My mother passed away in August from breast cancer. My sister and I inherited the two-family house that we both grew up in.initially, we thought it would be a good idea to rent both apartments for income, but we didn't want to be responsible for paying utility costs. The heating was recently switched to gas from oil so we decided to hire a heating contractor to install a second furnace and water heater so as to have each floor's gas and electric usage separate. We decided on using Yost and Campbell because they were the company my mother used to do the oil to gas heat conversion.
The work was performed in Late January. The next step was to have the gas meters for the first and second floor switched to reflect the new gas utilization IE; the first floor gas meter reflected the second floors gas usage and vice-versa. They assured me this would be handled within a month, prior to any tenants moving in. They said that all they had to do was file the plans and have an inspection conducted by the NYC Department of Buildings and Con Edison.
March came and went and I had no word about when the inspection was going to be done. I called several times and spoke to Dana Belizaire who stated that it was in the Department of Buildings system and an inspection should be scheduled soon. Unfortunately, we could not financially afford having the apartment unoccupied for another month so we ended up renting one of the apartments. The tenants agreed to reimburse us for the cost of the monthly utilities, which were not included in the rent and they are responsible for as per our lease agreement. The reason they could not take over the utility account was because each month we had to manually calculate each floor's utility usage due to the fact that the meter's were not switched yet.
April, May, and June came and went. I kept calling up Dana Belizaire and was told she was still working on it and the inspection would be happening any day now.in July I spoke to Dana who told me that their previous expediter "was not doing their job" and hasn't filed anything all year. Obviously, there must have been some kind of mistake because I was told in March that the job was already filed, and in, the Dept. Of Building's database. She stated that she thought it was but in fact, the job was never filed with anyone. She also stated that she would have to send out the head mechanic, Girardo, to map out the system for the filing. As of June we had to get another tenant into the other floor to help defray the mounting costs. They too had to reimburse us for the utilities every month after the charges were split up.
Girardo came, drew up his map, and according to Dana, filed it with Con Edison and Dept. Of Buildings. I received a letter from Con Edison saying they had a job number for the work and would coordinate with Yost and Campbell on scheduling an inspection. I received a letter in August from Con Edison stating that the job was canceled because they never received approval from the Dept. Of Buildings. I called Con Edison up and they informed me that the plans should have been filed before any work was done and in effect the house's heating system was illegally modified. You can imagine my shock and fear at this point worrying about getting fines, having something blow up, or any number of other catastrophes. At this point, my sister and I decided to sell the house because she needed the money for nursing school and I could use the money for a baby on the way. Of course, without the system being legalized, we could not move forward on anything.
On 08/24/10, I called Dana at Yost and Campbell who admitted to me that the job should have been filed prior to the start of any work and because there was no Dept. Of Buildings inspection, Con Edison canceled the job. And of course, there was also no Dept. Of Buildings inspection scheduled. Like a broken record, I was told I would have an inspection scheduled within two weeks.
09/08/10, I spoke to Dana again ad she stated that the expediter, Ms. Flores, has not received her email yet requesting the inspection. WTF? How does an email take two weeks to get anywhere? I was told to wait another two weeks.
09/24/10, I again spoke to Dana who gave me the same two week story. I asked to speak to the owner, Tom Monahan, to which I was told that I could leave a voicemail. I left a voicemail quoting the website assuring that, "If for any reason you are not totally satisfied with any aspect of the installation, or the service you receive, please call me. I will do everything possible to see to it that you are delighted with our company."
As of 10/07/10 I have not received any calls from anyone at the company. I continuosly have to hunt down someone to talk to, and my house is being held hostage from the housing market until Yost and Campbell gets their act together and gets their work inspected.
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