In January of 2014, our HVAC system was acting up and not heating properly. On a particularly cold night, we lost heat altogether. In a panic, we called the emergency phone numbers of several HVAC contractors and GAC was the first to respond the following morning. They sent out a representative who came into our house and when he walked in, we explained the problem we're having. As he walked down the steps to get to our HVAC system, he said it's usually less expensive to replace the system instead of repairing it because GAC has great financing options. Then, within 15 minutes of walking in our front door, the technician did a visual inspection of the system and told us the heat exchanger was cracked, shut off our system and condemned it, and said we needed to buy a new system. He charged us $89 for the diagnosis and said one of his salesmen will call us to set an appointment and go over pricing options. So, he condemned our system within 15 minutes of inspecting it and then shut it off becuase he said it was "dangerous" and a "liability" for him to keep it on becasue of concern of CO emissions. He left us without heat altogether and said we should buy some space heaters from Home Depot until the system is repaired. By this time, it was 64 degrees in the house and we have a 4 year old child and my wife was 36 weeks pregnant. We still had a hard time agreeing with his diagnosis and didn't think it made because our HVAC system was only about 8 years old. So, we called another reputable company who sent out technicians 2 hours later to confirm whether or not we actually had a cracked heat exchanger, etc and do a review/diagnosis of our system. We needed secondary confirmation before going through $5K-$7K expense of replacing our 8 year old system. The 2nd company took their time, two technicians spent 4 hours examining our system and running it, taking it apart to check the heat exchanger, etc. They put a camera up in the system and showed us there was NO crack in the heat exchanger. They used digital monitors to measure CO levels, etc to confirm that our system was not just in good working order, but it was running efficiently! I repeat, it was running efficiently! They put all of their findings in wiriting because they were taking on the responsibility of turning our system back on after GAC had slapped a "condemned" sticker on it when they shut it down. After this detailed diagnosis, the culprit was found to be a dirty sensor that was causing the issues and once they cleaned the sensor, they turned on the system and monitored it while it cycled several times. Afterwards, we called GAC and told them to cancel having a salesman contact us with a quote to replace the system. We told them that we had another company come out and properly diagnose our system and they had fixed it and turned it back on for us. GAC cancelled the sales call but more revealing to us was that GAC NEVER called us back to confirm that we had the system repaired properly nor did they offer to send out another techinician to verify whether or not the system was in fact safe to keep and operate or whether the system needed replacement (as their technician claimed when he shut it down and condemned it). One would think they would at least call us to follow up since they shut down and condemned the system out of safety concerns...So, here we are in late July, six months later, and our system is still working flawlessly. The $500 we spent on careful diagnosis by an honest, competent company made all the difference. With 2 kids, every penny counts for us and I'm glad we didn't shell out $5-$7K on a new system from GAC. I know Gaithersburg Air has good reviews which is why we called them. But, our experience with them was awful and it could have been awfully costly. It's clear to us that they are more of an HVAC sales company rather than a maintenance and repair company. We will never use them again. Do yourself a favor, DO NOT call this company and shop around if you want proper diagnosis, maintenance and repair of your system. read more