Steve Hillman from Burnaby

I used Great Canadian Van Lines to move my partner's house contents from Toronto out to Vancouver in August. Overall we're very happy with the experience. GCVL gave us a detailed spreadsheet estimate that we could fill in with the weight of our items to arrive at a final estimate. Their price was significantly less than anyone else I called. We had a relatively small move - almost no furniture, mostly just rubbermaid rough totes. We had everything stacked in the garage when their truck arrived for pickup and they had everything loaded in a half hour. Anything not already boxed was wrapped tight by the movers in heavy moving blankets at no extra charge. The whole moving crew was friendly and polite, and the same guy who loaded on the Toronto end was there in Vancouver to unload. The delivery arrived on time and nothing was damaged. The only minor thing that went wrong is that one of our items lost its tracking tag in transit. We didn't notice it missing until a couple of days later and when we called the office in Delta, they tracked it down and we had to get to their Delta office to collect it. It wasn't significant enough to lower my rating as it was really just a minor inconvenience. I'd highly recommend GCVL.

I (re)discovered Mr Mattress after seeing a "deal" at one of the big department stores on a pillow-top mattress and doing some research online on it. What I discovered is that essentially all of the "big" brands of mattresses should now be avoided - they're all single-sided mattresses which means they wear unevenly and can't be flipped to 'even out' sagging that naturally happens over time. The end-result is that after 2-3 years, your $2000+ mattress will be garbage. Mr Mattress only sells two-sided flippable mattresses and they're made locally. Bob, the co-owner, will steer you away from things like box springs and only sell you what you need, and he'll encourage you to go with as firm a mattress as possible to extend its usable life. They don't do sales - what you see on the sticker is always what you pay. We settled on a firm pocket coil king mattress, which, at $1100, is less than most of the deeply discounted "sale" prices for single-sided mattresses elsewhere. Delivery to Port Moody was just $25, less than it would have cost me in gas alone for a truck big enough to move a king mattress. Don't buy a mattress elsewhere until you've checked out Mr Mattress.

I used Yard-At-A-Time Concrete several times to pour footings, foundation walls, and a slab for a house I was restoring in East Van. For the DIYer, their services are excellent because they can deliver small loads and have flexible schedules (my loads were all delivered on Saturdays). Their drivers are prompt, friendly, and helpful and they were generous with their time, not charging me for going over the time allotment I had. I had three separate loads delivered by them and each time it went off without a hitch. I'd highly recommend them for small to mid-size concrete jobs.

I used David's inspection services and couldn't be happier with the results he provided. I'm quite knowledgeable in home repairs and renovations, but felt that second set of objective eyes to inspect the property was well worth the money. David spent 4 hours going over every aspect of the home and went to great lengths to see what couldn't be seen. He went all through the attic (which was truss construction and not easy to get around!) looking for leaks, as the roof was obviously at the end of its life. He pointed out upscale features of the home that we wouldn't have otherwise noticed. He ran all appliances through a full cycle. And he did an exhaustive check for moisture in every part of the home. The home we bought is not that old, so we weren't expecting major problems, but he did point out things I would have missed. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend him.