Reliance Home Comfort
reviews and complaints

This reliance home comfort company is garbage. Last september my furnace broke down so I had to get somebody to fix it immidiately. I googled and found reliance, called them and they sent a technician and fixed it. The bill came a whopping $245. Anyways, the technician asked me if I needed protection plans for my furnace as it is 21 years old. I told him clearly no and that I will have to wait for my family to come back from vacation to decide further. I had only signed off the receipt for the repair order. The technician told me he will ask them to send me catalogues of the protection plans and I agreed. However, I had not received any catalogues but bill! Bills come months after months charging me $9.96 per month for their protection plan which I had declined. Their robot lady calls me every month, I had written a notice to their head office and told them that I do not have an account with them. Do not choose reliance home comfort they are a pain.

I bought a home an inherited an 8 year old water heater which is now 15 years old and which was provided through rental by reliance. Lately i'm having myriad hot water supply issues so I figured i'd call them. Twice teams came out and both told me that water tanks might last at least 20 years, and certain 15. I suggested i'm at the normal end of life and the next thing up is failure, but they stated they won't replace it just because it is old, but if it fails, the replacement is free. However, the thousands in repair costs associated with it flooding the basement are up to me I guess.

Finally after taking the plumbing apart myself and finding that the tank is eroding and filling my lines with plastic do they give in and decide to replace my tank for me. However, this was only after one of the most painful conversations i've had with a service rep who questioned my ability to plumb, my household water needs and generally tried to pressure me into staying the course with a rental - i'd suggested i'd like to know the costs around terminating our relationship.

Service was scheduled today for 1-5pm so I stayed home from work. By 4:00pm no one has shown up or called. I call them and they say "sure, guy is on the way momentarily - apparently they reached out to the contractor they'd subbed to directly". No calls. I call at 5:00pm and get the exact same story. 6pm I call and they tell me my issue is escalated to planning and they will call. No calls. 7pm I call and get the escalation / planning story again. 8pm I call and am told they can't reach my contractor for the last 3 hours. I suggest that i'm paying reliance, not some 3rd party guy and that they might consider calling someone else?

At no point does anyone at reliance ever call me back. It hurts me deeply to continue to give them business but at the moment they are my closest path to getting their water heater out before it destroys my shower with its spewing of plastic bits (Assuming something like the dip tube has disintegrated).

I'll never give these guys my business and as soon as I can swing it, i'll pay them their 200 bucks disconnect happily and send them on their way

We moved to Ontario from another province in August of 2014. We decided to replace the home's entire HVAC system and while we are at it decided to replace the existing hot water tank - a rental from Reliance Home Comfort - with a tankless water heater from another company within a week of moving in. We obtained the necessary removal authorizations and the equipment was returned and signed for by Reliance on August 19th. For two months we received bills for the equipment but finally managed to get a credit. Then out of the blue we started receiving bills for the equipment again. We tried calling and e-mailing Reliance and were told someone would call back which they never did. When we tried to keep following up, they simply hung up on us and refused to deal with our complaint. We have filed a complaint with the BBB and with the Ministry of Consumer Services. We will be hiring a lawyer to write them a demand letter. This company is a real piece of work; deal with them at your own risk.

Purchased a home which had a Reliance Home Comfort water tank.
Our lawyer's office contacted each of the local utilities to obtain closing details and transfer name of such utilities.
All such documents were provided in our closing documents from Lawyer's office, who knew you'd ever look at them..
We the decided 1 year later to switch providers to Direct Energy (ANOTHER NIGHTMARE) and get a new hot water tank. So we called Reliance Home Comfort to get cancellation number and get o/s balance for month's fee.
They stated we had a automatic contact when taking over the house from the Estate sale and there would be $918.00 to cancel such contract. . We went back and forth with many calls to them, customer care department, supervisor's etc. and finally got rid of them and the contract fees which we never had in the first place.
DIRECT ENERGY is not any better...finally got rid of them also after 4 months of hassle and headache..

