During the coldest part of a very cold winter in the Chicago area our furnace went out on a Friday night. AHS sent out a contract technician to repair it on Saturday on an emergency basis. He had to order a part which did not come in until Monday. He "hot wired" our furnace so we could manually turn it on/off and thus have heat for short periods of time. This meant no heat during the night. It also meant that all safety sensors had been bypassed.
The tech told me I had to clean the furnace although it is cleaned annually on a regular schedule. He wanted $375 to do the job! (I had it done the following day by my regular service for $90.) He also said the duct work for the returns was not installed correctly, and needed to be redone — $2000!! He reported this "fact" to AHS. It was all they needed. They denied the claim. Still no heat.
During the following two days I called AHS several times trying to explain that the furnace has been in the house probably 20 years, serviced by various companies, repaired by AHS on previous occasions and no one had ever made such a comment about the duct work. Each time I called AHS I had to go through their phone tree pressing button after button and explaining the entire situation to each new rep who finally took my call.
AHS finally assented to fix the furnace. They sent out the same technician a total of four times. Each time he said it couldn't be fixed without the duct work changes. More phone calls to AHS. More explanations of the entire sordid story to (always) a different, or perhaps indifferent, service rep.
After a week, Customer Service washed their hands of me and passed me off to Gina in Customer Relations. I begged her not to send out the same tech again. The whole business of the duct work came up again. She ended up sending out their Chief Installer to inspect the duct work for proper installation. The poor guy had to wade through a foot of snow to get to the outside door of our basement. He walked in and said " (expletive deleted), this is a total waste of my time. I knew it would be. There's not a thing wrong with the duct work installation." Then he left.
By this point we have been without heat in the house at night (manual switch... Remember?) for 11 days! Gina says she will authorize $80 for me to go purchase a couple of small space heaters to use for nighttime heat. Fax her a copy of the receipt for reimbursement, she tells me. I do that. I bought the two heaters and faxed her a copy of the receipt the following day.
AHS finally sent out one of their own repair techs who fixed the furnace in about an hour. We were without proper heat for 12 days in total. That was the 23rd of January this year. I have not received my reimbursement for the space heaters. I have called Gina and left messages repeatedly to no avail.
Like others who have commented on this site, I have been ripped off by AHS. They want to know if I will renew my contract this summer. What do you think??
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