My wife and I moved into our home about two years ago and inherited a very old hot water heater (12+ years old) and boiler (25+ years old). They were working fine, but they were on their last legs and could go at any time. More importantly, 2 of the 3 upstairs bedrooms were always cold, little heat reached those rooms through the baseboard radiators, and we wanted to see what could be done to get it fixed. This was very important to us since one of those rooms was going to be used as a nursery the following month.
I spoke to Dave on the phone who set up an appointment for the next day to investigate. He assessed the water heater and boiler, letting me know that they were currently working fine, explained how it worked, and that the boiler was missing a safety feature that is now required in newly installed boilers (I think it was something like an expansion tank?). He explained it very well, I could tell he knew what he was talking about. To solve the cold bedrooms riddle, Dave walked around the basement, looking at the exposed pipes and where they were headed. Then he went to the rooms on the first floor, noting the locations of the radiators. Finally he went to the 2nd floor to see where the rooms were and the radiator locations. He found that the rooms were connected just fine, but that they were on the end of a long loop of rooms being heated. The 2 bedrooms were located on the same zone as the entire first floor, and as a result, were not being heated effectively. In addition, the thermostat was on the first floor, meaning once the desired temperature was reached on the first floor, the system shut down, leaving the 2nd floor in the cold. To fix, he recommended adding a third zone by reconnecting the 2nd floor pipes in the basement directly to the boiler and connecting a new 2nd floor thermostat to the boiler so that it would continue working until the 2nd floor rooms were warm.
It should be pointed out that the original intent of my service call was not to get a new boiler, but to fix the heating problem on my 2nd floor. The 3rd zone solution complicated things with my older boiler, which would have had to be retrofitted with a bigger opening to accommodate the 3 zones. Dave advised that rather than spending money on those enhancements, which would go to waste if and when my boiler dies, that I may have wanted to consider getting a new boiler.
My wife and I agreed to the work and we scheduled an appointment a few weeks later to get the work completed. On Day 1, they replaced the water heater and did some work on the 2nd floor piping in the basement. On Day 2, they replaced the boiler and connected all 3 zones, including the new 3rd zone. The crew was excellent, putting down drop cloths around the house where they were walking around to drain the radiators and cleaning up behind them. When the work was completed, Dave walked me around and showed me what they did and gave me a tutorial of how the new thermostat worked. Everything worked perfectly and the upstairs bedrooms are now nice and warm!
Dave came back a few days later and dropped off the invoice, warranty, and completed rebate details (all I had to do was fill in my address and mail it out). He also asked how things were going and answered some questions for me, including how I could adjust temperatures in the room using the radiators.
All in all, I think I got my money's worth and would recommend Dawson to my friends and family for any heating work.