I've been a long time customer and always had a service contract. Things operated like a top for…read moremany years, but it all seemed to start going downhill about a year ago. Carol used to answer the phones and she would proactively call me during each spring and fall for the regular tuneup. She always scheduled the appointments on days where she knew a tech was going to be in the area. It never took more than a week or two to schedule an appointment. Usually it was a few days. On a couple occasions it was same day or next day. Then last fall I realized I never got the call from Carol and it was late fall. I called to schedule an appointment and they were booked a few weeks out. The appointment day came and went and nobody ever showed up. Turns out one of the techs died. So I tried to set up another appointment and they made me wait a few more weeks. By the time the tuneup happened, the heat had already been in use for weeks. I figured maybe they were just having a rough time dealing with the death. This spring I again received no call to remind me about the tuneup. When I called, I had to wait over a month for an appointment. The way I see it, it doesn't really matter how good the service techs are if this is how they treat contract customers. After they came for the spring tuneup, I decided not to renew the contract. They clearly don't have their act together anymore and I've lost faith that they could ever address an issue promptly. If it takes over a month to do a tuneup, I don't even want to know how long I'd have to wait to have them fix an actual problem. As for the tuneup service itself, it's generally very good, although lately, I find them trying to upsell me on gadgets and stuff for my central AC. They are professional, wear the booties to avoid getting the carpet dirty, and they've been using a tablet computer to do the payment, which is worlds better than how they used to do it all by hand. Still, I just can't get past the weeks of waiting for an appointment. I'd expect them to have resolved any staffing issues by now. I think I'm going to try another outfit in the fall.

Overpriced | $500-600 ZERO STARS…read moreWe bought the service contract this year with Carmine's for $490 bucks. I called them because one zone in the house was down. TYLER M came out and diagnosed the problem... seized zone valve actuator. The part costs $116 bucks. He wanted to charge me $772 to replace it. When I refused, he asked me to pay the $150 service charge for coming out, even tho I have the service contract. Probably normal if you don't let them repair. I called Carmines and complained, but they wouldn't reduce the charge. When I told TYLER M that | was going to pay the $150 service charge and let him go, he said he needed to go back down and get his tools. After about 12 min I went down to see what he was doing and he quickly grabbed is bag and started walking out. When we got to my door, he showed me that the price had dropped to $529 for the service to repair. What kind of rip off gymnastics is this company doing????? I let him do the repair. Big mistake. JUST TO BE CLEAR... I paid $529 to replace a $116 part which took 15 min to change out. They were originally going to charge me $772, until I refused. PRESSURE-PRICING TACTICS. Had a bad feeling after I let the tech (TYLER M) replace the damper actuator. I set the heat to 70 and the heat went up to 80 and the heat kept coming up even tho the thermostat was set to 70. I had a bad feeling that he did something deliberately so that we would need another repair. So, I called them back and they sent the same kid (TYLER M) and he said that the OTHER actuator on the other damper blew out... within 24 hours of the first one. He said he would replace it for the same price I paid the day before. I told him we'd take a pass and showed him the door. Now my HEATING SYSTEM IS ALL SCREWED UP and I need to start over with a different company. I called Carmines to report this to them and ask for the remainder of my service contract. They said no and told me to have a nice day. No effort to mar it right or retain me as a customer. This was a locally owned and operated company. They are now "partnered" with GEM Electric. Please don't use them. They are unscrupulous. I will be reporting them to the CT Department of Consumer Protection and the Better Business Bureau