I have had Appleton Campbell come out twice to my house. The first time was for a routine system check. They wanted to charge something like 250.00 to check the AC since I had two systems. I ended up paying for just one system check on the unit I had a concern about. The charge for that was around 150.00 if I remember correctly. Took them about 45 minutes to do the check and I was very happy with the technician though the price seemed a bit high. The second time I called was about a month later when the problem unit stopped working. I was pretty sure the capacitor was out but lowes and home depot do not carry that part. They charged 49.99 for the service call and verified that it was the capacitor that had gone bad. The cost to repair was around 350 dollars. This was to replace a 28.00 capacitor which would take less than 5 minutes to do. (they took the capcitor out to test it. one screw and 5 spade connectors) I asked why and was told that it was the price in the book and that was that. I also got the statement that you are paying for our expertise and the part being available on our truck as well as a warranty on the part. BTW they use a "universal capcitor" what from all I have read is not as good as the OEM part. What a rip off it is just ludicrous. They are taking advantage of the need for AC and the knowledge most homeowners do not have the ability to fix these things themselves. I mean seriously this is like going to Jiffy lube and being told that because they are a trained expert at changing oil and guarantee that the oil you use is good we charge 350.00 for an oil change. If you calculate the hourly rate based on a generous 10 minutes to replace the capacitor they are charging 1794.00 dollars an hour after doubling the cost of the capacitor and subtracting that from the price quoted. While Appleton Campbell gets this horrible review I have heard others are just as bad. I ordered two capacitors for the failed unit plus a capacitor for the other unit for a total of right around 115 dollars including next day air. Now I have a spare capacitor for each unit and spent a 1/3rd of what Appleton Campbell would have charged. Shameful! read more

In aug 2017, I had them come out to repair a 5 year old system and without touching anything the technician told us we needed to rip out the system the competition put in and replace it with theirs to the tune of $16-$18 thousand. He stated that the compressors were dead. Called someone else and that tech replaced a fuse on the outside unit and had it up and running again costing 75.00$. How could that tech look me in the face and quote me 16,000 $ and still sleep at night? read more

Terrible. I've had it with this company. The last time I used them on my house, the technician was 3 hours late. The office could not get in touch with him and then when he arrived, he said that he hit traffic in Culpeper. Really? 3 hours worth????? Now, I am waiting at another house and the technician is 3 hours late and they can't find him. The renter took off work to let me in and the technician is no where to be found. Ridiculous. Also when these guys do show up, they use scare tactics to get you to spend more money on replacements, etc. SHADY!!! read more

Do not use Appleton Campbell! They did a plumbing job wrong, caused damage, and tried to duck responsibility for it. Thankfully, I made a stop payment with my bank. The job was a very basic: install a standard kitchen faucet. Five days later, the faucet started leaking. Apparently the plumber Danny didn't tighten the connector hose enough. One morning, I saw rapid drips coming from where the faucet hose connects to the house pipes. To stop it, I used my thumb and finger to tighten the screw and the drips stopped. If I can turn a screw with my fingers only and without a tool, then it's too loose. I estimate that the drip started at night and continued all night until when I unexpectedly splashed through at 6 am. The drip was serious enough that it left a 6 foot x 3 foot puddle of standing water one floor below the kitchen. Fortunately it was an unfinished basement. Unfortunately my kitchen's hardwood floor warped. Basically, I paid a contractor to damage my floor and bill me $512. One would think that given the above circumstances, they'd be embarrassed and ashamed. No. Instead they tried to duck responsibility. They dispatched a different plumber to examine, and the way he acted, it was clear that Appleton was trying to avoid taking responsibility. When I explained the facts and my observations, the second "Master Plumber" was dismissive of them all. He made excuses and refuted everything I said. Me: I saw it leaking. Appleton Campbell (AC): did you record it? No! I was in crisis mode frantically trying to save my kitchen floor from further damage. Me: I had to tight the screw. AC: the previous plumber is a Master Plumber; they don't make those kinds of mistakes. ME: The rug by the sink was wet. AC: Show us. Me: look at the hardwood floor warping! AC: Wood doesn't act that way when wet. ME: There's a 6' x 3' puddle in the basement! AC: It's not directly underneath the sink. Plus there's a lot of snow melting. ME: It dripped through the ceiling. AC: Ceiling's not wet. ME: That's because 6 hours of drying happened before they showed up. AC: The cabinet underneath the sink is dry. ME: Of course! I cleaned it up. Should I have just left it soaking in a pool of water? Me: The previous plumber didn't tighten the screws enough. AC: It wouldn't have started 5 days later. Me: Yes, if it was on just enough to hold until something brushes against it. AC: too much water for just drips. Me: It had dripped 10 hours straight. Excuses and denials instead of apologies. I made a big enough fuss, that they eventually refund me the money. That's only because I demanded it and even then Jason the manager demanded I sign a waiver absolving them of liability. An honorable company would offer a refund upfront and do so apologetically. I'm glad I did a stop payment on the check, because I'm not certain I would have gotten my $512 back. When I told them that I stopped the check, both the plumber and manager Jason were offended and indignant that I didn't trust them. They said they have a good reputation with the community. Maybe, but I never used them before so they were a bunch of strangers to me. No wonder why most of the posters rate them a 1 star. Poor workmanship and damages aside, even if the job went well, I still had my reservations about using them simply because of the price. They charged $521 to install a kitchen faucet. That's right, folks. Five hundred twenty one dollars for a basic, off the shelf faucet from Lowes. It took just slightly over an hour to install. Wow! Doctors and K street law firm associates don't charge that much. AC must be sensitive to the criticism. In their sales pitch for their annual maintenance contract (yes, they push this just as other posters said), they have a full page dedicated to trying to justify high prices. I mentioned the price on the phone and heard the same spiel that other posters on this site said: Pay for the truck, office overhead, quality, etc. All contractors have trucks and offices so I don't understand why they have costs that others don't have. One final comment. The previous owners of the house contacted Appleton to rectify findings in the home sale inspection. They didn't use AC because of the price. Here's the funny part. They still tried to push their annual maintenance even though the owners were moving in a month. Don't use Appleton Campbell. The low Yelp rating is not an accident. read more

