Ballard Natural Gas Service Inc

Friends had recommended Ballard, so we chose them over another installer who offered much the same price. Excellent salesman who knew his material and was able to explain our choices clearly. Installation went smoothly and pretty much as described. We noticed a few things afterward, and Ballard was there immediately to correct the issue. The duct cleaning was offered as an incentive and carried out afterward without a problem. One issue sort of sticks with me. About a year later, the furnace stopped during the cold snap. Ballard was there immediately to fix it, but the part that failed (a water pump) evidently carries a much shorter warranty than the long term warranty that Ballard offers on the furnace itself. That was news to us. They still fixed the problem under the warranty, but said that the pumps they use could go out at any time and next time it would cost us. Only disappointing element in the transaction. Otherwise the quality and professionalism would have been an "A".

We've used Ballard Natural Gas over the last few years to do annual service our furnace. Early this fall, our furnace stopped working. The technician from Ballard Natural Gas told us that our furnace was close to the end of its life-cyle (maybe 2 years left out of 15) and it was very inefficient. He gave us "good", "better", and "best" choices for next-step service options, each with ballpark estimates. One of the choices was repairing the furnace, about $1.5k We thought about it for a couple days, and opted to purchase a new, efficient furnace (with interest-free financing and a $1.5k tax rebate). Ballard Natural Gas sent a representative over. He measured the rooms to help calculate the size of furnace our house needed. He presented 2 estimate options and explained them thoroughly. A few days after signing the estimate, they removed the old furnace and replaced it with a very efficient Trane furnace. The installation took less than 6 hours. It was working great, until a few weeks later... The new furnace stopped working! The technician that came to check out our new furnace said that he had never seen a Trane furnace behave like that, and he has serviced thousands of them. Ballard Natural Gas had to replace it, and it took a few days to get another one. But in the end, they made good and replaced it. Our furnace has been working great! Way better than the last one. No problems, only warm happiness. The End.

The area was left very clean, all the cables and wires are nicely dressed and the duct connections are well sealed with sharp edges (not that we will look at these much!). Works great. I would recommend Ballard Natural Gas Service without hesitation.

They were very timely. Their salesman spent a lot of time in taking pictures and talking with me about exactly what I needed. They worked very quickly and got the job done very fast. They even checked with me to make sure that I was happy with their work.

The service guy was very professionaland personable, showed up on time, went about his job very efficiently. He offered several suggestions that will be helpful in maintaining our duct system.

Our furnace failed on the first night of the bitterly cold Thaksgiving week. Ballard came by the next day and let us know they could fix the problem (with quote), and that the furnace was past its predicted life and likely to fail another way soon enough. No pressure here, very good about explaining details and answering questions. We opted for a new furnace, and because of vent issues a tankless water heater as well. Explanation: a h/e furnace gives cool moist exhaust through PVC as metal would rust, so couldn't be vented out of the same stack as the tanked water heater, which gives hot exhaust through metal. The PVC would melt. The water heater was also past its predicted life span, so this was a big job, including running a new 1.25 inch gas line through our finished basement. The job was harder than they thought, but no change to quote (as promised) and the technician stayed until 9 PM the first day to ensure we'd have hot water in the house. They aren't a general controactor, so don't do drywall finishing work, we'll get someone else to come by. That said, there was far less drywall removed than I'd expect for the job done. Great service overall, and if/when we decide to put in the compressor we'll go with Ballard again.

Of the four esimates that I received Ballard Natural Gas's was the only one based on an actual Manual J calculation although the system proposal that I received from BNG was for a larger furnace than the MJ suggested based on the reps assessment of required blowers size. Unfortunately Ballard Natural Gas's proposal was also the most expensive of any that I received - 10% higher than another top rated Angies List installer of the same brand equipment also with the manufacturers top certification level.

The service person arrived when he said he would. He worked on the furnace then told us that everything was okey. He also recommended having the ducts cleaned.

They were able to come out the same day, and get the work finished in one trip. I have always had great experiences with BNG, they installed our hot water heater, furnace and all our duct work 5 years ago, and have serviced it ever since. The one time when the company made an error they immediately apologized and corrected it at no charge. To me, this is the essence of great service - many companies can do a good job when things are going right, but when things go wrong (as will inevitably happen on occasion) BNG was able to get the situation turned around right away.

Although the tech was delayed somewhat due to traffic, he came and did a great job. He was very careful to protect my beautiful hard wood floors, and was very well informed about my model of insert. The price was less than another service I have tried (unsuccessfully) to have do the job, so all in all I was very pleased with my experience! I will recommend them in the future.

Been a few months now and all is well. They were on time, efficient and overall great to work with.

It turned-out well. This was the second time that I have used them. When they first came, they offered me a discounted rate if I signed-up for my next tune-up and paid in advance. They called and reminded me several times about scheduling the tune-up. They were persistent in a good way. They did everything they could to help me, since I had already paid for the service. Overall, I would say that their communication is great and they truly tried to accommodate my schedule request.

