AquaSystems of Houston

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Smoothly and fast.

We'd been researching water softeners for a while, and had a few companies do a demo and give a quote. Their prices were, quite frankly, outrageous, and therefore discouraged by that we kept putting it off.
However, we were also getting quite sick of the spotting; materials corroding (just two days after Richard's initial visit we had to replace our water heater, which had become corroded beyond belief); scale-filled shower walls; and so on and thus were quite ready to have a softener installed. 
Finally our favorite big box store got a water softener that seemed very affordable but when I started researching installation costs (our detached garage requires a 120-ft return pipe install back to the feed-in to the house) we canceled those plans as well.
A few days later we found Richard DeYoung's company on a local website and called him. We were immediately impressed that he sent us documents via email that made the whole process very transparent. Prices for standard installs, optional equipment etc were outlined in black-and-white. There were no price games or any of the price-inflating "options" that are usually thrust on unwilling and often ignorant customers.
Because this whole 'upfront pricing' and 'open process' seemed so unusual and radical, we requested Richard to stop by our home for a quote. He arrived on time and patiently answered questions and clarified doubts for nearly 1.5 hours. He tested our water and showed the hardness levels and also the chlorine levels, both of which needed to be remediated. He was obviously very knowledgeable and there was NO HARD SELL. In fact, he insisted I went for a smaller system than the one I wanted because he said that for my home the smaller one was more in line with our needs. Because there are no commissions involved (he owns the company) there was no need to inflate the prices. Further, they offer a 7-year warranty on parts and labor, which I thought was very generous and tremendously reassuring.
Installation was scheduled for June 26 in the morning time but somehow the crew ran late and I had to make a couple of calls to get the crew's current schedule. This was the only (trivial) bump in the whole process. 
His crew arrived around 2 PM, and immediately set down to work. I could see they put in a lot of effort to affect as little grass as possible near the sidewalk and were extremely careful not to disturb any existing lines. The work was very hard because they had to run a line all the way from the water meter to the garage and back (Richard called it "the 120-foot job").
Despite the difficulty of the task on a really hot and humid day, Chester and his helper did a fantastic job and were obviously very competent and experienced. The installtion took around 4 hours, and then Chester did a demo of the system and walked me through some of the features. You can tweak it to suit your home's water usage should things change (such as guests/a new arrival etc) and so the system is very configurable/flexible.
Richard's company also offers a maintenance service (per 6 months it runs $89 for my system) and they also offer a referral service wherein referring customers get $50 towards their maintenance services if the person being referred installs a system; this provides even more incentive to customers to refer others.
I definitely plan on referring my friends to Richard's company (have already talked to two of my buddies and they're interested).
Based on the price, quality, integrity, knowledge, competence, and respect shown to his customers, I have no hesitation in recommending Richard to those that are looking to install a water softener (I think they also install RO systems but because we already had one we didn't look into it).

No pressure sales, easy scheduling for installation, profession installation and cleanup. Easy transaction and happy customer

After moving into my house I noticed my clothes weren't getting 'real' clean and that all of my stainless appliances were getting water spots - - I decided to look into water softening system.  I talked to a friend that was building a new house -- she and her husband are both engineers and did A LOT of research and decided to go with Aqua Systems... with their recommendation and great reviews I decided to contact the company.  Richard was very responsive and quickly gave me a suggestion.  They post their prices online which is nice, no sales or negotiating.  Richard came out to my house to do an evaluation and made his final recommendation.  I decided to put the tank and system in the garage, so we went through the various options of where to place the system and run the various lines (pipes, electric etc.)  His crew arrived on time and did a good job getting everything installed.  The pipes, drainline and power cord do show but were all installed professionally - it doesn't really bother me because it is in the garage but something worth mentioning.I have had the system for over a month now and LOVE it.  My clothes are coming out of the washing machine so much cleaner and NO water spots on my faucets.  I am a happy camper and would highly recommend them.

