Graham Hyatt from Toronto

In April of this year, during a storm, we lost a number of shingles, and in the middle of the night woke to find water dripping from our bathroom ceiling, and also from the light fitting in our little walk-in clothes closet. Looking into the loft space, next morning, I could see the sky on one side of our roof, where it adjoins one of our neighbours (they're townhouses), along with places where a lot of light was coming in. Having had problems twice before (it's a Mattamy build), we decided this time to find a good roofer, and called in Mr. Roof Repair.ca The man who came spent some hours replacing a number of shingles, and repairing other parts of the roof, after having looked in our loft first: which didn't impress him, and more than me. After a number of hours work, and a lot of discussion, he left after explaining that the roof was considerably below standard and, in my words (not his) the work of a cowboy or cowboys. A number of standard things which he believed were required had not been done properly, and a layer of insulation sheeting (my words, not his) that he would have expected to see, was not installed. We discussed having a brand new roof, as it was bad, to say the least, and it's a question now of when we shall be able to afford to have it done (very expensive), with 3/8" ply boarding to replace the 1/4" existing base. Bearing in mid that I know nothing about roofing, I can only say that the pictures of the state of the roof showed a lot of missing shingles and other damage and things missing. The photo's were taken to show us how badly the roof was constructed and as part of an estimate for a new roof. I'm afraid I cannot copy them for you. Incidentally, my 4 stars for the recommendation part above is simply because the work is so expensive, and many could not afford a decent job. The actual work they did was excellent! [As for Mattamy, the builders, I'd give them less than one star and will do so If I can again find their review, which averaged out at less than 4/10, with many scares of 1/10, which I would also give!].

The people who rent us our so-called tankless water heater, and who service - and to my knowledge also installed - our forced air heating/ventilating and air conditioning system, wanted us to have a problem with the water mixing valve that regulates our supply of hot water dealt with, before they would come to deal with a problem with our hot water supply. We found Strong Plumbing on Homestars (who were recommended to my wife), and emailed the proprietor, Valentin Sasu, from your website. We had his response very soon after and could have had him come the very next morning had it been convenient for us. He asked for photo's of the problem, if possible, which I was able to provide, and he came the following day. A few hours later he had done a fantastic job, and had made a little sense of the pipes going to and from the hot water tank, and had installed an adjustable mixing valve: the existing one seemed to be little better than a clogged T-joint, and wasn't allowing hot water to run through to the house hot water system. I had gone without a hot shower for months, so was able to enjoy my first hot shower in ages from the supply of hot water that had built up, Since then, we've had hot water perhaps 75% of the time, based upon how much is in the tank at any time, and whether or not the boiler had felt inclined to heat any more: which is does very irregularly. I imagine it has a sensor to tell it when to start heating, and the sensor is malfunctioning. We haven't rushed to get the HVAC people in since, as the boiler itself is ancient compared with our house (it was obviously pretty old when first installed), and whilst we are generally happy with the guys who come to fix leaks, etc., in accordance with their employers' requirements of them, we don't think much of the company itself. The first problem was a leak from a small plastic water tank. Instead of replacing the part, the leak was sealed with what looks like red sealing wax. Since then, we've had other leaks, etc., but over the six-and-a-half years we've been here the supply of hot water (which the boiler literature advertises as hot) has gradually dropped until it was down to luke-warm, and often just tepid. One would imagine that a company renting out water heaters would have a plumber available to deal with such problems as malfunctioning mixing valves, since the fact of providing a supply of hot water depends upon this valve. So, we are now considering finding a better company in the Toronto/Scarborough area, to find a better boiler to rent and a better service experience. Unfortunately, the builders have never been at all helpful concerning who installed what equipment, so we could ask for their assistance, despite that the installers should know more that the person who has never seen our installation.