In Oct we hired Michael's to upgrade an existing heat pump/AC unit. The old unit was inefficient, taking forever to bring the house to temperature, and the electric bills were high.
After a consultation, Michael's recommended an ELEVEN THOUSAND dollar system to upgrade our system. We were also told it would significantly lower our monthly energy bills and the temperature adjustment would be quick and efficient. Our house is 1100 sf - power bills were running around $300./mo during heating and cooling seasons.
There have been problems from the beginning. First of all, our electric bills rose during the heating and cooling months. The unit would run and run and run, until we were worried that the compressor would wear out. We bought stand-alone heaters and finally installed a window a/c to try to keep our house at a livable temperature.in the summer, the unit would run until early morning hours trying to reduce the interior temperature to the 78` we expected, and the house would warm to 82 - 84` by 9 pm.in the winter months (not all that cold... Maybe low 30's), the emergency heat strips came on constantly, and again the unit would struggle to hold the house at 68`.
We had numerous technicians come to check the system - no one could find anything wrong.
In the summer of we hired a new company to do an inspection, in hopes of solving this problem.
The technician arrived and within 20 minutes advised us that 2 wires had been reversed on the unit, causing both hot and cold air to run through the system AT THE SAME TIME. He corrected that issue, and also inspected the duct work. He took photos of the ducts - several joints were not even close to touching (6" gaps), and there was evidence that the air moving through the ducts was disturbing the cellulose insulation around it. Clearly, there were HUGE leaks in the ductwork, that Michael's had somehow not noticed, or ignored. We had been heating and cooling our attic for 6 years... We hired the new company to seal the ductwork, and noticed an immediate improvement in the comfort level.
Since the installation of wonder unit, our bills had risen to $500. During the cooling and heating months - definitely not a savings over even our old unit! In the month following the service provided the new AC company, our electric bill dropped by over $225.00.
Michael's has done absolutely nothing to help us. We were charged for all but one service call, and it took an argument to get that call at no charge.in addition to buying the system, we also hired Michael's to install an attic fan ($700.), added insulation to the attic ($600.), supplemental heaters/window unit (about $800.) and finally hired a new company to learn that Michael's had royally screwed up and been costing us about $1200./yr (6 yrs = $7200.) on our electric bill.
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