I was very pleased with their work! I have two smaller dogs and the worker was very helpful in assisting me in keeping them away. I really appreciate the courteous service at a reasonable rate. I will certainly have them out again for future work when necessary.

Their estimate was really high - as in over $800. All we needed was a gas pipe run about 16 feet and connected to a dryer. When I asked what the largest expense was, they replied "the labor". I then had to ask how long this would take, since $800 seems like an awful lot of labor. Their answer was "about an hour". I'm clearly in the wrong business. We ended up going with someone else who charged less that $300 to install our dryer.

The bid was prompt, reasonable, and seemed to cover all of the bases. I was pleased although I didn't go with them for purchase as I wanted a different brand name heater.

This is an update to a service experience we had with Ballard back in September of 2010. They successfully installed a new furnace for us, converted our dryer to gas and converted a fireplace to gas logs. Everything went well, except the gas logs looked really funny inside the fireplace and you could see all the mechanics of the logs. The rep that we worked with even thought it looked awful. They said they would get someone out to take a look at it immediately to see what our options would be to fix it. Regardless, our rep was really adamant that it would get done and done correctly. That is when phone tag started. It took two months to get someone out to take a look. Two men came by (one was the original rep) and I really felt like they were just humoring me. They quickly looked at the offending log set and came up with an option to switch it out with a log set we had in our bedroom. When they left, the rep said he would send over some brochure material that I could look at to see what log set options we had. That was about three months ago. I had already decided by the time they left that I would not be using them again, as their follow up service was so weak and half-hearted. We were luckily having some bathroom work done at the same time, and I was able to use our contractor to set up service through another company. They had someone come in and fix everything and now it looks fabulous. I really felt like once Ballard got my check for $12,000 for the furnace installation, they were done with me. Did not matter that they still had unresolved service issues that was their fault - they were done. There are too many companies out there that are willing to do what it takes to get the job done well and keep their customers happy, and I am always surprised to run across companies like Ballard that still don't get it. Customer Service is the way to keep customers coming back. It's too bad because they put on a good show upfront when they are trying to sell their service. Had they followed through, they would have had more business from us this year as we plan to install a heat pump as well. Just not through Ballard Natural Gas.

The two services were done during two separate visits on the same day. Both technicians were prompt and polite. The services appeared to be complete and I was happy with the work that was done.

The company sent efficient, competent employees who respected our property and limited effectively the dirt and dust from the work they did. The employees arrived on time and were a pleasure to work with.

Scheduling the estimate went smoothly, and the estimator was very professional and friendly. Estimate was even provided (including pictures) on the spot. Price was slightly higher than we were looking to spend ($1300) and estimator admitted that they tend to focus on larger projects (like furnace installations). Would certainly consider using them for a larger project in the future, but for this particular project they just couldn't compete on price. Ended up getting another estimate for about half the cost.

Very disappointing experience. We contacted the company about air duct cleaning and the installation of air conditioning. They seemed highly competent at first. The said that they had a $1000 rebate depending on the equipment we purchased. What we learned (from a family member who had an estimate scheduled before ours) is that the rebate dealt only with furnaces----not air duct cleaning or AC, which were the only two items we requested an estimate for and the only two items we had ever expressed an interest in. When I called the company to inquire about this new information they informed us that the $1000 is indeed only for a new furnace. I reminded them that we never had any interest in a furnace and their offer of the $1000 rebate was why we had been interested them for AC. They were completely unphased by the misleading advertising and merely said that we certainly didn't need to purchase a furnace. I then asked them if the $1000 would apply to the AC and they said no it's just for a new furnace. Their manner of responding to the misleading info was glib and mechanical. We cancelled our scheduled estimate at that point. Both Overlake and Brennan have been much better to deal with and seem to have lower prices.

They do a good job, but they are really expensive.