Richard came out to meet with me in advance.  He spent time understanding our needs and checking our water quality.  We discussed our options and chose the unit that was right for us.  We scheduled the work for 4 weeks later and they showed up right on time.  The installers were courteous, polite and diligent.  They knew exactly what to do, just as Richard and I had discussed, and went straight to work.  They installed the water salt container and dug a hole for the softener.  They connect the drain and gave me training on how to operate the system.
That evening I noticed the water pressure appeared to be a little low.  I called Richard and he came right over.  He discovered that the main water line wasn't completely turn on.  That fixed the problem.  Richard was courteous and responsive.  I was a bit embarassed that I didn't think to do it.  
The system has worked wonderfully since installation and we are very happy with the soft water.  The invoice was exactly the amount that we discussed.  I liked that everything was revealed up front and both services and fees were exactly as we agreed.  Great communication, great price, great service, great results.

After an exhaustive search lasting over a year, I had pretty much given up on finding a reputable and affordable company to install a water softener in our home.  However, after I did (what I expected to be) the last search on Angie's List for this category, I found Richard De Young's company, Advanced Water Solutions.  The score I gave his company would be entirely A's and I would have nominated him for a Service Award if he were the only person at the company that I had to deal with.  Richard is FANTASTIC.  He's responsive, punctual, professional, and, most surprisingly, honest.  So many of the water softener companies will try to sell you all kinds of crap you don't actually need just to inflate their bottom line but Richard steered us towards a less expensive model than we were initially expecting to purchase, saving us about $400 in the process.  On top of that, his quote was nearly $1,000 less than the least expensive quote we had received from any other company.  Again, Richard was absolutely fantastic.  His install team, however, is another story. 

Due to the excellent experience that we had with Richard, we decided to purchase a water softener and carbon filtration stack from him and installation was scheduled for 3 days later (another aspect I was impressed with since every other company wanted to wait 1-2 weeks).  The install team rang my doorbell at exactly 9 am as scheduled.  They were very polite and explained everything that they would be doing, then got to work.  They installed the system on the outside of my house along one side directly behind the gate for my fence.  Because I live in a neighborhood with very small lots (about 55' wide), the installers had to install 2 pavers below the salt tank to make sure it stayed level and upright.  They also dug down between 1-2 feet for the actual softener to be as stable as possible.  Everything with the installation seemed to go perfectly, although they weren't terribly careful about making a really muddy mess in an area where I've struggled to grow grass due to a lack of adequate sunlight.  It wasn't until about a month later when I turned my sprinkler system back on that I discovered the problem.  The install team had hit one of my sprinklers whenever they were digging so the sprinkler just flooded the area instead of watering only the appropriate amount.  Unfortunately since my sprinklers go off at 4:30 am, I didn't notice this until about 2 weeks later when I was adjusting my sprinkler system.  (I don't walk along that side of my house often because it's narrow and awkward.)  The broken sprinkler had completely washed away the grass seeds that I planted leaving a very muddy mess.  I called Richard on a Friday afternoon to let him know what had happened.  He apologized very sincerely and let me know that he would have someone come out the following morning to come and fix the problem.  The technician arrived exactly at 7:30 am as Richard had promised, apologized for the mistake, and got to work.  He dug up the area, found the broken pipe, and replaced it.  However, and I didn't realize this until later, the technician did not scoop out the excess water in the hole that he dug so the area remained squishy for quite some time until I dug out the area myself and scooped out the water.  Unfortunately, this is still not the end of the story.

About a month later, my wife and I noticed that our water quality seemed to be deteriorating; the water didn't feel soft anymore and we began seeing spots on our dishes as if we didn't have a softener at all.  (Why it took us a month to notice the difference, I don't know.)  We checked the salt reserve tank and we still had plenty of salt.  The weird thing was that the small computer attached to the system said zero flow even when we knew that we had water running.  My wife called Richard to explain the problem and he told her he would come out the following day to take a look himself.  He arrived exactly on time (for the 3rd time, Richard is fantastic) and took a look at the system.  The problem was very simple but very stupid as well.  His technician that had come out to fix the broken sprinkler pipe had left the system on "Bypass", meaning that no water was actually going thru the system and it WAS as if we didn't have a water filtration/softener system again.  Richard was incredibly apologetic and visibly angry because of what his technician had done.  He added 2 bags of salt free of charge and let us know that our next service would also be free because of the problems (I believe the service is around $89 every 6 months).  As soon as Richard fixed the problem, we noticed the improvement in our water quality.