I bought my home in february of last year and moved in in may. The water heater was a home reliance rental which I took over. The house was built in 1910, so it has an old chimney which now contains the vent pipe for both my gas furnace (Owned) and my gas water heater (Rental). Because the house is old, there is a small access door in my basement wall that was once used for cleaning out the chimney. It was patched over with concrete but there was evidence that a very small amount of water was seeping down the wall during freeze-thaw cycles from just below this door. Unfinished basement, only caused a damp spot on the floor, not a problem. This monday january 6, I went to take a shower and there was no hot water. I checked the water heater and the pilot light had gone out. I tried to restart it and it would light but not stay lit. Called home reliance and they had a technician come out the next day. To make a long story longer, he spotted the moisture and cracked plaster under the vent and decided that my chimney was "deteriorating from the inside and outside, chimney liner has water in it, chimney must be repaired" and he shut off the gas to my water heater. Then he shut off the gas to my furnace and proceeded to tell me that I could die in the night from from co poisoning if my chimney collapsed and blocked the vent. He made a violation report to union gas so I couldn't turn the gas back on until the problem was repaired. Outside temperature - 20 with windchill - 35 to - 40. Record breaking cold. Then he called a mason friend of his (Even though he's not supposed to refer people as he said) and conveniently that guy couldn't come out that day because of the cold, but he could tell me it would be about $2000 to fix the chimney... Or... I could rent a furnace from rhc and get free installation and they would vent it directly outside and I could leave the chimney alone. Oh and upgrade my water heater too. He didn't even check the water heater to see if there was a problem with the thermocouple or gas valve. So I called two masons, who came right away and both agreed that my chimney was sound, one of them even pulled off the clean out door and chipped away some plaster in the area to confirm there was no standing water (Or ice) and the vent pipe itself was stable and intact and venting correctly. One of them called rhc to try to talk to the technician who had turned off the gas and get my gas turned turned on at least to the furnace. The other just turned the furnace back on, as I called union gas directly and they said he could do so if he found it to be safe. Here's what he wrote on the gas violation form "the pipe is not in a compromised state. The structure around it is solid. There is no need to turn a furnace off on the coldest day of the year by the ###s at reliance". Needless to say I don't appreciate the attempt to blackmail me into renting a furnace. I'll be giving them back their water heater and buying my own.

I just found out there was a lien placed on the house for a ac that we rented?. Anybody have this problem before, if so I can't believe this is legal has anyone everyone consulted legal on this?. All of this after were misled into renting when we thought we were purchasing. This is by far the shadiest company I have ever dealt with.

Told them the remove their tank more than once. One option they did offer was to buy the 12 year old the tank which was full of settlement for $240 which probably cost more to heat than the monthly rental fee. As far as I am concerned they did not cooperate. I got hung up on during one phone call and have played phone tag with them since. They finally have agreed to pick up their tank so I am now billing them storage fees for the days from when they were notified that it was outside my house to the day they picked it up as they failed to make arrangements with me when I attempted to make arrangements with them.

I myself rented with reliance. I had a water tank with them. It was very old but they said it was ok. I came home to a fully flooded basement do to my water heater. They said there were not responsible for any water damage and to call my insurance company. I had to pay my deductable which in my case was 1000. 00. Now they put in another tank than billed me for pipping upgrades. As well as they jacked up my monthly up and said thats there cost on the new tank. That was fine but than they keep jacking the rate. I also had a home confort plan that i was unaware of on my furnice and air conditioner. I tryed to cancel it because my furnice brock down and it cost me 1000. To fix it. There head office said when they were here for the tank they put me on the home comfort plan because my ac and furnace were old. Finaly another company comes along telling me there an american investment group. Finally it all made sence. So i switched to a canadaian company. I put in a brand new water heater, furnace and air conditioner. Altogether i was gived over 1000. 00 in rebrats and my gas billes drop down to less than 1 / 3 of what it was last year and this year has been colder. I would have switched to this company years ago but reliance scard me saying nothing but bad things about them. Now i know they were just protecting there investment and there wasn't a word of truth to what they said.

my furnace went out and i had reliance come in to do the installation of a new ac and furnace. Salesman told me he would keep me updated during the course of the installation as i was at work. he did not. i get home at night and go downstairs to see the "completed" work and as i step into my basement ITS FLOODED!...immediately call the reliance salesman to find out whats going on...he tells me to call my insurance company and they will take care of it...call reliance to complain...the call centre tells me the same thing...send an email to the salesman he gets back to me two days later with a solution that he says will take a week because they are waiting for a part...eventually after a week of the flooding having happened its finally fixed and dried and checked for damage and he gave me a 9 month credit on my account. or so i thought...first bill comes with a full charge...called the call centre and the lady tells me there is no such credit applied on my account so i will have to pay the entire bill and speak to the salesman...and that "maybe" next month the credit will be there but i have to pay now!...the service with these people are terrible and they are not true to there word or promises...the salesguy makes his sale and even though the work is not done properly u can never get a hold of him and the call centre is of no use...and the people there cannot speak english well so they cannot even understand what you're saying...i would recommend not going with this company...

