I have an old unit, from the paperwork inside the condenser 17 years old R22 Freon 3 ton unit. I got assigned American Air Care through American Home Shield insurance. Technician seemed slick. He put in 1 1/2 pounds of R22, which his company charges 75$ a pound, AHS picks up 10$ per pound. This was explained before he added it and it's in my AHS policy. It ended up being ~100$ in addition to the 75$ for the service call. The two previous calls topped off the system but never charged extra for it. This motivated me to check it out on the internet and I found out that R22 is not going to be made any more after 2020 and it is not uncommon to be charged in the range of 75$/lb for R22. There are some aspects that are troubling:
1. Even though I told him the condenser fan at times required physical coaxing to turn on its own Justin from American Air Care never checked the run capacitor. I recently purchased a meter for measuring capacitance and found the condenser fan capacitor completely fried and the compressor capacitor was 10% below rating, which is out of spec (+/-6%). Fortunately I also purchased spare capacitors for both and after installing them it has made all the difference. Instead of having a bottom line of 79F I was able to get my house to 70F which was good enough so I stopped the test.
2. This tech added 1.5 pounds of R22 and never broke out a sniffer. I also saw him with my own eyes release R22 into the atmosphere. He also tried to say he would have to make a second call to add a sealant. He backed off this claim when he called his office, I believe he realized he would not get another service fee. He added sealant afterward, so I know he could have done it in one call. My unit was also iced up, not only on the evaporator side but also the outlet of the condenser unit, so I am pretty sure that lack of R22 at an extra 100$ above the 75$ service fee was not the problem.
3.By the way, my AC unit was just serviced in April, 5 month ago by AZ Air Conditioning Plumbing. That tech also added R22 and sealant, but did not charge extra for the call.
4. Justin, the technician from American Air Care, I am calling you out on your nonsense. You are a clip artist. I hope the money you took from me gives you a great deal of satisfaction or solves a big problem in your life because this review will cost you and your company much more.
5. I am disappointed in American Home Shield (AHS). They initially assigned my service to a company just south of Jacksonville and I live near Tampa Bay. Nobody is going to drive 200 miles each way for a $75 service call. They did the same thing to me back in August. AHS is hard to get hold of if your problem does not fit their site buttons. I ended up spending 45 minutes on hold during Labor Day before I could talk to a person and explain that I need somebody local to me to fix my AC, not someone out of area.
6. Because of AHS and Justin from American Air Care, I was clipped 175$ for a problem I ended up having to solve myself. Both of these outfits should be avoided, they are at best incompetent, more likely shady.
I will be getting a new system this fall, these two outfits will have nothing to do with it.
Update 10-8-2017
I cancelled my insurance with American Home Shield for the reasons stated previously. They tried to talk me out of it by offering to pay me the 75$ service call and for the expense of the materials required for me to fix my air conditioner. They should have done this unconditionally as the repair was on last year's policy. I got a full refund, good riddance to AHS and American Air Care. read more