Being next to a river, our house is mounted on piers and has a planked and roofed wrap-around porch. Our outside air conditioner's compressor unit is mounted on the porch. During our first winter in the house, we observed that condensate was dripping from the bottom of the unit, flowing through the spaces between the planks (pressure-treated) and thence down to the concrete parking area below the house.
Concerned about the long term durability of continuously sodden planks and the underlying joists of the porch -to say nothing of unsightly staining of the concrete below - we arranged to have Cook's Air Conditioning and Heating Specialists of Lake City, Florida, build and install a galvanized drip pan under the unit, with PVC piping to carry the condensate to the ground below. The agreed price for the job was $275.00. We considered that to be a fair price.
With commendable promptness, "technician's" from Cook's arrived and installed the drip pan and piping. The pan, however, was mismeasured... Too narrow and too long. We could have tolerated the unsightly extra length (15 inches), but the narrowness caused the sides of the unit to bulge the sides of the pan, and condensate consequently overflowed the side of the pan before it could escape to the exit nipple on the other side of the pan.
As result, condensate continues to overflow onto the porch planking and down to the concrete parking area, leaving us where we were before the drip pan was installed.
We complained to Cook's, and another "technician" came out to remeasure the size of the unit. He conceded that the original pan was obviously mismeasured, and assured us that his company would "make it right" with a new pan. That was two and a half months ago, and we haven't seen anyone from Cook's since.
We've called Cook's repeatedly, and the story we get each time is "problems with the supplier", meaning their manufacturer of drip pans. Well, before I retired from public accounting, one of my firm's clients was a sheet metal shop in Orlando, Florida, and I can tell you that three men with snips, a break, and an arc welder can crank out ten drip pans before lunch!
It's not rocket science, and sheet metal shops all over Lake City, Live Oak and the surrounding area would have no trouble making a proper drip pan (which might even have welded instead of crimped corners, and a crease in the center to direct condensate flow, unlike the one delivered to us by Cook's) in just a few minutes.
After two and a half months of waiting, calling and complaining, it's clear that we've been stiffed by Cook's Air Conditioning and Heating Specialists. Admittedly, $275 isn't a breathtaking amount of money, but we're just glad we didn't use Cook's for anything major. They do shoddy work and don't stand behind it.
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