86 year old father-in-law with no heat and 16 degrees f outside. Has reliance service plan. May be able to come tomorrow to fix. Then, said she didn't like my attitude and so it will take an extra day. My attitude was because we had no heat, alarms going off in house and an elderly person. Didn't care, it didn't fit her script or their policy. Thanks union gas for coming to the house to make sure it was safe until reliance decides to dispatch somebody. Our fault... Should have bought local!

I recently changed my hot water tank rental from Reliance to National because National offered a better more efficient tank at lower rental cost. I had National return the tank to Reliance it had a few scratches from when Reliance put the tank in. Low and behold Reliance is trying to charge me $1, 400 for the tank claiming I damaged it. They sent me photos the tank has reddish brown paint splattered all over it. It was white when it was removed from my home. A 3 year old tank that at best is worth $500 is called scrap by Reliance. How the paint got on there is a mystery. I know National and I did not get paint on it. I truly believe the Reliance employee splattered paint all over it to charge me an exorbitant buy out fee. Very convent for them. I have read about other customers being shafted by Reliance. Please send me any experiences you have had with Reliance. I am taking them to small claims court for fraud and slander. On the return form they put down customer got paint on tank. DO NOT DEAL WITH RELIANCE!
they are a crooked company that cannot be trusted. They have upped the cost of the water heater each year until I was paying $30 a month. Now they wish to try to get more money by crooked, malicious, false, slanderous claims. Everyone beware of Reliance. They will overcharge you and when you try to leave they will claim you damaged the tank. Would have been better to buy my own tank than deal with Reliance.

I have been through a nightmare with reliance h.com. I bought a mobile home and on the final bill of sale it said nothing about a furnace rental. I tried several times to contact different outfits to see who owns this furnace and even reliance said they knew nothing about it or have no record of address. Months later a bill came to this address charging me for an outstanding account. I told them I will not pay it because it is not mine. I told them they have to question the previous owners. I was told to disregard this notice and everything was fine. A few months later another bill came for more money. I called and questioned this and the people I spoke to didn't know what was going on either. So we decided to start a new account and I told them on the condition that they change the furnace. The one I had is 24 years old and didn't work and they know it. So instead of trying to help me out they just said they do not install mobile home furnaces anymore but you still have to pay this bill. I asked for what, a piece of crap that does not work.? I offered to pay three months plus a buy out price and they refuse to let me do this too. I have tried for months to do the right thing and they have there blinders on and refuse to do nothing but send out these stupid bills every month with late charges on it. I keep telling them I am not paying this until they get there act together. Would anyone out there in ther right mind pay for anything every month that did not work. They threaten me with the credit bureau but yet they are not competent enough to run there business in a proper manner.Everytime I try to come up with a solution they refuse to answer my e-mails, letters no return on phone calls and also faxes. It is like dealing with ###s that are not capable of doing anything else but read the same story off a piece of paper and send out the same bill. They do not get the message. Any body else haveing trouble with these yahoos get in touch with BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU. I amm.

In August 2011 Reliance Home Comfort had a proposition of providing service for both my home furnace and airconditioner for a monthly fee. Two months free coverage but no service during that period. After the two month waiting period was up I telephoned for service three days in a row and was asked to enter a 16 digit account number (?) I waited each time for over an hour and never received a response. Since I was leaving the country for five months I called in a proper furnace company to service and clean both my furnace and air conditioner.
If the 16 digit number represented to Reliance an agreement as far as I was concerned they were in default of the agreement. Since then I have received monthly requests for payment, threatening letters and unpleasant calls from collection agencies. I did at one point call their call centre in India and was told that they could not cancel the agreement until I settled the account. This is clealy a scam and I have no intention of paying but am curious to see how long the harassment will continue.

I have rental hot water tank with Reliance. recently no hot water so they did the services, service charge should be free because of the rental agreement.but what they did was put other charge like replacement charge which is not covered by rental agreement. beaver of big rip off.

Very bad experience with reliance home comfort. I was leasing hot water tank for my old house. I sold my house and before moving out I called reliance and provided my lawyers contact info. Reliance faxed the assignment of lease document to my lawyer. My lawyer then faxed the same document back to buyers lawyer. All this was done before the closing date oct 31 2011. Couple of months back we found that reliance is still collecting money from my account. We then contacted customer care and they said they will look into this and they will make sure no more money will be taken from my account and I would receive a mail in 2 weeks regarding the over payment amount. They have stopped collecting rental charge for old house since april. I still have not received the over payment money. When I contacted the customer care again couple of days back, they said the old account is not closed yet. They asked for new owners name and once I gave them they said they will now close and refund my money that was collected since january's 2012 and not from 2011 november. Why? This means reliance for no reason is penalising me and collecting 2 months payment (November and december 2011). Why should I be penalised? Again it is almost 2 months since I noticed this and I have not received anything back. Every time I call customer care, I have to start explaining from beginning and each time I get different answer.