It's difficult to write this negative report since we had such high hopes for BNGS. They seem like really nice, professional, competent folks; but on this job it seemed like everything that could go wrong did go wrong. There were screw-ups throughout the process, from the bid to the morning after the furnace was installed when we woke-up to no heat. This is long and detailed but hopefully will help someone avoid some of these issues. In their defense BNGS offered to bring in contractors (carpet cleaning, carpentry, pressure washing, etc...) to clean-up the 'oops' and messes. But it sure would hav been nice to not hav these problems happen in the first place. We got bids from two other contractors and found their styles all to be different. Despite them not being the cheapest bid we decided to go with BNGS based on the recommendations of others and the appearance of being a well organized outfit. Problems: - The bid process was fairly extensive with some heat loss analysis process and a lot of talking and planning. After we accepted the bid and signed it the project manager and the sales guy came in to do some final measuring. Shortly after arriving the project manager said the bid was too little and they would hav to raise the price for all of the work that had to be done. After lots of discussion and the common car dealer theatre of, "let me call my manager and see what I can do" they split the difference in the price increase. I honestly don't believe this was a sleazy bait-and-switch situation, but instead an under-experienced sales guy that might hav low-balled the numbers to bring in the business. The final price was still between two other bids that we'd gotten. - when the estimator / sales guy was here he mapped-out how the internal gas pipe would run and planned where the meter would go outside. When the project manager showed-up he redid the layout of the internal gas piping. When the location checker from the gas companies contractor showed-up to verify the location of the meter they said the meter couldn't go in the location and moved the marking sticker. gas piping plan #3 was called for. When the gas companies contractor showed-up to install the meter they claimed the gas meter location had to move once more, but did finally install it. piping plan #4. When the BNGS installed showed-up he had other ideas about how to run the piping and installed according to plan #5. I don't fault BNGS with the goofiness of the gas companies contractor but it doesn't seem like they want to re-a**** their workflow and not decide where anything goes until the meter is in place. Plus their seemed to be no consensus about how to do things between the various BNGS folks. - no tarp or other protection for area where the old oil furnace was staged outside and then loaded into their truck for disposal. Since it's Seattle and December there was a drizzle of rain that washed the 60yo oil and combustion residue out of the furnace and onto our patio and grass. patio had to be pressure washed which only removed some of the sulfurous stain. It seemed preventable by using a tarp or something to protect the area. - the largish (~2.5") hole drilled in the side of the house for the gas pipe to come into the house was initially drilled in the wrong location. In fact it came thru the baseboard on the second floor of the house. Comparing the two holes the first hole was off by a good 6". It seems like the old adage applies, 'measure twice, drill once', and when you're drilling into the side of someone's house in the middle of winter, why not measure three times? They patched the stucco and I painted over the 'mis-directed hole' (their phrase). They offered to pay for a carpenter to come in and fix the internal woodwork. - the floors in the basement and the carpet on the stairs had lots of nasty dirt and oil residue that had to be cleaned-up. I mopped the basement floors a few times and hand-cleaned the carpet on the stairs. BNGS offered to bring in a professional carpet cleaning outfit, but it was easier to deal with it ourselves. - the gas piping was supposed to be inspected by the city. that never happened. the city canceled on them once but they never followed-up with the city. Not sure if we're sitting on some code violation or what here but for now that's just another thing that didn't happen. - Then to cap off the whole experience the morning after the installer finished we woke-up to a furnace that wouldn't run. BNGS had to come back out and re-install the exhaust pipe since it was at the wrong angle and had accumulated too much water overnight. This time it was the boss who was making Saturday morning house calls. He was another really nice guy and he fixed thing quickly. He noticed that there was no furnace filter installed (no big surprise at this point) and installed one. He apologized for the issues, which is something we've heard a lot of from them. On the plus side: - We hav a nice new furnace and heading fuel that we've been happy with since the day after it was installed. - The installation is very tidy and professional. wires are neatly dressed and most of what wasn't previously mentioned was neat and tidy. - did i mention that they're nice people and apologize very sincerely? I wish I didn't know that last part.

The night before we were to leave on vacation I noticed a puddle forming on the garage floor. I found Ballard Natural Gas Service on Angie's List and gave them a call. Geoff Wood was able to come out that morning and evaluate the current tank and talk with me about replacement options. I had been considering a tankless system and Geoff was helpful and knowledgeable and was able to schedule a quick install date. The installer, Roy, showed up on time, was courteous, efficient and cleaned up everything before leaving. Total installation time was about 6 hours. A few days after installation Geoff returned to follow up and make sure I was happy with the unit and the installation. Very happy with the service and people at Ballard Natural Gas Service.

In the late winter, I received three estimates from different companies who installed different makes of gas furnaces and heat pumps. I quickly concluded that a heat pump was too expensive, not only because of the higher installation costs, but also because of the higher maintenance costs. The risk of expensive repairs and frequent breakdowns dissuaded me. The three estimates for the furnace (Trane, York, Rheem) were all in the $5000 range, but BNG offered a higher efficiency furnace, a lower price for the gas lines, and better rebates. Brandon did the initial estimate. In my opinion, he was more careful and took more measurements than the other two estimators (who were also nice guys by the way). After I decided to go with BNG, but before telling them so, Brandon came out again to respond to further questions. He then came out a third time with Jason, the project manager, just before the installation. I was pleased with his responsiveness. Another Jason did the installation a few days later. This Jason was a disciplined and careful worker. He did the entire job himself, starting around 8am and finishing sometime after 9pm. That's right, a 13 hour day. Jason then came out a few days later for the "walk through." The furnace was installed in that part of our residence where an elderly lady lives ( my mother-in-law). Brandon and Jason took special care not to disturb her, always asking before hand, when it was necessary to go into her living rooms. Yes, the noise was sometimes bothersome for her during the 13 hour installation, but they did their best. So far, the furnace works fine, exceeding my expectations. I will add to this post sometime next year, if I have any difficulties.

Polite, prompt, and fully communicative. Followed through on all promises and commitments. Provided paperwork and instructions for receiving rebates and tax credit. Cleaned up well. Ensured my comfort w/ operation of controls. No downside that I can think of.