G+J in Don Mills

The salesman sold me a furnace and A/C to replace my old units. Price included 3 new registers, condensate pump and retain existing thermostat (better than the one they were offering). Asked for a quote on a tankless water heater and got one from a guy on site after he called his office. Then the office sales guy told me the price I was given was no good and had to go up. He made it very clear he was doing me a favour by even quoting on it. Went with [competitors name removed - ed] instead for the tankless water heater (and very happy with [competitor's name removed -ed]). Installation of furnace had problems that were unresolved for several months after repeated phone calls. I finally just didn't pay the bill and finally got someone out to the house. They also quoted me "a couple hundred dollars" for some additional duct work on site. I said yes and then got a bill for $1000 extra. I refused to pay it (paid them the $200 they quoted me). Installer took off my existing thermostat even though the order said not to - I told him to put it back and it hasn't worked right since (it was one year old). They put in 2 registers instead of the 3 quoted and didn't hook up the condensate pump. Had to call repeatedly to get that done as well. Dealing with Laird and Son was painful. Never again.

Boris gave a competitive quote and excellent service when I replaced my hot water tank with a tankless Navien unit. The unit was installed by Cam who did an excellent job - showed up on time, did the work carefully, arranged schedule to fit me. That was in Oct '08. In Apr '09 unit developed a small leak. Called Boris on Good Friday evening. Got a call back within half an hour and Cam was there the next day to make a temporary repair (unit was still functional); he returned Monday with the required part from the manufacturer. Boris and team are very conscientious, give great service and are highly recommended.

As part of a basement renovation we received quotes for custom built-in cabinets (bookshelves on top, cabinets on the bottom, including a murphy bed, about 30 linear feet of cabinetry) between $15K AND $20K which we didn't want to spend on the basement. Our upholsterer (Mannon Custom Upholstery - also excellent) recommended Peter at Wooden Woodworking. Peter supplied very good looking and well put together built-ins at a much lower price than others quoted. He met with us several times to review design and details, delivered it exactly when he said he would and quickly took care of a couple of minor follow-up items.

They started strong but finished weak. David's self-proclaimed attention to detail was lacking - it was clear once we rejected a couple of his ideas (we also accepted some good ones) he lost interest. For example, we asked repeatedly for specific deesign solutions for telephone placement, platter storage, recycle and garbage storage. He ignored these requests. He gave our contractor a hard time about some dimensions saying "look at the diagram". I finally had to call him to say "there are no dimensions on the diagram" (and he admitted I was right). Followup on problems was horrendous - it very much seemed that once they had the money we couldn't even get a phone call returned. They said the installer they sent us was their best but he caused much of the problem (and they would never take responsibility for a problem without an argument). For what we paid I expected much better. ($130K was the total project cost - D&B's bill was part of this).