Humidifier and Nest Thermostat Install
I am very disappointed by their poor quality of work, unfair prices and terrible customer service. I called Horizon Heating for installing a new Humidifier (Supply and install by Horizon) and Brand New Nest Thermostat (Install only). They quoted me installed cost of $595 for Humidifier and $90/hr to install the Nest. I was told that Nest does not take more than an hour to install especially because my home is new and it does have all the wires required. The technician that came was fairly inexperienced to the point that he had to call few people to figure out how connections should be made from Humidifier to the furnace. He also did not have right tools to complete the job, so he had to call their guys and waited to get him sheet metal etc. He also struggled to find out how to install nest. He even didn't know that Nest install with Humidifier requires a PRO install and manual does not come with Nest and again he had to make calls to figure that out. At the end he spent 3 hours in install and majority of his time was spent on Humidifier install for which labor was included in the quoted price. At the end he asked an additional $300 for labor (Close to $1000 against quoted price of $685). I called office and asked why I am being charged additional $300 for just Nest Thermostat install because Humidifier install was already included in the quoted price? Technician spent most of his time on Humidifier for which labor was included in the quoted price and I should not pay anything more than an hour of labor to install Nest Thermostat. They agreed and asked technician to change the invoice amount to earlier agreed amount which I paid in full. Technician also left without doing taping of all the openings and holes he made on duct and I had to call office to get this done. Later I called the owner of Horizon Heating (Matthew) with my concerns on whether everything has been done correctly since guy did not seem to know the job. He agreed that technician was fairly junior and inexperienced and an experienced will look into this and Service Manager will call me back which never happened. Meanwhile even though Nest was set at Maximum Humidity level, after 3 weeks, Humidity still does not go beyond 36%. After 4-5 calls from my end also, Service Manager did not call me back. Finally, I got hold of someone at Horizon who agreed to send a technician to check the work of junior guy as well as to verify why humidifier is not working as intended. But when person showed up he first asked me to pay the outstanding money before he can look at the things. I called again the office and mentioned that bill was paid in full and there is no outstanding amount. Then they changed their stand and told that they agree that there is no outstanding balance but now I need to pay per hour rate to technician to check work done by the previous junior guy as well as to check why humidifier is not working as intended. This was never told to me. When I talked to them first time with my concerns, they told me that I do not need to worry as I have 30-day warranty on install and if anything goes wrong, they will come and fix it. But now they want additional money to check these things. So at the end of day, they want unfair labor charges plus expect customers to pay for time their junior guys need to train themselves, time they spend on learning and researching the things and when you face any issues, again want additional charges to look at the things that was probably not properly in the first place. I would be honest that owner (Matt) seems a nice and knowledgeable person, but I had really bad experience with their staff. Another bad experience with Horizon was couple of years ago when previous Honeywell Humidifier installed by them started leaking. Guy came, turned tap from fully open to crack open and charged $150 for his 1 minute of service. Now let’s compare this incident with my experience with other businesses. I had issue with hot water tank not turning on in winter and when I called the other business, they told me that if they come to my home, there is a charge, but they suggested troubleshooting over phone and solved issue free of cost in few minutes and saved me money. Same thing happened again with other business when I saw slight leakage on hot water tank, instead of booking service call, they asked me to look at 3 things and solved issue over phone. I am glad I did not go to Horizon for this issues. I WOULD NOT DEAL WITH THIS BUSINESS IN FUTURE.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $725.00
- Company Response
Hello Tushar Rajyaguru. Thank you again for your comments. We appreciate feedback in all forms from our customers.
As discussed on the phone and in other electronic formats, our offer to come to your house to check the work done by our technician still stands. I know that you have an opinion about his level of ability but we do employ apprentices as well as journeyman trades people - in fact it is our responsibility to do so. It would be normal for an apprentice to call a senior technician for assistance. When you hired us you not only got the technician that came to your home but you received the expertise of several other employees as well.
In your review there are some inaccurate statements and claims and while I'm not going to use this medium to point out all of them I am going to discuss two major inaccuracies. The first inaccuracy is that we did not say say that the thermostat install would only take one hour. The second inaccuracy is that you are claiming that your humidifier is not working while in fact the levels you are claiming are within the range for proper humidity according to the Canadian Lung Association and are also consistent with the type of equipment we installed. If you are looking for different results, we could have that discussion to figure out why and also to discuss the appropriate equipment that can do that for you.
Your opinion that the system is not working may be an opinion based on your experience with our technician. We have offered to come back to check our technicians work and if your humidifier is not working properly we will honour our warranty and our work. If however we visit your home and there is nothing wrong with the operation of our product, or if the problem is with the thermostat you supplied (product warranty by you), or if it is user error - it is only fair that we would charge for this service. This has been explained to you several times - I apologize if there has been some miscommunication but we have tried to explain this in detail over several conversations. Please let me know if you have any questions!
Regards,