My horror story with a different contractor:
I lost my heat last winter going into the coldest part of the year, after seeing the adds for a contractor (who wont be named) plastered all over my town, i figured id give them a call to see if they could fix it (it was about 6 years old). A technician came in and said that my heat exchanger was broken and that it wasn't going to be cost effective to replace it. At the time, i didn't know any better, so i asked them for an estimate for what a new system would cost. The technician said that he doesn't give estimates, so i had to schedule another appointment, this time, with their employee who does estimates (which was not easy given their poor customer service). I took a half day off work to meet with their estimator, and with him being over an hour an forty minutes late, i ended up having to take the second half of the day off work too. The estimator was friendly, and neither time their employees were here did i feel like I was being taken advantage of (wait for it). Fast forward to when i get the estimate back. I don't know much about HVAC systems, so i wasn't sure exactly how high this estimate was until i spoke with one of my neighbors who is a contractor. He said i could call his friend who does HVAC to get a second estimate for free.
How Climac fixed it:
I called up Climac to see when they could give me an estimate for changing my HVAC system and they said they could have someone come out the next day to take a look at it. I don't know if their usually that fast, or if they were doing a favor for the friend i got their contact info from, but either way, the weather was getting cold and i was happy to hear that i wasn't being put off until they had time. When their estimator got to my house he was 15 minutes early, and i saw him sitting farther down my street waiting for our appointment window. I waved him in to let him know that i was willing to get things started early (and hoping to get to the second half of my work day this time). When he walked in the door, he brushed his boots off really well before coming into my house, which i thought was a nice change from the last company who's employees seemed to not pay as much attention to details like that. I showed him to my heater which was in my basement, and after looking around inside of it for a few minutes he said it still looked like it was in pretty good shape. He did see that there was mice in it and that it looked like a nest in the unit could have been causing the problems i was experiencing. He said that rather than change the system, he would like to try repairing some of the wiring that the mice had been living near. He was over to write me a free estimate for changing out my system, so i jumped at the offer to try to fix my current one. After an hour or so of working, he called me back down the basement and explained to me that he couldn't see any type of cracks in the heat exchanger but that if i wanted he could have a tech to to replace it inexpensively the following week. He also explained that after fixing the wiring the system was running how it should be and that he didn't see a need to replace it at all. I thanked him and didn't see the need to replace the heat exchanger if he didn't see anything wrong with it (didn't think there would be a reason he would lie about that). he left, and i still got to work for the second half of the day. I got a bill in the mail a few weeks later from Climac for $145 which showed i used an hour of labor (i had). Over all, getting a second opinion saved me over 10 thousand dollars, and made me feel like i didn't get ripped off. I was really happy with Climac's service, and i will use them when my HVAC system does eventually die, and if nothing else, after reading this i hope everyone at least gets a second estimate before just trusting any contractor. read more