Northeast Plumbing & Heating

It was a disaster. I went to have a heating zone put into my basement and three different plumbers told me the system was installed wrong. They didn't even follow the schematic that came with the boiler. One plumber took photographs, sent them to the manufacturer and even spoke to the chief engineer who confirmed they screwed it up. Small claims court is in my future.

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They're terrible. They did a hurried job and cut a lot of corners. The insulation was not well executed. I consulted a plumber afterward and found out things they did weren't correct. They didn't put up shut off valves where they should have. They put the handle of a pressure release valve around the corner, because they didn't want to make extra room for it. They installed a meter upside down because of the space issue, as well. It didn't function correctly. They didn't consult us on where they were going to vent the heater. It vents water, steam and hot air. They did it right underneath our kitchen window, which is our most heavily used window for looking out. Whenever the furnace is on, you have cloud and smoke coming up in front of your face. The consultants we hired called them and told them we had a problem with it and asked them to run a pipe to the other side of the house and vent it out there. They refused to respond to phone calls. When they did finally speak to them, they were extraordinarily dismissive and refused to do anything to help. They were awful. I would not recommend them or use them again.

Northeast Plumbing and Heating was hired by my upstairs neighbor to install a furnace in my two-unit condo building. When doing so, they ran piping through my section of the building and installed a vent directly underneath my kitchen window without consulting me. Because the vent was installed directly under the window, steam bellows up and obscures our view, the water condenses and ices over, and it's generally unpleasant. I called the company to ask if the vent could be redirected and I was put in touch with Joyce MacKinnon, the owner of record. Her response to my concern about the vent was dismissive but she promised to send someone out to resolve the issue. She never did so I called back and spoke with her a second time. Frustrated with her indifference, I pointed out that her company had performed work on my property, run vents across my section of the basement and vented the furnace through my wall without consulting me. To that, she literally laughed and indicated that she didn't’t need my permission. She did, however, promise a second time to send someone out to look at the installation and see if the steam could be redirected. She never did. From that point on, Joyce refused to return my phone calls. Whenever I called, whoever answered the phone would tell me that Joyce was the only person who could help me with this issue…but that Joyce wasn't’t available. Over a period of 6 months, I periodically followed up with her to no avail. The other issue I face is that the quality of work was substandard according to a professional who inspected it. They cut corners during the installation and those shortcuts have already cost me over $500 to fix. They will likely cost much more down the road (details below). In the early summer of 2009 (within 6 months of installation) the furnace sprung a very small and slow leak. Joyce was contacted with a request to service the leak since the unit was still under warranty. She never responded. In September of 2009 I purchased the upstairs unit from our neighbor, thereby assuming ownership of the furnace. I called Joyce again to request that they fix the leak since the furnace was still under warranty. She avoided my calls for about two months and then finally had a member of her staff respond to me. One of her staff came out and fixed the leak but was told not to discuss the other issues related to the installation. Her employee was speaking to her via cell phone - right in front of me - but she refused to talk to me or answer any questions about the original installation. At the beginning of this winter - not long after the leak was fixed but still within the 1st year of installation - we began noticing puddles of water in the basement. After some investigation, we found that the water was coming from the furnace and called a reliable plumber (a professional we've known for about 20 years). He took one look at the furnace and immediately diagnosed a series of issues: 1. The furnace has a seal that is rated at 60lbs of pressure but we had 90lbs coming into the house, which was causing it to blow out and dump a gallon or two of water each day onto the basement floor 2. A unit attached to the furnace was installed upside down because of a space restriction - evidently, that will likely lead to premature failure of the unit 3. Instead of installing a longer section of pipe (about 9 inches instead of 6 inches), the workman bent a cutoff valve in a u-shape (this was also the reason he installed the unit upside-down) 4. No cutoff valves were installed on the back-end of the furnace so the entire house will have to be drained of water in order to conduct future repairs and maintenance (i.e. if the unit they installed upside down fails, instead of shutting off a valve to replace it, a plumber will have to drain the entire system, which is why it makes more sense to take our chances and hope the unit doesn't’t fail rather than fix it now). 5. In addition to these blatant issues, the general quality of work was substandard - for example, joints were not sealed well, which is why it sprung a leak within 6 months of installation Although the furnace is still under warranty, I can't get a response from Joyce – she doesn't’t pick up the phone and she won’t return a call. I mentioned to our plumber that Northeast Plumbing and Heating did the work and he rolled his eyes and said that he'd been cleaning up after them for years. He knows the company, is familiar with their work and has seen this situation play out many times over his nearly three decades in the area. His advice was to cut our losses. My purpose for posting this is that I want other consumers to be aware of the problems I've had with Northeast Plumbing and Heating. At this point, I don't expect that the company will do anything for me, let alone return a phone call. I have to say that Joyce MacKinnon has been one of the most frustrating and dishonest vendors that I have ever dealt with in both my personal and professional life – my blood boils every time I think about it – and I hope that my experience will help others steer clear of problems with them. Photos: Upside-down unit