We had Dirks install a new thermostat on January 15th of 2024. We told the technician that we…read morewanted a 5-day/2-day programmable one and he offered two option: one for about $250 and another (wifi-capable) for $800 and assured us that they were both what we wanted. Not caring if I could check my house's temperature from my phone or not, I opted for the less expensive option (I later found out I could have bought the exact same thermostat at a local hardware store for about $40). After the technician installed it and gave us a basic rundown, I paid him the $450 or so (another $180 for the service call in addition to the price of the themostat, plus tax) and he was on his way. The next day, when I went to program the thermostat I discovered that it had to be programmed one day at a time, instead of the Monday-Friday and Saturday-Sunday I'd requsted (and been promised). I was not at all happy, but it was already installed so I sucked it up and decided to live with it. Fast-forward to May 13th. We wanted to use our central air conditioner for the first time of the season but it wouldn't work so, not being particularly pleased with our service we had received from Dirk's, we contacted Barron Plumbing and Heating to look at it, and we're lucky we did. Being that all his technicians were out on other calls, the owner of the business (Tony Allen) came to our house to look at it himself. He was able to bypass the thermostat and get the air conditioner working so he looked at the thermostat. It had been wired wrong when installed, so that it would work properly in "heat" mode but not in "cool" mode. Since it was almost quiting time, he said he'd send someone the next day to fix it if we didn't mind waiting or, if we didn't want to wait until then, he'd get it taken care of later that day and we told him to just send someone the next day and I also asked if it was okay for me to buy a new thermostat and have his technician install it; he said that would be no problem. So, that evening, I bought a thermostat that had the one feature we actually wanted and it was intalled the next day, by BP&H and worked fine. Total bill from BP&H for 2 service calls and installation: $120. So anyway, we called Dirks and talked to Don Dirks about what happened and he asked us what we thought should be done about it. We told him that he could buy back the thermostat that was sold to us under false pretenses, telling him he could still sell it as gently-used for $100 and still make a more than 200% profit on it. He refused, and the best he would offer was to pay our bill for BP&H to fix his company's mistake. Knowing we wouldn't get any other sort of compensation from him, we agreed to that amd emailed him a copy of the bill to the email address he provided. I told Tony from BP&H that Dirks would be sending him a check and he said that was fine. About a month later I contacted Tony again and asked if Dirks had paid the bill and he said no, so I paid it myself. So, to summarize, because we went with Dirks, we paid about $600 to have a $40 thermostat installed (we still have the one Dirks sold us, on a workbench in my basement), when we could have gotten ahold of BP&H first and paid less than a third of that. Also, what kind of a technician doesn't know how to properly wire a thermostat? It seems to me that should be a VERY simple procedure for someone who does that kind of thing for a living. It kind of makes me wonder if it was perhaps wired wrong intentionally to drum up some more business for the company...