I believe the problems have all been fixed now but I'm still having trouble growing grass in the area that the installers tore up and subsequently (although, indirectly) flooded.  However, if I had to do it again, I would still buy from Advanced Water Solutions without a second thought solely because of Richard.  His customer service is fantastic, his prices are amazing, and he owns up to and corrects any mistakes that were made by his install team.  From reading other reviews, it seems as though my experience was an isolated incident and I'm glad for that because we need more honest people like Richard in an otherwise very dishonest industry.

Richard came out and gave a wonderful explanation of all that could be done and what he had to offer.  My husband was not available to be in on the presentation but Richard gave me several "handouts" and emails with information that I could share with my husband.  We ended up putting in the complete house system and the RO system for drinking water.  The day of install - the workers were very professonal, worked hard and cleaned up everything after they were done.  They also explained the complete system to my husband any myself for future reference.    About 1 week later - our drinking water was not tasting right and it had a slight smell. I immediatley called Richard and that very day he had the same technician/installer come out to the house to troubleshoot our problem.  He flushed out the system and everything turned out ok.  I was extremely please with the fast response with our little issue and that the same tech was able to come out and help again.  I would recommend this company and their water systems to all my friends and family.  Thank you Richard and your techs for a job well done!

installer was prompt and cleaned the area when installation was complete.  softener is automatic and doesn't require any intervention from the homeowner.

They were very professional and honest. The service was all around jt a great deal. They also gave us a lifetime warranty. I highly recommend them.

The process went perfect from the time Richard came out to test the water through the softener being installed.  2 weeks later we noticed that our washer was turning the clothes colors and I called Richard to make sure that our water softener was working right.  He came over the very next morning and tested the hardness of the water as well as the iron levels to make sure that everything was working fine.  I found that the problem was from our washer and was very appreciative that Richard insisted on taking the time to double check his work instead of trying to blame the washer.  I will refer Advanced Water Solutions to anyone who is looking for a Water Softener or filter.  It's nice to know that there are still companies out there that take customer service seriously!!!!!!!

Richard was very quick to respond via email for a quote. And then he came out to my house to look things over and confirm our need. Based on my family size he sold us a smaller unit than the one I originally asked for. I've been using it for nearly a year now and it's worked great. I've only had to refill the salt once so far beyond the initial salt. Work was done quickly and cleanly and everything is good.

Excellant experience; more than satisfied.

Spoke to Richard over the phone and he sent me an email with information on various water systems attached.  The prices were listed on the attachment.  I made an appointment for him to come out and discuss the system I wanted.  He was on time, very professional, very knowledgable and informative.  I chose to go ahead and install the system.  The installer was very professional, was in and out in about two hours and our water system and purification system is wonderful!  I especially liked that I wasn't being "sold".  The price was exactly what was shown on the initial email.  I would definitely (and have already recommend this company to anyone looking for help with their water quality.

Excellent work and follow-up. Arrived early, completed the job neatly. Couple of very minor problems, they responded quickly and appropriately. Strongly recommend.

Just about the most professional service we have ever had done. Up front price, perfect installation, everything works exactly as advertised. If only there were more companies like Advanced Water Systems!

Richard was on time to look at the problem. He realized that a filter would not remedy the problem. A filter only traps particles. In our case the water was dyed from the iron and therefore it was unlikely that filtering the water would clear it up. In addition a filter system would require installation and maintenance cost. Instead of installing a filter, that might not clear the water, he suggested to use chlorine tablets for the tank, a low cost maintenance free solution. A few days later, Richard was so nice to follow up with a call

They were very good. They were very nice. They were very accommodating and very responsive. I had a problem and they addressed it right away.

He was not cheap, but we got our moneys worth for the service. Overall, the service went well. He comes out once a year to check the system.

Richard Young is the owner and he came out and gave me an estimate to repair or replace the old system. They were knowledgeable and the quality of the system was good.