Heating/Air Conditioning Rip Offs

[whirlcool]

Whenever somebody touts themselves as a member of the BBB I just laugh. Anyone can join the BBB by submitting the annual membership fee and signing a paper agreeing to mediate in any disputes. That's all there is to it. Even a felon can join! And if you have a dispute they'll just log it and report it only when asked. They really take no legal action against the business that is being complained about. Totally worthless.

A rigged CO detector, never heard of those but I am positive they are out there. Just like there are probably rigged gas detectors and other "tools of the rip off trade".

 

[arbilab]

BBB, big bulbous bureaucracy. 'Twasn't always so but just when you need them most as product and dealer integrity takes a big dump, they are.

 

[rapunzel]

This is stuff that should go out on twitter. Tweet the company name and what they are doing to as many people and get them to re-tweet.

Don't you have some kind of consumer advocacy/protection organization that you can contact to expose these kinds of mercenary industry practices?

When I get stuff done on my car or anything else, I get at least three quotes.

 

[whirlcool]

I did put out a review on Facebook, our local subdivision and surrounding communities intranet and Yelp. I mentioned the company name (Air Tech of Houston) as well as the tech's name.

I think this company has glowing reviews because of the way they come on to their customers. They are very polite, almost British polite. They always put on clean jump suits and booties when they come in your house and make a big deal about how "we wouldn't want to dirty your house now, you work so hard to keep it nice and clean!" So I think because they treat their customers extra nice the customers tend to drop their guards a little bit. Their techs are very clean cut. Short hair, no tats, polite manners, etc. I think the customers (especially housewives) swoon over all this and don't really listen for clues that they are being ripped off. A lot of Air Techs reviews talk more about how nice and polite the techs are rather than the quality of the work.

Like I said when we used them back in 2012 we had no problems with them. Their pricing was competitive and not out of line. In fact the new Honeywell thermostat they supplied was noisy. It was always making a clicking noise when it turned the system on and again when it turned it off. I'm a heavy sleeper and it woke me up during the middle of the night. We had a Honeywell programmable previously that was silent in operation. I called them about three months after installation to complain about the thermostat and they came out and reinstalled my original and didn't charge for the service call. I wonder what happened to this company in the meantime, their advertising said they are a "family business" if that means anything.

 

[washer111]

Honeywell Clicking

Do not get me started....

With our unit being 30 years old this month, in fact, the cooling season will soon start: A double-click of the Honeywell 'stat, followed by a thud, and the loud whirr of the blower fan starting...
Its only loud in the lounge, where the large vent has its louvres half-open to redirect airflow to the kitchen and bedrooms, otherwise, its loud, deep hum is very soothing and startup isn't a "thud."

I'd love to "upgrade" to something better, but an unsure of what might be quiter...

NONE of the local techs are aware of sizing; The replacement system they quoted for us is even larger in kW rating than what we have (which would mean GROSSLY oversized!) - and our system already cycles reasonably often on days 104º (40ºC) and above.
These tech companies also supply ONLY the really cheap washable air filters that are only effective after 30 years worth of dust accumulation... So I purchased the 3M Filtretes on eBay instead. Not only were they dreadful quality, but they could only offer some off-cuts for us when we needed some, so we had to staple the filters together. We had those a year before I got fedup with poor summer air quality and switched to better air filters, which noticeably clear the air. Far less Summer vacuuming than before.

 

[combo52]

Bad Heating-A/C Service

Thanks for Sharing Allen, your taking the time to share this dreadful experience will undoubtedly save many others similar rip-offs, to say nothing of what you saved your neighbors.

I did not read all the follow-up posts in this thread just your initial post, so some of this may have already been said.

This service call should be reported to local consumer affairs, the state attorney general, local TV and radio consumer watch-dog shows, and if you have any community list-serve type services in your area, what these guys tried to do is criminal.

Other thoughts about what they said.

As you stated Gas Furnace valves seldom stick open and if one does it would be unlikley to result in a fire. Most often the house just gets very hot as when a valve sticks open the blower will usually keep running till someone realizes that the house is getting very hot, this will eventually set off smoke detectors and maybe other alarm-security systems, and when help arrives the furnace can be manually shut down.

Generally in a normal sized home with forced air heat, ONE carbon monoxide detector is plenty, CM easily travels through the home and a MO detector will give plenty of warning to occupants. Unlike a fire which can start to spread in seconds CM takes quite a while to build-up to dangerous levels.

Heat Exchangers in furnaces with holes have almost NEVER caused high CM levels in homes, normally because of the way furnaces are built a heat exchanger with cracks or holes only becomes less efficient as the air being blown over the heat exchanger is under pressure and the heat exchanger itself is under negative pressure by design. I have cousins that run an extremely honest heating and A/C business in Elkhart Indiana and they have told me that they have never seen a Carbon Monoxide problem in a building or home caused by a bad heat exchanger. This does not mean that you do not need to be careful and occasionally have your furnace checked, but most CM problems come from venting problems, leaking flue pipes, chimines Etc.

