This is a warning for anyone who has a Peak Saver thermostat installed in their home and has warrenty coverage with Reliance Home Comfort. Reliance will not cover repairs to your furnace.

On March 26 2010 my furnace broke down and I called Reliance to repair my furnace. Their representative came in and after his inspection said to call Peak Saver because their thermostat was broken.Because it was a cold day he shoed me how to hotwire the furnace if I wanted heat. I chose to grab a couple of sweaters instead. A contactor from Peak Saver came in and reset the thermostat. It was not broken as Reliance said. The problem was caused by a bad belt which caused the thermostat to go into lockout position.

While Peak Savers was over a call was placed to Reliance to see if it was ok to go ahead with doing the belt work. Mike Travers the technical rep disconnected from the call and I went ahead with the work.The bill came to $205.80 . After spending extra time and money faxing and photo - copying the various paperwork Reliance decided not to pay the bill because as Mike Travers said Peak Savers thermostats are a pain in the ass and we don't like working on them. They offered me 3 months of free warrenty to cover cost of belt which is an insult because it didn't cover labour to install belt and their warrenty is useless.

I decided to go higher and file a complaint with Reliance.I sent an email to supervisor of customer relations.( She never returns my phone calls.)Here is her email reply.

Dear Mr. Krupa,

have thoroughly reviewed your situation below with the Service Manager. The Comfort Protection Plan you have does cover thermostats; however in your case, you have had a 3rd party, namely Peak Saver, modify your thermostat. This is a program offered by the local utility company. We are not able to work on these types of thermostats. The only options available would be to have Peak Saver come and fix it or replace the thermostat with a regular one. If the latter option was chosen, you would have been out of the Peak Saver program and lose out on future rebates for being part of this. Therefore, unfortunately Reliance will not be able to assist with the costs you incurred for utilizing the Peak Saver contractor to fix the issue with the thermostat.

If you have any other question or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me directly.

Sincerely,
Kim

Kimberly Allen
Supervisor, Customer Relations
Reliance Home Comfort
[email protected]


Peak Saver program is being pushed by Utility companies everywhere and Reliace doesn't want to spend the money to train their employees on a program meant to save consumers money and help prevent future brownouts by peaksaver is an innovative program designed to help you reduce the demands on the electricity system. During peak electricity demand times, typically on hot summer days, a signal will be sent to reduce the electricity demand of your central air conditioning system, which in turn helps to reduce the amount of electricity needed by the Province. You won't even notice a difference, and you're doing your part to conserve without incurring time, effort or cost!

I spoke to the contractor from Peak Savers and he said they are not dificult to fix.Reliance just chooses not to spend money to train their people.And why should they when from reviewing the complaints board if a knowledgible and competent third party has to come in to fix a problem that Reliance didn't know how to they won't pay.
When I signed up for Reliance warrenty I was told everything was covered.First time I have to use their service they make up excuses not to pay. Its like the Michael Moore movie Sicko. They like collecting your premiums but when it comes time to pay they find reasons not to.

Here is a company that doesn't care at all for its customers. We pay and pay for water heater rentals and service. Then when you actually need service they CHARGE you again.
Our two year old had unknowingly turned off our water heater so we end up calling reliance. They charged us $90 just to turn it back on saying that it wasn't covered by the years of payments and they were quite rude about it. This is ridiculous.

I have just moved to Ontario and have been exposed to the scam of the hot water heater rental business. On arriving I received an invoice for $35 from Reliance Home Comfort to set up an account (what other business charges you to open an account with them?). I have also been informed that my quarterly rental charges for a hot water heater are $38/qtr - this for a hot water heater that is more than 12 years old. If I want to get rid of their heater and buy my own, they want to charge me $200 to close my account, and $125 to remove it from my premises.
How can anyone get away with this kind of criminal behaviour?

It's Saturday morning. I'm sitting in a freezing cold house as my furnace stopped working last night around eleven o'clock. I pay more than fifty dollars a month to rent the furnace and have free service and repair with that payment.
After being on hold for twenty minutes just to reach a representative, I was told that the earliest they could come was Monday between eight and noon. Obviously this is unacceptable. They told me they would contact their 'dispatch' department and try to have our call bumped up and someone would call me back that night. Hours and hours go by...no call. I call back, just to be told the same thing. They're reading from a script and are obviously not allowed to deviate from what they are told to say. I asked to speak to a supervisor, and was told there isn't one there. They put me through to a 'lead hand' who read from the same script and wasn't at all helpful. He also told me someone would call back. Nobody did. My husband called this morning and was told someone would call back. Nothing.
I just got off the phone with them again. I waited a half hour just to speak to someone, and was told the same story.
I'm being told to sit in a house with no heat and wait for a call from someone in the service department who is going to tell me that they might be available before Monday.

I understand that they are busy, but what am I paying all this money for? Apparently so I can freeze my ass off. We will be looking into another company after this...