I originally contract AtlasCare to clean the air ducts in my house. The guys who came (sorry - I'm terrible at remembering names!) were professional, incredibly neat and tidy and left every area they touched cleaner than when they arrived. Incidentally, as expected, a recent reno had left a ton of debris in the ducts.
I also got them to do a regular service checkup on my furnace which was about 17 years old, and they found and showed me that the heat exchanger was cracked. After getting a quote for a repair, I asked for a quote for a new furnace and they scheduled a very prompt appointment with Nickeel who went over the heat loss/gain calculations for my house with me and discussed my options quite thoroughly. He was polite and professional, and was very honest about the fact that AtlasCare wouldn't be the absolute cheapest option I could find (nor the most expensive) but that they'd provide a level of service that I'd be unlikely to find elsewhere. I'd already experienced a tremendous level of professionalism and care from both the duct cleaning crew and the furnace service crew, and now with Nickeel himself, so this claim seemed not unreasonable. In the end, replacing the old mid-efficiency furnace with a new high-efficiency model turned out to be about twice the price of the repair, and I had already expected to have to replace the furnace within a few years, so it seemed a waste to pay for the repair. While they were already here, I got them to install a new AC system (saved a bit by doing both at the same time, and it was already in my plans for the Spring, anyway).
During the furnace install, they were supposed to add an insulating insert to my chimney (used by the old furnace and hot water tank, but not by the new furnace) to ensure that the hot water tank's exhaust gasses would properly vent rather than cooling partway up and coming back into the house. Unfortunately, in the process they found some issues with the chimney and my choice became to call in a mason to fix the chimney or to just replace the also aging hot water tank. I'll admit that for half a second it seemed like a sneaky sales ploy, but they actually didn't try to sell me anything - they just said my easiest solution would be to call DirectEnergy, from whom I rented the hot water tank, and get them to install a different model of tank which would (like the new furnace) not use the chimney at all.
My neighbour showed up at some point during the furnace install to express some concerns about the direct venting, and rather than call me in to deal with her, the AtlasCare team went over her concerns and came up with a compromise that worked for her and didn't impact on me at all. I only found out about it after the install was done and they explained everything that had been done!
The furnace room was left significantly cleaner and tidier than it had been before the new furnace was installed - the only evidence that I had had any work done (other than a different furnace, obviously) was a tiny bit of brick dust outside the house where they had installed the new venting pipes. The team seemed to work very well together, were very polite and professional - essentially, exactly what I consider excellent service, totally supporting Nickeel's claim.
Regarding the hot water tank, long story short, DE was absurdly unpleasant to deal with and, while willing to rent me a different model of tank, wanted to charge me all kinds of extras for the install and also demanded I tear down a wall before they'd do anything. I called back AtlasCare to see if they offer water tanks and if they'd also need me to tear down walls - no huge surprise here, they do and they certainly didn't expect me to remodel just to swap out a hot water tank.
AtlasCare sent out another team within 2 days to replace the hot water tank, did the install, made sure I was comfortable with everything they had done and were on their way. Again everything was done cleanly, politely and professionally. Once again, the neighbour had showed up, expressed some concerns and the team resolved them to everyone's satisfaction without involving me - when they explained what they had done (above and beyond the requirements of code) to satisfy my neighbour, I had said "Oh, ok, no problem - how much do I owe you for the extra work?" and the surprising answer was "Nothing. Don't worry about it. You'll enjoy living here more if your neighbours are also happy, and it was no problem for us." That left me stunned and delighted.
Could I have had all the work done for less? Probably. Would I have been as happy, felt as pampered, or been left with as high a degree of respect for the company? Based on what I hear from friends about their HVAC contractors and based on my dealings with DirectEnergy - almost certainly not. The whole team over there that I dealt with, including Nickeel, Nick, Gary, and a bunch of others who I'm embarrassed to say I've forgotten the names of (sorry!) were fantastic and I can't recommend them highly enough.