 

[combo52]

Bad Heating-A/C Service

Thanks for Sharing Allen, your taking the time to share this dreadful experience will undoubtedly save many others similar rip-offs, to say nothing of what you saved your neighbors.

I did not read all the follow-up posts in this thread just your initial post, so some of this may have already been said.

This service call should be reported to local consumer affairs, the state attorney general, local TV and radio consumer watch-dog shows, and if you have any community list-serve type services in your area, what these guys tried to do is criminal.

Other thoughts about what they said.

As you stated Gas Furnace valves seldom stick open and if one does it would be unlikley to result in a fire. Most often the house just gets very hot as when a valve sticks open the blower will usually keep running till someone realizes that the house is getting very hot, this will eventually set off smoke detectors and maybe other alarm-security systems, and when help arrives the furnace can be manually shut down.

Generally in a normal sized home with forced air heat, ONE carbon monoxide detector is plenty, CM easily travels through the home and a MO detector will give plenty of warning to occupants. Unlike a fire which can start to spread in seconds CM takes quite a while to build-up to dangerous levels.

Heat Exchangers in furnaces with holes have almost NEVER caused high CM levels in homes, normally because of the way furnaces are built a heat exchanger with cracks or holes only becomes less efficient as the air being blown over the heat exchanger is under pressure and the heat exchanger itself is under negative pressure by design. I have cousins that run an extremely honest heating and A/C business in Elkhart Indiana and they have told me that they have never seen a Carbon Monoxide problem in a building or home caused by a bad heat exchanger. This does not mean that you do not need to be careful and occasionally have your furnace checked, but most CM problems come from venting problems, leaking flue pipes, chimines Etc.

 

[combo52]

Bad Heating-A/C Service

Thanks for Sharing Allen, your taking the time to share this dreadful experience will undoubtedly save many others similar rip-offs, to say nothing of what you saved your neighbors.

I did not read all the follow-up posts in this thread just your initial post, so some of this may have already been said.

This service call should be reported to local consumer affairs, the state attorney general, local TV and radio consumer watch-dog shows, and if you have any community list-serve type services in your area, what these guys tried to do is criminal.

Other thoughts about what they said.

As you stated Gas Furnace valves seldom stick open and if one does it would be unlikely to result in a fire. Most often the house just gets very hot as when a valve sticks open the blower will usually keep running till someone realizes that the house is getting very hot, this will eventually set off smoke detectors and maybe other alarm-security systems, and when help arrives the furnace can be manually shut down.

Generally in a normal sized home with forced air heat, ONE carbon monoxide detector is plenty, CM easily travels through the home and a MO detector will give plenty of warning to occupants. Unlike a fire which can start to spread in seconds CM takes quite a while to build-up to dangerous levels.

Heat Exchangers in furnaces with holes have almost NEVER caused high CM levels in homes, normally because of the way furnaces are built a heat exchanger with cracks or holes only becomes less efficient as the air being blown over the heat exchanger is under pressure and the heat exchanger itself is under negative pressure by design. I have cousins that run an extremely honest heating and A/C business in Elkhart Indiana and they have told me that they have never seen a Carbon Monoxide problem in a building or home caused by a bad heat exchanger. This does not mean that you do not need to be careful and occasionally have your furnace checked, but most CM problems come from venting problems, leaking flue pipes, chimines Etc.

 

[arbilab]

Um, at this time of night (4:15 central), do not keep hitting "post" when the server doesn't respond. It is busy for ~3 minutes doing whatever servers do periodically/daily and when it regains consciousness it will have your commands in queue and carry them out duplicitiously.

 

[whirlcool]

I spoke with our neighbor across the street who runs his own heating and a/c company. He agreed that this is very common in the repair industry and rampant in the heating/cooling market. He said people don't care anymore. They don't want the small $100-$500 jobs anymore, they want the $5,000 jobs that really make the bucks.
A lot of the techs think that if people are stupid enough to not know enough about their a/c heating systems then they get what they deserve! Amazing.

He also said the contact the Texas Department of Regulation and Licensing. If you complain to them they will start an investigation into the company. And if the company if found to be in error, they could get their heating a/c licensing suspended or even cancelled. That's my next stop.

http://https//www.tdlr.texas.gov/

 

[norgeway]

More Crookedness...

I knew of a guy in my hometown who sold people "Energy saving nozzles" for their oil furnaces, now their are many brands of nozzles, but none are more efficient than others,he charged 25.00 for them...nozzles back in the 80s could be bought for around 2.50, in those days we charged 5.00 for them...Its very simple to diagnose a cracked heat exchanger, or a stopped up one, or simply low draft...Draft is checked by punching a small hole in the flue pipe, and inserting a draft gauge, then check the reading,if a cracked or stopped up heat exchanger is suspected, turn on the burner, then open the inspection door, if a there is a proper draft at the flue, their should be no back pressure at the inspection door, if there is..by this I mean heat and fumes coming out, then the heat exchanger needs cleaning out..to check for a crack, hold the inspection door open and wait for the blower to come on, if when it starts there is a sudden rush of heat and fumes at the inspection door, you know there is either a crack or a bad gasket ..these are things a homeowner can check himself and avoid being ripped off.