Take Nadine's advice on this. The owner is just out to make a quick buck. Here's how it went down for me...
Last Winter we noticed our burner had a small leak. My grandfather who had been a maintenance man his entire life guessed it was simply the fuel pump but decided it'd be better to call in a professional to have a look.
We called the people who deliver our fuel and they gave us J & C's number. Two men, one of whom is the owner of this company, began looking at our burner and after maybe fifteen minutes they had "discovered the problem". He claimed that we had a cracked heat exchanger and that there was absolutely no way to fix it and we would need to replace the entire unit as soon as possible for a sum of $3,200 bucks.
The owner started asking if we had noticed the smell of fuel when the burner is running and we told him we'd never smelled any fuel in the past, even despite the slight leak. Apparently that wasn't the answer he was looking for because he started telling us how he could smell it when he walked in the house and that he knows what it smells like because he works with the stuff everyday. He began telling us that our burner isn't designed for #2 fuel oil (which is what we use) and is instead meant to be burning Kerosene, nevermind the fact that the specifications sheet right next our burner specifically says that it is set up for #1 and #2 fuel oil. He never even looked at the fuel pump which was the whole reason we called them. Finally, before leaving and after being very rude, he told us he would say it cost $3,600 but only charge us $3,200.
Needless to say, this encounter left a bad taste in our mouths so I took to the internet to see what I could find out about this company. After seeing Nadine's review and having just heard the exact same lines about it being unfixable, we called our neighbors who got us in touch with a serviceman they know of. Twenty minutes later the second opinion showed up and another ten minutes after that he confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the burner (just a leaky fuel pump) and that J&C Heating and Air is indeed known for scamming people. They will never get a good recommendation from me and I'm going to make sure my fuel company stops giving people their number. read more
