*(Please pardon the minor two paragraph diatribe at the start. I'm still mad 11 years later.)*…read moreWe'd gotten sick of our non-performing central air (we were defrauded by the person who installed the old unit a decade earlier, when he was trying to offload the low SEER units he had bought before the new rules kicked in. He sold us a seriously underpowered and inefficient unit. So I started interviewing AC companies.
WILDLY different prices, units, and sizes quoted. However, a couple of the contractors were straightforward and honest in their assessments, going above and beyond in describing the units, actually using brand and model names, admitting that there are really only three AC manufacturers in the US, and all the varied brands come off of the same factory assembly lines (Carrier and Bryan, for example. Carrier is about a grand more).
But this review is about 1st Choice (Now Performance Heating and Cooling? Need to make sure Ricky Mena is still running this show...may re-edit this review to note this). and Richard, one of the people I talked to who was straight with me from the start. They (actually, Richard Mena, the owner) came out to do the inspection and quote. He explained everything they would (and might) need to do, what the cost would be, all inclusive, and provided me with something that NO other contractor did: An estimate with actual brand and part numbers on it so I could research them myself and decide if I was OK with what was being proposed. That, in and of itself, showed a level of respect I didn't get elsewhere.
Oh, and his quote was among the lowest of the six, though he was definitely not offering some off-brand, soggy-boxed unit from the warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant was studied by Top. Men. Current line production units, with a published AHSE certificate showing the two as compatible units. Installation went smoothly on the day promised.
**Update because I apparently didn't post this after writing it (me am dum): It's been a year. System is running perfectly. Power bills are at least $100 less per month than before, and it's more comfortable, even with the (ahem) alteration in atmospheric conditions [climate change -- if 98% of scientists agree it's happening, I tend to believe them rather than some nonscientist bozo running a federal agency that he was suing multiple times per year right before he was given the top job. Boy, are we winning].
At any rate, Richard Mena is trustworthy, honest, and at least for my family's house, did what he said he would do, when he said, for the price he said it would be, and it was the right system.
Highly recommended