I cancelled my gold plan but still received an invoice a month later. Repeated calls to the number failed to speak with an agent ...no email address so I will try another day. Due to the automatic AI you can end up going in circles. Very frustrating read more

Great company to deal with! They replaced my Moms AC and were clean, professional and made her feel very comfortable with the whole process. They even took the time to repair the ductwork from her furnace install done by another company a few years earlier. I would recommend them to anyone! read more

Terrible company please beware and stay away. Called Francis over the weekend as my furnace was not working - this was a Saturday so fell under an emergency service. The tech arrived and worked on the furnace for no more than 15 minutes. She then informed us she needed to red tag the furnace due to a leak in the secondary heat exchanger. Told us it is 2,500$ to fix or we need a new furnace. Gave us 14 days to complete. The tech did not provide a detailed bill or show us the alleged leak with no further explanation of why it was red tagged. Francis sent a furnace sales person two hours later trying to sell us a 7,500$ furnace. When I asked the sales person about the red tag and why it was placed on the furnace he became aggressive and argumentative. The conversation got heated to the point he needed to leave our home. Two days later we got a second opinion from another company. This person took about an hour and a half to inspect the furnace and found nothing wrong with it. He removed the red tag through Enbridge and stated this was the third red tag he removed this month from Francis. The problem with the furnace was our BBQ was blocking the exhaust pipe outside which was causing the furnace to shut down. Once the BBQ was moved the problem resolved itself. This is obviously a scam they are running trying to scare people into buying a new furnace. Just some advice to stay as far way from his company as possible. They are very very shady. read more

Very professional HVAC and Plumbing company. Technician arrived on time, was very friendly and knowledgeable. Plus he fixed our furnace as promised at a reasonable price. read more

Called - Made An Appointment for Saturday Morning - December 11, 2021 - Between 9 - 10 Am. Never Showed Up - No Phone Call - Nothing. You Try To Support Local Businesses And This How You Get Treated. Don't Waste Your Time or Money - Thanks A lot. read more

I have always been impressed by Francis Plumbing and Heating . Yesterday, I called with a rather unusual question about the cost of service. I told Don that I was asking for a relative who lives in another city. Obviously, this was not a case where Francis would do the work. Don provided a full response to my very unusual request quickly and willingly. More evidence of the great customer service provided by Francis! read more

We had to get our hot water tank replaced recently. Not because there was anything wrong with it (it was still working fine with no leaks) but because it was 13 years old and our home insurance company told us that if we didn't replace it they would no longer insure us for flooding or water damage. We called a few places to get quotes and while Francis Plumbing and Heating was the highest quote, they seemed to us to be the most competent and they had an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau, so we went with them. Overall, we were very satisfied with them. Their technicians are outstanding. The only problem we had was with their business office. I will explain. So after we decided to go ahead with them, they wanted to send a technician to assess the situation in person to ensure that the price quoted would be accurate. This is great practice in my opinion because if there's something strange about my setup and it's going to cost more money I want to know ahead of time. We made the appointment for a Thursday at 2:00pm. Keith, the technician, arrived at our scheduled appointment. Very punctually, might I add (this is rare in the service sector, so I really appreciated it). He said everything checked out and it will be the quoted price. Great! So the following Tuesday morning, someone at the office called me (I wish I had caught their name because this is where the problem happened). She wanted us to schedule the service appointment. We scheduled it for that Friday for 1pm. I thought everything was going along great. Then on Thursday my husband got a call from the office wanting to schedule the service appointment. He told them that we were already scheduled for the next day at 1pm. They informed him that we were not on the schedule for Friday at 1pm. So at this point I was very upset. I had cleared my schedule to be home and available for the appointment time. I called them back to speak with them and they could not find any record of anyone making our original appointment. By that time their Friday schedule was full, so I had to (re)book for the coming Wednesday at noon. So I was happy that the turnaround time was not that long, but I was annoyed at the situation. Anyway, Wednesday noon comes and very punctually the 2 technicians came. One was named Jeff and the other one I think his name was Liam (he was soft spoken and had the cutest (Irish?) accent). They were very nice and did an excellent job. There was a minor glitch, but they handled it well. After they drained the old tank, they went to get the new tank from their van but then realized that the new tank was dented. So they had to take the new tank back to their supplier to get another (undented) tank. This made the whole job about an hour and 40 minutes instead of the estimated hour if everything had gone smoothly. I was completely ok with this because Keith had told me that it would take anywhere between 1-3 hours, so I was prepared. They had to move our washing machine to replace the hot water tank, and after the job they put the washing machine back to where it was. The floor in our laundry room is uneven so we had some pieces of wood under the washing machine to balance it out. The technicians put the pieces of wood back and re-leveled the washer for us when they were done. Talk about excellent service! They explained the hot water tank to me and told me that they had set the temperature to the manufacturer's suggested temperature. They said I could make it hotter if I wanted, but they didn't recommend that I made it cooler because that could cause the bacteria that causes Legionnaire's Disease to grow in the tank. Good to know! We finished up the paper work and then they were on their way. The technicians that I dealt with with this company are top notch! Their service is definitely 5-star material. However, I feel that I can't give the company as a whole a perfect rating due to the mix-up at the office over the service appointment. In the end it wasn't a big deal, but it made the experience not perfect. Nonetheless I would use this company again and I would certainly recommend them to others. read more

