Peter in Markham

So on the hottest day of the year, July 17, our air conditioning decides to stop working and warm air is blowing out of our vents. Having been out of the house for the day, I come home to a 34 degree indoor temperature house! I called around at 10pm for a serviceman to come take a look and got the usually voicemails and "if you don't have a service plan with us, we won't be able to come to you until 3 weeks later...so, can you wait?" So off I went to borrow fans from friends and family to keep the house decent for the night. The next morning, I made some more calls and again got the usual pushbacks. I even called the company that installed my air con (a company with a 9.9 rating on this website - message me and I'll let you know the company's name) and the owner told me "Uh, we don't service Markham anymore" even though Markham is on their service area. I shoke my head and kept calling others. That is until I reached Mark from House Depot. The first thing that Mark asked about was NOT "do you have a service plan with us?". Mark asked "what are the symptoms you are experiencing?" and I told him. Then I ask "when is the earliest that you can come out?", Mark said "I'll be there in an hour depending on traffic"...that is when I started to like this guy. Mark showed up with his partner Amir and took a look at my air conditioning unit...did some touching of the unit, measuring with some device and off he went to the basement. He peeked around the furnace unit some more and said "there's nothing physically wrong, but let me do a few more steps, I sort of have an idea..." Mark went back outside and took a look at my air con and began to remove the metal covers. He checked the pipes and the condenser. Then he started to rub his hands on the coil surrounding the fan and said "this is your problem". He took a hard rub on the coil and a chunk of dust/pollen/etc fell off. Apparently, due to the construction in a new neighborhood in the past few years, an inch of dust have collected around the fan coil so fresh air couldn't get in to the air con! Mark and Amir proceeded to wash out the dirt and debris. From the time that Mark arrived, it took an hour for me to have my air con at full strength! My house cooled from 34 degrees to a liveable 21 degrees in 2 hours after the fix. I then complained that the condenser was kinda noisy and my furnace is leaking water. Mark suggested that I get a sound proofing wrap which he has in stock for the condenser noise and he opened up one side of the furnace to check whether or not the water tray inside was to the right degree. He then took a look at my central humidifier and said it's not working. I asked how did he know? He said he can tell it is not wired properly. He quickly opened up the furnace did some wiring and asked me to listen to the "click" noise to indicate the unit is working again :) He did some more checks around the humidifier and the knob that is suppose to control the amount of air that goes into the humidifier fell out! Apparently, the knob was GLUED on to the unit and it was not working! (Seriously, this 9.9 rated company who previously installed my air con is going to get a 0.0 from me, again, message me if you want to know who this company is). Mark and another partner came back a second time a week later to replace the humidifier "flapper", added a sound proofing wrap around the condenser and added insulation around the furnace, just outside of the coil. Did Mark "sell" any of these ideas to me? No. I basically told him about the complaints that I have and he suggested some solutions that I can do. Throughout the couple of hours I spend working with Mark, his favorite saying is "I love to take your money but this is all you need to fix the problem" Needless to say, I've recommended Mark to other people and they have all been attended to over the past 2 weeks by Mark and his team. How Mark manages all of his appointments? I don't know. What I know is that when there is a problem, Mark will be there "in a few hours" :) Mark will be my air con, heating, electrical guy for years to come.