Gary in Thornhill, Ontario

I have been using 911 Appliance Repair Services since March 2019 when they installed our washing machine and dryer. Since then they have also fixed our cooktop, our dishwasher and, today, our oven. In every case they scheduled our repair with the appropriate urgency, even driving out a couple of hours on the weekend to pick up parts for an urgent repair so we wouldn't have to wait several days for delivery. I found Evgeny to be a great diagnostician, always trying to pinpoint the real problem and then trying to repair it before suggesting expensive replacement parts. Today, for example, he repaired a thermostat and got our oven working in less than two hours instead of having to make two trips to buy and then replace a $100 part. In a previous visit, he also advised that if a thorough cleaning didn't repair our cooktop then the parts would be so expensive that we would be better off just replacing the unit. Fortunately, Evgeny was able to get our cooktop working again by cleaning a gas pipe clogged with grease. I appreciate his common-sense approach. Every repair ended with a thorough clean-up, even after a messy repair to a clogged dishwasher drain hose. I will be calling 911 Appliance Repair again if something else breaks.

We had two single-car wooden garage doors which needed to be replaced. We got quotations from three companies via HomeStars and a fourth from Costco. Dodds was one of the two companies who sent a sales representative, and they were the only company to spend time explaining their product and providing a catalog with photos of their doors. Dodd's price was in the middle of the range, within $200 of two other quotations. We chose Dodds because their doors had Polyurethane insulation and upgraded hardware, and they had a great rating at HomeStars. In late August, 2019, five weeks after we accepted their quotation, Dodds supplied and installed the tracks and doors and the door openers which we supplied. The installation took a full day and it was obvious that the installer was a professional with many years of experience. I was surprised that the job could be done by a single person, but the installation was done to perfection and the installer removed the old doors and openers and swept the garage. He programmed all of the remote controls and helped me program the remote control in my car. A few weeks later a two-man team installed the aluminum capping around the outside of the trim in front of the doors. The new doors have insulated windows and it's unbelievable how bright our garage is when the doors are closed. Although the new openers turn on the lights automatically when they sense motion, the lights really aren't needed during the day. We have had several comments from our guests and neighbours about how nice our new doors look, and we agree. Like many others here at HomeStars, I would recommend Dodds to install you garage doors.

In October, 2019 I used 911 Appliance Repair Services for the second time. Our dishwasher stopped working because the drain hose was blocked, and our oven glass had broken a while back so I decided to replace it at the same time. I called on a Thursday evening with the hopes of having the work done next day, but the glass had to be purchased from the supplier. To get the job done as soon as possible, instead of having the glass shipped Evgeny drove to the supplier to pick it up on his way to our house, adding two hours to his trip. In this way he was able to fix both appliances on Sunday, three days after I called him. Evgeny did a great job, even arranging his work so that we could give the oven door a thorough cleaning while it was dismantled. He protected our kitchen floor with a ground cloth, and since unclogging a drain hose is a messy job he cleaned up the water before saying the job was done. It took about 2.5 hours to fix both appliances and they have been working fine for the last couple of months.

Our front walkway and landing were crumbling. Action Home Services removed the old flagstone from our front walkway and demolished the old landing which was made from sand and paver stones. They then poured a new reinforced concrete walkway and landing, and covered them with granite stones. As a second job, the pavers on our driveway and the path between the driveway and our front door had sunk almost 2 inches lower than our garage. Action Home Services removed sunk paver stones, regraded the driveway and path, and relayed the pavers. They also made the path wider re-using the stones salvaged from the front landing. When he came to quote the job I was very impressed by John's abilities to understand our requirements and provide options to meet them. He described in detail the construction methods he would use, and I could tell that he knew exactly how to do a quality job. All my emails and phone calls to John were responded to within one day, and usually within two hours. When the job ran into a snag because the stone supplier did not have the stone we chose in stock, John arranged for the supplier to help us choose alternative stones. I found out after the job that the supplier had also run out of our second selection, but that instead of making us choose a third stone John sourced the missing stones using three other suppliers. The job called for re-grading the new walk to eliminate one of the steps, making the walk wheelchair accessible. John's crew not only regraded the walk but also the surrounding grass so the walk would fit in perfectly. The job started and ended in the timeframe John gave me at the time of the quotation. His crew was friendly and obviously very experienced. At the end of the job they cleaned up everything and reseeded the lawn where needed. John's initial quotation was competitive, and he was fair in dealing with the increase in price for the stones since the job was quoted using slate but the stones we finally used were granite. We have received many compliments on our new walkway. We plan to seal it in the fall and we will be using Action Home Services to do the job.

