Ashton Service Group

I don’t even know where to begin since this saga has gone on for four months now, but we contacted Ashton initially because of the great reviews we saw here. We needed our hot water tank replaced and they sent over a sales associate to take a look at our issue. We explained we wanted a replacement option that would last and one that wasn’t going to cause damage to our rental suite, as we did not want to cause our tenants more issues than they’d had and didn’t want to deal with hiring someone to drywall holes. He was professional and recommended a tankless hot water solution. While it was the most expensive option, he said it would be the least invasive option and would stand the test of time, and save money in the long run.

After that visit, our experience quickly went south. I stayed home from work on the date of the scheduled service, which was supposed to be four hours. Our tenant left the suite so the replacement could take place. Seven hours later, the technician surfaced and ran out the front door without explanation, saying he had to go. When we went down to see the work, there were 7 holes in our ceiling and walls. When we contacted the project manager, she had no idea why the tech did that without talking with us. It took almost a week to get a drywaller in to patch all the holes up.

The trouble continued after that. After the tech left that first visit, we immediately started hearing significant noise coming from the heater. The noise sounded like a large truck revving it’s engine. This happened even with one tap being on. We went into the weekend and it rained quite a bit. All of the sudden on the Sunday our furnace stopped working. We had no heat and the temperature got down to 8 degrees in the house. With a toddler, we were pretty worried about this and called the Ashton emergency line. The tech was exceptionally rude and said he couldn’t get to us and we would have to call on Tuesday when the dispatch was available to schedule someone to come look at the issue. They didn’t get to us until Wednesday. So for three days we lived in almost freezing temps. When the tech came, he found that the first tech hadn’t vented the exhaust pipe out of the house properly so water pooled from the rain and choked out the furnace. All he had to do was drill a tiny hole to let water out.

We continued to contact Ashton about the horrendous noise and they kept putting us off. Or they would schedule visits and then not show up, after we took time off work to be home. This happened twice. Our tenant was so fed up with the noise that they moved out.

After reading about a similar noise issue on a forum, we brought forward a solution to Ashton. They still insisted that this wasn’t the solution and kept putting us off. Meanwhile, they also charged our credit card for the $6,400 work, which in the contract stipulates we would be charged after work completion. When we brought up that the work had not been satisfactorily completed, the ignored our emails.

After several weeks of both asking them to get the actual company that makes the tank in to look at it, and questioning why they charged us, they finally brought the tech from the company in. When the tech came, he said the problem was exactly what we had sleuthed out from the forum: there wasn’t enough gas pressure coming into the house and the tank was over-working. We would need to get the gas company in to bring in more gas pressure to the house and Ashton would then need to reconnect the gas to the house and regulate our appliances. We agreed on this course of action and arranged for Fortis to come and lined up with Ashton to come in right after to turn our gas back on and ensure the appliances were sound. We documented this in two emails and reconfirmed twice.

On the day that Fortis came to complete the agreed upon work, Ashton came in after and the tech failed to complete the work. He said he didn’t have the right parts (why, you ask, since there was a site visit to map the plan already?). He said he couldn’t fix the issue on that day and we would be without heat, hot water and gas to our appliances until the next day, for a second time.

Again, we have a toddler and tenants and it’s raining and cold out on this day. When we called the manager at Ashton, he passed the buck onto everyone else and blamed the mishap on Fortis not doing their job right. He claimed that his shamble of notes from countless different people stated that the issue was with the meter itself. He also said he could not get anyone in to get our gas back on so we would have no heat and hot water and working appliances until the next day.

Well, guess what, after no less than 10 chances we gave Ashton to fix the problem, shelling out $6,400 for incomplete work, and many hours of missed work, we called another company, who said they could absolutely get our gas back on. They arrived 15 minutes later. We ended up paying another $800 for this company to come and fix the problem - one that Ashton said was caused by Fortis not doing the right work, when in fact it was caused by many missteps on Ashton's part.

Regardless of the waste of time, energy and money it was to deal with the incompetence at Ashton, the more troubling issue that not one person at Ashton seems to acknowledge is the lack of accountability of staff, numerous internal communication issues and consideration for the customers who’s lives are impacted.

Do better, Ashton. Think about the stress you place on us little individual people and just be a better organization that treats people properly.