Home Preservation Services

We used home protection services for a number of years. There were definitely some good things about the service - routine seasonal home maintenance was taken care of on schedule which provided peace of mind. However, I believe that they over promised and under delivered. When we first considered subscribing, Steve (founder of HPS) came to the house and provided a vision as to how over the first several quarterly visits they would get the house up to spec and in good shape, and that subsequently they would take on handy man projects, effect minor repairs, even hang pictures etc . It was a great vision, and for the first year or two it really felt like any delayed maintenance was being taken care of and the number of outstanding tasks was decreasing. However, once it transitioned into more of a maintenance mode, whenever any repair came up, it was always more than they were willing to include in the service - e.g. a light went out above the cooktop, but they said we needed to call out a Wolf certified professional. However, they were willing to be at the house to let the technician in, but of course for a fee. They then started pitching bigger projects, but with large price tags, including a project management fee. For example, they said all the grout needed redoing and resealing, and quoted a cost of $20k, which I found surprisingly high. I asked about switching to tankless hot water and they gave me a quote of $10-12k, whereas an independent quote I got from a plumber was in the ballpark of $3k. Eventually they didn’t really do the job they were supposed to. One task they were supposed to take care of was checking light fixtures and replacing bulbs, but several times in a row they would say they didn’t have the right bulbs and it would be left undone. Given that they knew all the bulb types our house used (the previous owner had a bunch of custom stuff installed) I don’t understand why they couldn’t be prepared. That it happened repeatedly suggested that they didn’t hold themselves to a standard that they had suggested they strived for. If you want to solve problems with money and have peace of mind, HPS might be a reasonable choice, but I never felt we got what we were led to believe we would for very long.

Updating this review to reflect the complete 180 delivered by a new manager put in charge of the project. Adam corrected course, got it over the line, and showed a very high degree of professionalism and work ethic to get it done.

Who knew you're supposed to drain your water heater every year?
Who has time to go up and clean out all the gutters and downspouts regularly?
I really love the services that HPS provides homeowners in the San Francisco Bay Area. Really, they have a wonderful staff and offer a very valuable service. And if anything breaks - they're their to fix it.
We've had many overlapping projects and we're always impressed with how well the HPS homes are cared for. Highly recommended.