Berkeley Heat - Regency Fireplaces, Caldera Spas & Finnleo Saunas — Local services in Berkeley

Updated to three stars A sales person reached out to me and apologized for the service I received. I appreciated the email, even if my experience in the store was subpar. I understand that these are stressful times and we all have bad days. The other reviews seem positive, so maybe I just went in on a bad day. Old review I don't recommend this store. I called before I came in and mentioned I was looking for a hot tub. The man was very friendly on the phone and told me to come in and he could talk to me about pricing and the different tubs. So I drove down right away. When I walked into the store, he was less than friendly, told me he had no tubs in stock and didn't even leave his side of the counter to help me. I inquired about a wooden tub in the corner and all he says is that's $40,000 with an attitude. Dude, you don't know my budget or what I can and can't afford. I own my own home, that I bought for over a million dollars, so maybe assumptions shouldn't be made based on appearance. He was rude and didn't help me whatsoever. I asked him if I could get any info on tubs seeing as he had none in stock. He told me to write me email down. I did and he didn't even pick the paper up. I'm sorry, but I would never give this store my business. I don't like to say an assumption was made because I'm a minority, but his friendly attitude on the phone was nowhere to be seen when I showed up in the store twenty minutes later. If he had no tubs and didn't want to help me figure something out, why did he tell me to come down to the store? Waste of time and I do NOT recommend. Such a bad experience, completely ruined my day. I left the store not knowing what the differences were in any hot tubs, the prices, the features, nothing. He literally gave me ZERO information....

You can't get a better place to buy hot tubs and gas inserts. Our experience with Dan and Nick has been nothing less than excellent. From the time we first bought our hot tub, to our purchase and installation of our gas insert was quite good. With our hot tub, Nick who we first met and bought our tub from, was outstanding in his approach and ways of teaching you how the different tubs functioned.

We have to give kudos also for the two outfits they use to deliver and install our tub and insert. Dominic (I think that was his name) delivered and gently put down our tub and made sure it was was exactly where we wanted it and showed me the different parts. He did not install the electrical outlet, etc., but he was good at laying the tub down, so gently.

Whenever I have needed help with figuring out the chemicals needed, and questions about the tub, Nick was my primary go-to person. He has been a good contact, and when I needed to talk he was there.

Four months later, we went back to inquire about gas inserts, and of course, we purchased one. Now this is where our happiness went a few pegs down. We bought our insert in December, and it turns out that is not a good time to buy gas inserts. It shipped from and was made in Canada (go Canucks!). Canadiens it turns out, like to run off on vacation in December. We were hoping for a install before the holidays. Instead it finally came just after the new year.

We had a contractor, "Moises" (sorry the name of the company is just not coming up), recommended by Berkeley Heat Tubmakers, his crew did an amazing job on the insert in less than eight hours. And our gas insert works amazingly well.

You won't go wrong with this group of people. They are very good...

While we are very happy with the end result with our fireplaces the process of wasn’t exactly easy.

We first went into Berkeley Heat in October 2021, paid a $500 deposit, and they said someone would contact us for a time to come out and measure.

A few weeks went by and we still hadn’t heard from anyone so we called Berkeley Heat and they put us in contact with someone else. This person no showed a few times but eventually came, took measurements, and told us what we needed to order.

We went back to Berkeley Heat and placed our order and they charged us for the whole thing (over $10K for two fire places). I get they required something, but this was a lot of money to give a company that hadn’t exactly demonstrated they had their act together.

A few months later the fireplaces came in, and we only found out about this because we proactively called them. (Again, we’ve fully paid for these fireplaces and they were just sitting in their warehouse for weeks).

Then we had a horrible time scheduling with the person they recommended to install them. Multiple no shows and would just go dark on us. At several points the only way I could get him to call us back was by calling Berkeley Heat, which I did because honestly I was thinking maybe something had happened to him.

When he finally did install the fireplaces there was a delay of a few days because (and I’m going on what I overhead him say on the phone here) Berkeley Heat gave him the wrong parts.

So a year after we first went into Berkeley Heat our fireplaces are installed, they look great, and operate perfectly, but man it was a long...