Since we were having a problem with our new clothes dryer not working properly due to a clogged vent, Paul came over to determine what work had to be done. After looking in the attic and at the vent hood from the street, he informed me the vent hood was too small for a dryer and we would be wasting our money to clean the vent before first replacing the hood with a larger one. He showed me a photo of a hood that he recommended I pass onto our roofer. If replacing the hood didn't fix the problem, or if the roofer saw lint in the vent, only then should I call him to clean the duct. A few weeks later Paul and his assistant arrived on schedule to clean our ducts, including the dryer duct. Not only did he clean the dryer duct, but he also replaced the flexible duct and tested the flow from the dryer to ensure that our problem was fixed. He meticulously cleaned our bathroom vent, including the fan blades. He started to clean our HVAC ducts, but determined that they weren't dirty enough to warrant a cleaning at this time. He offered me the option to clean the HVAC ducts anyway, or to reduce the price to the cost of cleaning just the exit vents. I was planning to replace our air filter after the cleaning, and Paul took the initiative to measure the filter I had bought and informed me that it was a fraction too big for my furnace so I should exchange it for one of the right size. I had told Paul about a problem we were having with low air flow in our dining room, and he pointed out a broken damper which was likely the source of the problem. He said that my HVAC contractor could replace the damper when they came for their annual maintenance. As you can see from this report, over and over again The Duct Cleaning Specialists went above and beyond just cleaning our ducts. Add to that Paul and his assistant were very friendly and left our house as clean as they found it. Finally, Paul saved us money by not doing work that wasn't required, and by giving me advice about my filter before I opened it, so I could exchange it. I will be using The Duct Cleaning Specialists again to clean our ducts.

Evgeny was the first vendor to respond to my request for quotation on HomeStars, and most of our communication thereafter was timely. The washer/dryer were delivered several days sooner than expected, and since I wanted them to be installed ASAP Evgeny offered to reschedule the installation for the next evening (a Friday). Knowing we had a dinner party that evening, he was able to come even earlier than promised with a second installer, since the machines were too heavy for just one person to lift. It was obvious that Evgeny and his assistant were very experienced installers. They brought with them some extra hoses and couplings in case they weren't supplied with the machines, and they stacked and installed the machines without having to reference the instructions. After installing the machines and gave them a test run. They left our laundry room as clean as it was before they started. Then Evgeny leveled our dishwasher so the middle drawer wouldn't keep sliding out. He noticed an installation bracket and a screw were missing, so he supplied replacements. I was very satisfied with the job, and 911 Appliance Repair Services' price was the best of the three quotations I got through HomeStars. I would use them again.

Angelina arrived with Vince to our first appointment as scheduled, a few days after I first contacted The Healthy Abode for mold testing. She explained how she would test for mold and her billing rates, visually inspected all of the rooms we suspected might have mold, and tested for airborne mold. The test results came back a week later with a detailed report and showed that we had some mold, but did not show exactly where it was. I asked Angelina to come a second time to do a more thorough testing to localise the problem. In less than thirty minutes she found the problem behind some baseboard which Vince removed and sealed with tape until we could get a contractor to remove the affected materials properly. She also took some more samples to verify that a room HEPA filter I purchased was cleaning the air in one of the rooms that had airborne mold during the first tests. After we remove the mold affected building materials and have some expert HEPA filtering, as she recommended in her report, we will ask Angelina to test a third time to verify that the air is clean. I am very happy with Angelina's prompt and efficient service. She is very open to answer any questions and I spent half an hour talking to her after the first tests to decide how we will proceed to localise the source of the mold. I recommend her service for mold testing.

David arrived as scheduled to make a free estimate. He surveyed the areas of my house where I suspected there may be mould. He determined that since there was no on-going moisture and no discoloration that there was a low likelihood of mould. He said he could do some air sampling, but for my case where my concern was allergies to an unknown agent, he recommended that I engage another company which could sample for a broader range of pollutants than just mould. Kudos to Templar for recommending the best solution for me, even though it was at the expense of their own business.

I contacted Husky to install a new furnace and air conditioner. Dmitri showed up on time to make a quotation and helped me decide where premium equipment would be beneficial and where it would be a waste of money. He provided quotes on two furnaces to let me choose. In the end I decided to install the top of the line Lenox furnace, a mid-level Lenox air conditioner, a mid-level filter and the premium programmable Lenox thermostat. I decided to reuse the existing humidifier and tie it into the new thermostat. All of Dmitri's prices were very competitive, although the premium thermostat was quite pricy (from Husky and other suppliers). I had three quotations and the quotation from Husky was the lowest by $1,500. The installation was scheduled within a week of my decision, and the Husky installers arrived on schedule. They installed the system in one day. They did a great job, including the installation of a new pad for the air conditioner, a new drain hose for the humidifier, and a new exhaust vent through the exterior wall. All the old equipment was removed and my furnace room was left much neater and cleaner then when they started. I have been using the new system for a couple of months now and am very happy with it. A few weeks after the installation I phoned Husky to purchase a 10-year labour warranty to complement the parts warranty which comes with the new equipment. I cancelled my monthly contract with another supplier to maintain my furnace and air conditioner, which was costing four times the price of the extended warranty. My regret was that the other company would not let me cancel the maintenance contract until the contract anniversary, although they did accommodate me by converting it into a plumbing contract. I recommend Husky to install replacement HVAC equipment.