Michael, North York (Toronto, Ontario)

I posted an urgent request on Home-Stars and Farzad responded quickly. I explained him that I'm renovating my kitchen, where an old island had outdated and potentially unsafe dimmable light switch, old outlets, unknown junction box, and that I need a new connection for a microwave. I answered his questions, and he offered a free visit to the house to give me his advises. When he arrived around 6pm on the same day, he explored all sockets and switches in the kitchen, checked the electrical panel in the basement underneath the kitchen, and patiently explained what work should be done to address our needs according to the electrical code. He was professional, attentive, respectful and knowledgeable about all the details. I asked him for a quote, and he provided a reasonable price, better than those other contractors from Home Stars which I interviewed on the same day. Two days later, he arrived in the morning with his helper, installed a dedicated circuit and a breaker for our microwave, another dedicated circuit and a breaker for outlets above the kitchen island, and provided a few other minor services. Both I and my wife are feeling we can trust him completely. Next time when we will need help with electrical services, we will call him again.

In the middle of February, we noticed that our linden tree in the backyard started to split. We noticed growing cracks on the lower trunk. We called several tree service companies, but 2-3 never responded (including one that has high ranking here on Home Stars), may be they do not provide services in Winter. However, we managed to collect a few quotes. One of the big companies told us they may damage our playground in backyard or our deck, but Craig said that he does all work safely and carefully. Craig from CB Tree and another well known company quoted same price, but Craig was ready to start in 2 days (on Saturday!), while another company could start only in 3 weeks. Since our linden tree was leaning towards the house and it was too hazardous to wait, we decided to hire CB Tree. In addition, Craig provided to us a few options like whether we would like to keep wood for our fireplace, then price will be lower, or if we want all chunks of wood to be removed, then price will be higher since complete clean up requires more time and more work. We liked this flexibility and his readiness to negotiate a reasonable contract. I asked Craig for a copy of his insurance, and he showed me the document without hesitation. On Saturday, Craig and Ray secured our linden tree and carefully dismantled it. They removed all top branches and cleaned the backyard well. Since we decided to keep logs for our fireplace, they cut them carefully and put them in a heap. Now we have a lot of firewood for our fireplace. Also, Craig wrote a detailed arborist's report without any extra charge. All work was done safely and exceeded all our expectations. Next day, when we collected logs, we kicked one of the large cuts from the lower trunk, and were surprised to see that it split into 2 halves on the ground. It was obvious that if the tree would not be removed, it could damage our house. A few days later there was a strong storm, but fortunately for us, the tree has been already removed. Thanks a lot to Craig and Ray and for their hard work and taking care of this emergency on Saturday! We have already recommended CB Tree to our friends and neighbors.

To: Mr. Paul Wm Osborne, President GENESIS CONTRACTING A Div. Of 706067 Ont. Ltd. 2063 Hwy. #7 West Concord, Ontario, L4K 1V6 Phone: (416) 736-7003 Fax: (905) 738-5925 www.genesiscontracting.com I contacted Genesis and four other roofing contractors to replace the roof on the house that I purchased. The closing date was end of May and I hoped that the roof can be replaced in a couple of days after that, but before the whole family will move in the house. Genesis was the first to send me a quote (with a reasonable price) and everyone in the company whom I contacted was very professional. Ultimately, I decided in favor of Genesis because in all my contacts with Mr. Osborne, he was the most confident in a way this major repair should be done and what materials should be used in Canada. Also, I was very impressed when I received over 50 excellent reference letters from other customers. John and his team removed two layers of old asphalt shingles from the entire roof, put new organic asphalt shingles on the roof, did other work, cleaned up (using magnetic broom and by hand) and removed a large bin with all work-related debris. John helped me to climb on the roof and explained me everything that his team was doing. The work was completed just in time for our family to move in the house, as I hoped originally! It was raining very heavily in June and July, but the new roof resists this inclement weather very well. I feel happy that Genesis did this contract and demonstrated competent workmanship and attention to all details.