. Oh, sure, some dirt and fluffballs were kicked up and poofed out of unexpected places, but this dustbusting duo cleaned everything and were finished in about an hour. Then almost before you can say "where'd they go?", all the compressed air lines and that mighty black vacuum hose went vlooop back into the truck, and the house went back together like at the end of Weird Science. The dryer vents were new, and we opted for no sanitizer, but the inside of the furnace guts also needed some love, so the price was about $100 higher than quoted. See you in another couple of years, Canaduct!

On account of a particularly strong gust during Monday night's wind storm, a couple of chunks of shingles were found scattered hither and yon on a grim and gloomy Tuesday. Wednesday morning, sunny and bright, we saw the shingle-less patches on our roof. The roof was still under warranty, but apparently that isn't worth a tinker's cuss when your contracted roofing company has no webpage anymore and a voicemailbox that is too full to accept more messages. So! I phoned around to various roofers, left messages, sent emails, filled out online forms... THE ROOF TECHNICIAN responded in about twenty minutes. Maybe less. About ninety minutes later, Ilir and his coworker whose name I never learned pulled into my driveway with a stack of shingles matching those on my roof. Twenty minutes of hammering thereafter, it was as though Monday's storm hadn't happened at all. ...Except for the shingles scattered around the property. I'll collect them later. It's dark out now, c'mon.

We had 9 doors replaced, including 5 closets: 1 bi-fold, 1 mirrored double sliding door, and 3 double panels. The front hall closet also needed an organizer. Alex came to assess the job and made some helpful suggestions, and then we visited the showroom to work out the details (knobs, colour, style). During the second in-home appointment, each frame / hinge / knob height was precision-measured, and then the doors were custom-cut to match the existing setup, which minimized the amount of re-drilling and framework. (This final cutting/painting process took about eight weeks to complete -- summer is a busy time, apparently.) Our home is over 60 years old and has settled a bit, so none of the door frames are exactly at right angles anymore. Cutting and hanging off-the-shelf doors ourselves would have been a nightmare. I'd say that the price was at the high end of my expected range, but the one-day installation and clean-up was worth it. Nine doors and a 5'x8' closet organizer (seven shelves and two coat racks) took about 5 hours to install. They took away all of the old doors for us, too. We were very pleased with the whole experience. Also, I believe that the kids enjoyed every moment of their visit to the showroom, which allowed the grown-ups to talk. It was a small showroom, as showrooms go, but "there are doors and doors behind these doors! ooh a giant walk-in closet with a CHANDELIER! Can I have this? Why are all these doors on the wall?" Only one is the way out. The rest have tigers.

All sun and no rain makes the lawn a dull thatchbed. We were staring at it not a week ago, willing ourselves to deal with it. Today, along came Thomas from CPS with his auto-de-thatching machine on a routine door-to-door business venture. The timeliness of his arrival combined with the specificity of the equipment immediately conjured an image of Sylvester McMonkey McBean, but McBean was a con artist and Thomas and his trusty supervisor were like a whirlwind of thatch shredding and raking and bagging. They even helped us haul the four bags of dead, heavy lawn slough into the garage. When you have a south-facing front lawn, it gets beaten by the sun. The ravages of this particular summer made the post-thatched lawn look like Skynet decided that grass was too dangerous. "How much did you say the over-seeding was again?" says I. So they over-seeded, too. And cleaned up the sidewalk. And were very polite and amiable and not at all pushy. The front lawn was done in under an hour. Nice.

Backstory: Backyard totally redone, just waiting for the gas fitter to show up. Nothing. Not answering voicemail. Tried other gas fitters: Nothing. Missed appointments. Not answering. Don't want the job. Quoi? I call Bruce at CGS and he's here three days later, on time, ready to go. Job's done in four hours, because he had every tool under the sun in his truck. I would have believed him if he'd said he had a kitchen sink in there. Details: he installed a completely new BBQ gas line off the meter, along the house, down underground through a conduit (WHICH HE ALSO CAPPED AND SEALED FOR US even though he had nothing to do with its installation) and out to a valve on a post that he drove into the ground by the BBQ. All painted, sealed, bonded (even the original gas line in the basement that had had no bonding for some reason) and he also plugged the hole in the basement wall with silicone. This may have been the most professional and efficient home service appointment that I have ever seen. And like THAT (pfoo) he's gone.

Nothing but positives here. Paul and Johnny made short work of a ducting system that hadn't been cleaned in at least 7 yrs, and Lina's customer service was friendly and helpful. Paul recommended that we switch from an electronic air filter to a box media filter, so we're trying that for 6 months to see how it goes, and cleaned out the air conditioner coil as well. I pulled a linty dust ball the size of a newborn out of the return duct afterward. They did forget to patch a hole in the furnace wall, but they remembered, came back while I was back at work, and dropped off a piece of sheet steel and a little roll of aluminum foil tape for me. Awwww! Thanks, guys!

Had a clog below basement level in a 50-yr-old house (connection from drain to sewer main is not ideal). The plumber arrived within 2h of our call, and gave the option of either snaking it out (quick fix until we redo the basement properly... we chose this route) or busting up the floor and fixing it now. Had to do some improv as the sub-floor situation became more clear during the job, but we sorted it out. Excellent work (and that's from someone who's related to a plumber)!