To be clear - I intended to post this review as soon Tri-County Residential Contractors had…read morefinished their work here - my apologies to John for taking so long!
In the aftermath of the unexpected passing of my sister, who had completely withdrawn from the world - from me, as her only surviving family member, from her neighbors, and friends - I was suddenly presented with the opportunity to move into my family home in Upper Gwynedd Twp. early in 2024.
I had moved away in 1986 to get married, have kids, and then moved to New England with my then wife, who had originally come from Rhode Island, and still had family there.
For reasons that we will never fully understand, in the years after my mom had had a debilitating stroke, and had to be in an assisted living home, my sister had allowed this magnificent home to fall into a complete state of disrepair. When the furnace stopped working a couple years earlier, and with a basement fuel oil tank that needed to be replaced, she chose to rely on the two fireplaces for warmth, only, never repaired the furnace, and lived without hot water for the last two or three years of her life here.
As one might expect, that led to issues in the home that needed immediate attention upon my arrival in March. I went onto the popular "List" website to find an HVAC contractor to come in and repair a leaking pipe in a hot water baseboard heater and to get the furnace started (at this point, I still wasn't aware that the fuel oil tank was no longer approved to hold fuel oil).
Two or three different contractors quickly responded to my request on the "List" website, and although I was entirely naïve as to what steps to take next, I had learned from other experiences in my life that it's always a good idea to look for independent reviews of various services, products, and contractors prior to moving forward with a purchase, or a contract.
Sure enough, the two or three contractors who had jumped on my request through Angi only had so-so reviews, at best. I wasn't impressed by any of them, but in searching for reviews on them, I kept seeing very positive reviews for Tri-County Residential Contractors right here in town.
I reached out to Tri-County and spoke to John Brady, who set up a time to come over and get the restoration started. A couple days later, he stopped by and welded the leaking copper pipe for the heat in the sunroom out back, then advised me on a couple of steps to take next, before moving ahead with trying to get the furnace fired up.
When I certain there were no more leaking baseboards - I chose to isolate one bedroom for the short term, as a cast iron baseboard there was leaking and my preference was to try to replace that baseboard, rather than installing the slant / fin / tube baseboard that John was ready to move on, had I wanted to go in that direction - John came over to take a look at and work on the oil-fired New Yorker tankless hot water furnace, which had not been fired up in several years.
Because he knew that I was not sitting on a lot of cash, as I was in the process of settling both my mom's and my sister's estates at that point, he tested the furnace, including the relay and the zone valves, and was kind enough to give me the results. He guided me as to exactly what he wanted me to buy - I went onto eBay to get what I needed, with the relay having been discontinued by Honeywell in 2012, but I found a new one there - and what I needed to do to install the parts.
I was able to make those repairs myself. I went to fill my fuel oil tank and spoke to the big indoor / outdoor company in Souderton. When they told me they would not fill my existing 60-year-old tank, John gave me the name of one of his vendor friends, who wound up installing the new tank and saving me hundreds of dollars versus what the Souderton firm had quoted.
John came back and was able to fire up the furnace, and it's been running dependably ever since!
I can't recommend Tri-County Residential Contractors highly enough to accurately reflect John's service, pricing, professionalism, quality of work, follow-up, support, and reliability.
Hoping I can stay here - there is still a lot of work to do to bring the house back to its original glory - and I won't ever call anyone else. In fact, next summer, we have to get the central AC running. I'm probably going to need a new unit, and it will be John who will do that work for me.
Sincere thanks to you, John!