Always seems to be a billing problem and huge over-charges. Ended up paying about 400 for an hour of work on top of the hugely inflated price for parts. Very disappointing because they used to be good until their new flat rate scheme. Always an argument with the billing department. A lot of their technicians are new and lack experience. read more

On March 16, 2016 I had a toilet flush valve replaced by D.R. Francis Plumbing and Heating. I didn't enquire how much it would cost when I booked the appointment because this was a simple repair and I have a service agreement with them so assumed it would be reasonable because of this. I had already ordered and received the part from the toilet manufacturer so all that was needed was installation. The toilet is a model requiring removal of the tank to replace the flush valve. The replacement part was shipped with detailed illustrated instructions and even a wrench to unscrew the nut underneath the toilet tank. There are also several YouTube videos online showing how to replace the flush valve on this very same toilet and I watched the video with the plumber when he arrived. It was a straightforward job requiring about a half hour of work for an experienced plumber. Before getting started, the plumber informed me that the cost of the repair would be $184 plus tax. I told him I thought that was high given the fact this was such a straightforward job as evidenced by the instructions and the video but he said that it was a flat rate. Reluctantly, I gave him the go-ahead but only because it is a tax deductible expense for me since this is income property. The work was performed without issues just as shown in the video and the instructions and took about half an hour as expected. I was charged $184 plus tax or $207.92 with tax. Before the plumber left, I asked him how much it would have cost without a service agreement and he said 25% more. That would be $230 plus tax or $259.90 with tax for replacing a toilet flush valve! After the plumber left I contacted Francis Plumbing and Heating. I spoke to Caroline and asked her what the cost of replacing the flush valve was for someone without an agreement. She said that it was $600-$700! I was shocked by that and told her it was unbelievably high. The next day, I contacted six other leading plumbing firms in Ottawa. I asked them to price the same job and indicated that I was supplying the part. The quotes ranged from $120 - $150 plus tax. The other firms were up front about their hourly rate which ranged from $85 - $100 and explained that they charged a minimum of 1.5 hours of labour even for a small repair like this one. Armed with this information, I contacted Francis Plumbing and Heating again to discuss my concerns. I spoke to Ellen Klimo. I told her about the $600-$700 quote I had been given. She said that was a worst case scenario. So I asked her what the regular cost was and she said that it was what I had been charged. Then I pointed out that the plumber had told me I was charged 25% less because of the service agreement so I asked again what the cost was for someone without a service agreement. She refused to tell me. I then asked what the hourly rate was. She wouldn't tell me that either saying they only charged a flat rate. When I suggested that the service agreement might be a gimmick she denied it. I then added that they were not showing much transparency but she denied that as well. Based on my research, Francis Plumbing and Heating is one of the most expensive plumbing firms in Ottawa if not the most expensive. True, they employ only licensed plumbers but the other firms I contacted have licensed plumbers on staff as well. Furthermore, Francis Plumbing and Heating shows a complete lack of transparency in its pricing and dealings with consumers. read more