On 22 June, Ron, from Appleton Campbell,came out to do an estimate for duct installation in my basement, which I am having finished. He said he would have the estimate to me the next week. After two weeks with no estimate, I called the office. The woman who answered the phone said she would check. She then told me that the estimate was almost completed and would e-mail it to me. After SIX WEEKS, I still had not received an estimate. I called the office again. The woman that answered checked with someone and then said they would e-mail the estimate to me right away. She even double checked my e-mail address. After another week, with no response, I contacted another company. They came out that day, gave me a reasonable estimate and completed the work a couple of days later. I will never call Appleton Campbell again for anything. read more

This company is as dishonest as they come. While I do believe that they do a good job with the actual work (from what I hear), they are shady at best when it comes to diagnosing/fixing a problem. Not only are their prices WAYYYY more expensive than other HVAC companies, but they also try to upsell you on things you do not need. They also use scare tactics to make you think that you need something replaced/fixed when you actually do not. I am basing all of this feedback above on the fact that I had 2 HVAC companies come out to my house after Appleton Campbell quoted us an exorbitant amount of money. They both came in with quotes for HALF as much a Appleton and said that much of the work that Appleton was suggesting as necessary was BS. We will will NEVER call Appleton Campbell EVER again. They are crooked, lying and disgusting. read more

I've used various hvac firms over the years with my rental houses and starting 8 years ago use Appleton Campbell exclusively - they are the most friendly, honest, and professional firm I've had the pleasure of working with. I give them 5 stars in every category! read more

Great work, reliable and polite employees, everything was very well done. Highly recommend!

We have used Appleton Campbell on several occasions and they have never disappointed. From the time I call to make the appointment until the job is finished they are courteous, professional and very easy to work with. Each time they have been to my house, the technicians have made sure that I thoroughly understood the work that was going to be done to fix the problem at hand. I have no hesitation recommending them to any of my friends and family. read more

I had a water line, which is a copper line, installed along with a shut off valve. The cost was $600. Very good young men did the install but I should not have had them do the work for that price. Once they gave me that price, I should have ate the $49 for them showing up. The workers were very smart and knew their line of work. I will never use this company again because I could have had the work done for much cheaper by certified plumbers. Again, very respectable workers-terrible price- Not happy- my mistake in the end for letting them do the work at that outrageous cost - read more

Came to the rescue with an air conditioning problem. Very pleasant customer service staff scheduled the appt. Tech arrived on time. Knowledgeable, thorough, polite, professional tech. Problem solved! Very satisfied with the service. read more

