I believe this company is not in business anymore, at least no one answered the phone or showed up at work in their Scarborough location. Hand written notes from angry customers can be found on the front door asking for their money back. I'm writing this review because I'm sure the bad apples who used to work in this company are still in the industry and people should stay away from any dealings with them.
I wish I've come across the negative reviews on Active Temp sooner but my electrician referred this company to me because he personally rents his tankless water heater from Active Temp. I compared products and prices of about 5 - 6 company and Active Temp was in mid-price range and the sale person (Peter) seems to be professional at the time. So I went with them. And that's when my nightmare started. (That was July 2010)
1. Peter booked a time for installation, when the technician didn't show up I called the office. Whoever answer the phone said Peter is not supposed to book appointment and said he'll call me again for another appointment. No call back, then I had to chase them with numerous phone calls to nail down an appointment date/time.
2. Technician showed up without a water heater, he thought that someone already delivered at my house. When trying to figure out what happened, the technician also was mistakenly told that I need an AC installed not a water heater. He said he's not prepared to install water heater so he left. There goes my 2nd appointment.
3. Numerous calls with the office and talked to the so-called 'manager' Paul, got the technician to come back with the water heater. The technician could barely speak English and at one point Paul had to come over to translate. ( I think they're Iranians)
4. Installation was done poorly my husband came home and called them back to fix it. Basically they ran a giant yellow gas pipe (about 10 ft) from the meter to the furnace outside the house, and whatever they did to the pipe was not up to code. They came back a few days later and said they fixed the problem.
5. Winter came and we often left with no hot water. If you stand in the cold shower to wait you might finally get some hot water but something's definitely wrong. One day I went to the furnance room and walked around the meter outside the house, not knowing what I was supposed to look for but I smelled gas. I called Enbridge right away and they send a crew in 2 hrs.
6. Enbridge crew determined there's a small leak (probably not caused by the water heater installer but the fatique on parts) but they also noticed the water heater installation was so wrong that they gave us a warning tag that we need to fix within 45 days.
7. Called Active Temp again and explained the warning tag. They knew exactly what I was talking about and said they handled that often (oh how comforting). Said they would call back but never call. Voice mails left with them and no one ever calls back. I finally decided to pay a visit at their store, just to find out all signs indicating they're no longer in business.
8. Since then, I had to find another techinican to fix the warning tag and get Enbridge off my back. But I still have to fix the problem of not getting enough hot water due to the size of the gas pipe. Active temp was supposed to use a bigger pipe but apparently whatever size they estimated wasn't getting the work done.
If anyone know the names of other people who worked at Active Temp please post it so other homeowers can stay away from them if possible. From my experience they're a bunch of unprofessional clowns - from Sales, to customer services, to technicians.