The rental water that was 20 years old that i returned and was charged a "Damage Fee' - the Reliance Customer Service Rep explained that the unit might be refurrbished. Imagine that Reliance might take this 20 year old heater and re-rent it. Good luck to the next renter of this water heater! Imagine any company admitting that they might refurbish such an old unit or at the very worse using this as a reason to soak me for an extra $110 dollars after being with thyem for 23 years!
There is no shame at Reliance Home Heating!

I decided to return the 20 year old watwer heater that I have been renting. Since the unit was well past it's expected life of 12 years, I felt it was an appropriate time to buy my own water heater. I obtained a return authorization # and follwing the return of the 20 year water heatrer to the Reliance depot I received a bioll in the mail for $111.00 for damage to the water heater. I called the customer service dept and and I asked them if this unit would be scrapped given the age. They confirmed it would be. Then I asked why I was being charged a damage fee in this circumstances. Basically their reply was - because we can! After 23 years of being a Reliance customer and paying over $3, 200 in rent for a $600 water heater - they kick my butt going out the door. Never again.

I have set up automatic payment for my reliance home comfort bill. Each month i receive my bill online and a couple of days later a short note to confirm that a recurring payment has been scheduled.

The second paragraph then reads "to avoid any late fees, please arrange for another payment immediately. If you've already made a payment arrange please disregard this message. "

Each month i contact them to remind them that it is an automatic payment, therefore, payment arrangements have been made and their form email needs to be changed. Then i am told it is a long process to change their form and it requires various approvals. I am sorry, but considering the current email form that they use, i have a hard time believing that it actually received various approvals. I find the current form an embarrassment to the organization and am surprised that they continue to email it out.

As far as I am concerned Reliance is a huge rip off. They make it difficult to buy out their products (which are, by the way, extremely overpriced). I recently purchased a home, in which there was a pre-existing Reliance hot water tank rental (it was NOT disclosed as a rental in the home purchase). We received a letter from reliance welcoming us to their product, along with a $40 "account change fee" (basically $40 to change the name and phone number on the account). My husband and I sat down to calculate the cost of continuing to rent compared to owning. Because my husband is in the water/heating business, repairs/install would be negligible for us - so we don't need Reliance's services. The cost of renting the tank from Reliance is $320/year; for us to buy and install the exact same model/year tank on our own would be $800-$1000 dollars once (tax included). I called Reliance asking how much it would cost to simply buy the tank they had installed: I called once, was promised I'd get a call back from their rental sales department, which I didn't. I called again 2 weeks later, was asked all kinds of personal questions (like where I worked, what my husband did...not relevant to the conversation - and I told them so). After being put through the high pressure sales ringer for 20 minutes by two different sales people they FINALLY quoted me $1, 310 (plus tax) to just purchase their tank (way too much). I said no thank you, I would like to get rid of their tank because, for us at least, getting our own would be cheaper (I mean, who doesn't want to save money?). They then stated that since the tank was installed less than a year ago, I was stuck with it until the one year is up (all new products are locked into a building for one year - even though we didn't sign (or even see) the rental agreement, the previous owner never mentioned it). So, I got railroaded into renting this tank for the remainder of the year. Reliance uses high pressure sales tactics, are blatantly (and inexplicably) rude, they do not directly answer valid questions (that may, heaven forbid, put into question their practices/products), and they have an overpriced product. Here's the other catch...if you want their product out of your home, they will NOT come and uninstall it, you have to arrange for that. I cannot wait until this is over and I don't ever have to hear from these people ever again. I have never felt so beat up after a phone call.

I took over ownership of my condo in 2008. The MLS sheet said the hot water tank was a rental, but also said it was gas -- no gas in the building. No information was available about who owned the tank and the only information on the tank was for a company no longer in business. I reasonably assumed it must have been purchased, but the info wasn't transferred accurately to MLS. Ten months later, when the tank started leaking, I had to replace it. Reliance wouldn't come as I had no account with them. Another company came to replace it. Six months later, I started receiving bills from Reliance but with no name. I sent them back, and finally called them to say they were sending bills to the wrong place. The guy on their account moved in 2002, but paid bills until 2009! They sent my phone number to collections right away. Now, three years later, they want me to pay the bill.