A Princeton woman who spent most of one winter without heating after the company she hired botched the job won $35,000 in damages on Sept. 19. 

Jacqueline Mason filed a civil suit against TR3 Geothermal Services over a contracted job to install radiant floor heating in the upstairs of the Mason home in 2021. 

After a 10-day civil trial in which Mason and TR3 operator Richard Saari represented themselves, Judge Lynette Jung ruled in Mason's favour at Penticton Provincial Court and noted that if she had the power to award more than the maximum $35,000 small claims limit, she would have. 

After agreeing to install the radiant heating in June 2021, and working on the system up until abandoning the job in January 2022, Saari never successfully got the heating to work. 

In fact, on top of failing to get the upstairs heating installed properly, Saari went on to install a digital heating control system, that was never part of the agreement with Mason, which impacted the heating in the rest of the home. 

Mason ended up hiring a different company after Saari abandoned the job, which fixed everything that was wrong and got the system working in a single day of work. 

"Mr. Saari presented as an indignant witness who feels he has been wronged by a customer. He seems to believe a narrative that he went above and beyond for Ms. Mason and should be compensated for all that work," wrote Jung. "The problem is that Mr. Saari鈥檚 work was deficient, his record keeping is unreliable or perhaps dishonest, and he has damaged the claimant鈥檚 reputation in the community without merit to his claims."

The second company testified at the trial and stated that the system Saari installed would never have been able to work, since he made fundamental errors including installing a check valve the wrong way. 

Saari claimed in court that the system had worked initially, despite text messages and photographic evidence indicating otherwise.

In addition, although claiming to have installed a $510 pump that he filed an invoice for, Saari installed an older, already out-of-warranty pump. 

The second company had to return to flush the boiler system and replace the antifreeze and MolyArmor in the system because of mistakes made by Saari. 

Despite the boiler not working over the winter, Mason had to burn wood to keep it from freezing up. 

The judge awarded Mason the maximum allowable limit of $35,000 in small claims court, covering the extra expenses to the second company, the extra propane, wood and electricity used to heat the home over the winter, and $5,300 out of the $8,300 she paid Saari. 

The judge was unable to grant a full refund or any damages for loss of use and enjoyment of the home as the damages limit had already been reached.