I have been a fan of Central City Air (CCA) for more than 20 years - I appreciated their late founder's innovative engineered approach to AC systems that was in stark contrast to the typical industry cookie-cutter solutions. CCA installed our last AC system in 2000 for $9,200 (a lot of money back then) and I'm happy to say that it continues to serve us well. Their service technicians are courteous and competent, but I continue to be disappointed with their service/repair pricing, particularly their crazy mark-up on parts. Strange business model: build and install some of the best HVAC systems in Houston and get a premium price for it - fair is fair after all, but then extort their customers on repairs giving their customers a reason NOT to choose CCA to design/install their next system.
In 2013, CCA came out to replace a contactor and the cost for the contactor was about 10 times the retail price - CCA charged $350 for 20 minutes of labor and a $20 contactor.
Last night, the compressor turned on but the indoor blower fan didn't. The night was going to be reasonably cool, 71F, so I left a voice message on CCA's system asking for service call in the morning - I also made an online request for service and followed up with an e-mail with our particulars. We didn't get a call from CCA in the morning, so we called them at 9:30. Our previous requests hadn't been acted on. CCA said a technician wouldn't be able to come out until 4PM.
While waiting for the tech to arrive, I began to worry that the fan motor might have failed, and, being late on Friday, I could just imagine being without AC until a replacement fan could be secured on Monday. I confirmed that the fan motor worked when connected to power - I added a jumper to bypass the HVAC control board. My suspicions then focused on the fan switch built into the HVAC control board. I found a replacement control board on Amazon (among others) selling for $91 plus shipping.
The technician arrived at 4:15 PM and, in less than six minutes, he confirmed that the motor was good and the control board had indeed failed. He had a replacement board on his truck and offered to install it for $545, which was their discounted price (6% below their standard pricing). The installation would involve unplugging 12 wires from the old board and plugging them into the new one - probably 10 minutes at most. I really wanted CCA to get a sale - after all, the tech drove an hour through Friday rush-hour traffic, but $545 was just a ridiculous price for that scope of work.
I called their service manager and the tech called the owner to see if CCA would consider doing the job for, a more-reasonable but still highly-profitable, $300, but CCA's management refused to budge on price, so, unfortunately, the CCA tech left at 4:40 PM with only the $70 trip charge. I purchased the control board on Amazon and wired in a remote switch to turn the fan on and off when needed until the control board arrives on Monday.
Had CCA been more reasonable on pricing - or at least been willing to negotiate, they would have walked away with at least $230 (and perhaps a bit more) in additional service revenue without spending much additional technician time, and I would have nothing but praise to heap on Central City Air at this point. Oh well. read more