This is the first time I ever wrote anything on Yelp but I am sitting here at my daughters house sweating while I am waiting on a technician to come and look at her air conditioner which I bought for her and had it installed on June 5th, less than 60 days ago. It all started with the first call to Appleton Campbell. They were very nice and helpful on the phone. The gentleman who came to give me a quote was also very nice and seemed very knowledgeable. I went ahead and signed the contract that night. They went above and beyond by bringing window units out to keep the house cool while our unit was ordered. I guess you could say the day of installation is where things started getting mixed up. Approximately, 3 hrs into installation, the tech told me that the wrong unit had been ordered and they didn't notice until it was already installed. The tech said that they could make it work so I agreed. Well, the unit stopped working on July 26th, a Saturday. Today is Monday, so I called this morning with a number I got from their website. The person who answered, said that she pulled our information up and that the unit was installed on June 2nd. I explained that it was not installed until June 5th which she still disagreed. I asked how long they guaranteed their work and if I would be charged. She said she didn't know but could schedule me a date sometime other than today and then they could put me on a waiting list if they could fit me in today. She asked if I wanted her to do that. I said since it sounded like I don't have a choice to go ahead. Approximately 10 minutes later ( around 9:00 am) someone else called and said they had a tech finishing up another call and then they would be here. I asked for a phone call when they were en route. I also told this person about what happened with the wrong unit and she told me that it did not happen. She said they would never do that. I had to come over here around 1:00 so I called when I got here and was told that the tech was finished and they should be here in thirty minutes. She said she would notify the tech that I am onsite. Around 2:00 pm another person called me to say the tech would be here at 3:00. I asked to speak with a manager because I didn't appreciate the way my calls had been going. She first gave me the name of her Sales Manager. I said I wanted the name of her operations manager. She gave a big sigh and said he was that too. I asked her what the sigh was about and she said she didn't sigh. You can imagine how frustrated I was at that point. The conversation with the manager was unbelievable as well. Instead of letting me talk and tell him what had happened from my standpoint, he interrupted me every step of the way. He said that the installation date was correct in their system but the first person I spoke to didn't read the computer correctly but the date was on the paperwork left with the system (had he listened he would have known that I was not at the house where the paperwork and AC unit were). He did confirm that the unit installed was not the correct unit and went on to tell me that the one installed was more costly and they could take it out and put in the one I ordered if that is what I want. He told me that I spoke with too many different people and that is why things were mixed up. I only called one number and different employees answered each time. I guess that was my fault. When I said that I didn't appreciate the employee telling me that they never installed a different unit when I just told her the truth about what happened and that I didn't appreciate the sigh from the other employee, he said that I was clearly emotional and that they were going to fix the problem. I doubt he will use the feedback I gave him to better train his employees. I got the feeling that he would hang up and say something unpleasant about me. That's O.K. though because I will certainly use this experience in training my own employees. Well the tech has arrived, so I will post how it turns out later. The tech was polite and knowledgeable. He located the issue very quickly and had the part to fix it. It was covered under the warranty so there was no charge. After about 2 hours of work we had AC again. All of the technicians that came out were very polite and knowledgeable but I will not call this company again due to the phone conversations I had with their office staff and management. read more

The front office seems very professional. They dispatched 2 guys to our home for an estimate, guys were very courteous and professional. They took few minutes of their time to assess the work - replacing water heater and couple of faucets. When they presented the estimate, it was shocking! The cost to estimate a gas powered water heater was 3.5 times of other two estimates I had from a local well known plumbing companies in business for many many years. Similarly, the cost for replacing sink faucets were 5 times ($700+ per faucet for labor). This is absurd and this company should not be considered for doing business in Nothern Virginia, Looking at some of the reviews on Yelp, it is quite clear. read more

Our first experience with this company was back in Summer of 2010 with a repair to our air conditioner unit as well as replacing the thermostat in the living room. Things went well enough then.. or so we thought. Fast forward to winter of 2015. We were having some issues with the heat pump or perhaps it was the thermostat?? We weren't sure so clearly that's why we called Appleton Campbell. $45.00 just to get them to show up and then they wanted an additonal fee to do a diagnostic so were were looking at just under $200.00 BEFORE anything was even repaired! So, we decided to just have the thermostat replaced again to see if that would fix the issues. They wanted to charge us a crazy amout (I can't remember the exact amount but it was a few hundred dollars) to replace it. They explained that it was expensive because their thermostats carry a 5 yr warranty. SO I then said mentioned that the one we currently had was one that they installed Summer of 2010 and that it should still be under warranty. The techs then told me that they did not have record of them doing it and that we were basically out of luck. The tech called his manager at the office, explained the situation and he basically said.. too bad. The techs KNEW I was telling the truth as I was even able to describe the guy from 2010 and it was clear that we had not had any other company working on our system since then. The techs said that the guy from 2010 is no longer with the company but he was known to do shady things while he was working for them which was why he was no longer under their employment. The manager was not even willing to work out a discount even though he I am quite sure he knew that we were telling the truth. This was just a terrible experience and I would never ever use them again nor would I recommend them to anyone. read more