Prior to the technician arriving at my home, my A/C system was working. He was coming to do a routine preventive maintenance. I should mention that the service was agreed to cost $79. He worked in the attic and outside for an hour (maybe 90 minutes) and then came in the house to say there was a problem.
He said that he turned off power to the air handler (unit in the attic), to work on it, and could not turn the power back on. He said the switch was broken, and that he would be happy to fix it, for a $200 repair fee.
I told him I could install a switch myself. At this point the A/C was off. This is Tampa, FL, in late June. Outside the air is 90 degrees and it's probably 150 in the attic.in a few hours my house would be 90 degrees.
He assured me that after I replaced the switch, the A/C unit would turn on and my house would be cool again. He never did the preventive maintenance and did not charge me for it. He then left.
This is a 30 AMP 2-pole, single throw switch in a plastic junction box. It cost $30 because of the high amperage and took me 15 minutes (in the heat of my attic) to install. But after installing it, the A/C did not turn on. It's a switch with 4 wires - 2 in, 2 out - what could I have done wrong. I checked it and double checked it the new switch and my installation were working fine - power was getting to the air handler.
I called the company and told them the above story, and I told them they needed to get someone back to my house ASAP to repair whatever the guy had broken. The next 20 minutes was a major argument with them, with them claiming that since I decided to do the switch myself I must have broken the system. They were not accepting any responsibility and wouldn't get anyone there anytime soon.
The best line in the debate was when the woman (Michelle) says "even if you have power getting to the air handler doesn't mean you did it right - there are a lot of things that can go wrong with a switch". If you know anything about electronics, you know how stupid that statement is.
Finally they agreed to send someone over but they'd be charging me for a diagnostic call. When I started to object to that, she said they would not send someone unless I agreed to pay for the call.
Thankfully when the repair technician arrived (6 hours later) (remember 90 degree heat), he had the system working in 5 minutes. The tech that came in the morning had bent the sensor in the drip pan (collects water under the air handler) which prevented the system from turning on. He did not charge me for the call, since it was very clear that the first guy had broken the system.
So why am I posting this report? Because of the grief they gave me on the phone (saying I broke the system), not taking responsibility for the damage their guy had done, and for not making the repair of this damage a priority. They should have been back at my house within 2 hours max, and with no threat of charging me for the call.
Before posting this report, I wanted to give the company one chance to make things right. I spoke with the owner, Jack. He still didn't get it. He was saying that his girls should have told me that they would come back but maybe not until the next day (again 90 degrees and they broke it). I see where his customer service girls get there attitude.
I strongly suggest you stay away from this company. They are over-priced, do shoddy work (at least the first guy did), and don't take responsibility for their mistakes. Find a better A/C business to deal with.
0 comments