Boiler Repair - Be Careful with A-Plus
Be very careful if you plan on hiring A-Plus.
Our heat was off and we were expecting a baby imminently, so we called A-Plus back in September to fix our boiler and also install a new towel warmer radiator in our bathroom. After multiple no-shows and canceled appointments, we begged to have someone come by because we had a four day old infant and no heat. The tech finally came a month after the initial call. After several hours, he told us that he had switched out the external circulator pump (at a cost of $660 plus tax for the part alone - we later learned this retails for $150-$200), but that there was an additional part that was broken and would need to be replaced to get the heat on again. He told us that he wasn’t sure if they could find the part, and that either way, the boiler was not worth repairing and we should spend $9K on a new one. The boiler is not at the end of its life, and was purchased from and maintained by A-Plus, so this came as a surprise to us. The tech said that he could come install a new boiler the next week, but that he didn’t know when he could come back if we wanted to repair it. He then charged us for the new part (which we did not authorize), and left us with no heat and no indication if/when anyone would come back to fix the boiler. We called the office and spoke to Steven, who also could not tell us when someone would come back and discouraged us from repairing the boiler.
We felt like they were only interested in selling us a new unit (funnily enough, the same make that "broke" and was impossible to fix) instead of fixing the issue, so we got a second opinion from another company. A tech looked at the boiler and determined that A-Plus failed to turn a valve at the back of the unit that would have turned the heat back on. Furthermore, we learned that the old circulator pump and boiler both worked perfectly and did not have to be switched out. The boiler was not broken at all and the circulator pump could have been reused by swapping out a $10 check valve. This was all accomplished within 40 minutes at a cost of $75, whereas A-Plus spent hours “diagnosing“ the issue, charged over $1400 and did not restore our heat. The boiler has been heating our house for over two weeks now with no issues.
We try to see the best in people but we can’t help but feel that A-Plus saw how desperate we were with a newborn and no heat and used this to their advantage to attempt to try and sell us a new boiler we didn't need. A more generous assessment is that the tech they sent is incompetent. Either way, we are initiating a charge back for the part that did not need to be replaced and staying far away from A-Plus for any future work in our house. Don't trust them blindly!
- Approximate cost of services:
- $1,400.00
- Company Response
Hi Mirej, I'm really sorry to hear about your experience, and thank you so much for taking out the time to give us valuable feedback. Please reach out to us for this special case as we don't have your name mentioned here in our system and we will try our best to keep you as our customer. We are always looking for ways to improve so your review is very important to us. Please do not hesitate to give us a call at 416-213-0303 or email at monisha@aplusair.com. Thank You, A Plus Air Systems
******We were finally able to identify this customer, I was dealing with customer named Brenden Ruddick he said, he recently hired a contractor to install radiators and run new pipe and installation did not go well as planned, the new rad has broken and leaking due to unprofessional installation. According to customer he approached few other contractor but none willing to do the job due to the fact that sub floor has to open up from below floor to access to leak, moreover someone cut the hot water line on boiler room and capped it to avoid the flood. After hearing the job details we refused the job as well thinking not to involve in disputed and messed up job. Mr. Ruddick was after me with so many phone calls to somehow do the job as the winter is approaching I quoted him our hourly rate plus materials and total invoice came $1300 for fixing the leak, replacing/ fixing the leaky broken rad, reconnecting hot water circulation line at boiler room, supply and install a new circulation pump, bleeding whole system to remove air bubbles start up the boiler. I quoted him such low rates because he is our existing customer who bought a boiler and ductless air condition from us 10 years ago. It was unfortunate that a review like this one pop up after doing the job with out any hint from customer about our job or pricing before hand. I tried to reach Mr. Ruddick few times with message left on the phone to call me back, so far no response. Mr Ruddick can still contact us to resolve this issue.
Steven Abraham
Manager, Installations