WATER POURING FROM OUR LAUNDRY ROOM CEILING!-But later found out that wasn't the worst damage they had done. DISASTROUS. We needed a new HVAC. We had a quote from Alliance but they were 5 weeks out, so we got a quote from Matt Hall, almost the same price, had seemingly good reviews and could do it in "one day" the next week "because he has so many install teams". It seemed good at first, the guys were nice, the system looked good and everything turned on. Within a week we tried to use the heater and it wouldn't turn on. Tim returned, fiddled with something in the attic, said "these wires sometimes come loose", and it then worked. The following Sunday, it started getting hot so we began running the AC, by late afternoon water started pouring from the ceiling of our laundry room (underneath our unit)! Water pouring from the light fixture and anywhere else it could escape from above. We had 5gal buckets trying to keep the floor from flooding. I made many urgent calls to Halls, getting more frantic as I emptied buckets. After a few hours, the tech called back and finally came over (requiring me to babysit his very active 6yr. old for 3 hours). He tried unsuccessfully to make repairs, until Tim also showed up. After trips to Home Depot and installing a type of sump pump in the attic, they finally said it was good, Tim said "even better". We were still very concerned (A BRAND NEW $$$$ UNIT!) it needed this pump for proper drainage?! It sounded like a garbage disposal kicking on constantly day and night above our ceiling. We finally climbed up and took a look, and were SHOCKED! It looked like a homeless camp. The water tray under the unit was hanging quite uneven, partially unattached, with trash and spare sheet metal connectors supporting it. There was left over junk everywhere (PVC, sheet metal, pipes, connectors, wood 2X4s, nuts, bolts), holes drilled into the side of the unit with no screws, the side of it dented in, sheet metal straps barely or unattached holding it up, cold air blowing from many exposed gaps, duct work that had been pristine was now smashed and stepped on, and wood supports to our trusses supporting our roof had been sawed out and were laying there. We made many, many calls to Matt Hall begging him to please come personally and inspect, finally he agreed the next Thursday. He climbed up, took out handfuls of leftover trash and parts the guys had left, agreed it could use a little more work but that the pump was a good thing and the only solution. We asked if different technicians could be sent, as we were now very skeptical of the original crew. He insisted he wanted the same guys to return so they could be embarrassed by their work and wanted ME to tell them that. We urged him to send someone else, he then said that was his "only install team". We then politely mentioned we would have to think about all this and it could lead to litigation. He then changed his tune and said he would see who else he could find to send over. He later emailed us to offer to send his office manager to do the repairs. We reached back out to Alliance, the owner, Martin, came personally to inspect. He did a thorough inspection (was shocked we passed the City of Redding inspection) and agreed to send a crew to correct the many problems he saw. T.J. and Duke were extremely professional and thorough. They worked for an entire day, dismayed by the shoddy work they encountered. They replaced the duct work Halls had damaged, reversed the 'coil' of the unit and rehung it properly and securely, had to reattach damaged sheet metal to the unit and bend it out from where Halls had crushed it in causing the interior insulation to be choking onto the coil (would have certainly been cause for failure soon), reconnect the PVC drainage that now would work since unit was mounted properly, and remove the sump pump, install a new part (I can't remember what it was called) that should have been replaced with the new unit but Halls had used our old part and poorly sealed it- that's why cold air was escaping from all sides and loose insulation kept blowing out of our vents into the house. While patching up many of the extra holes Halls had drilled into the unit, T.J. and Duke were alarmed to see that Halls had used very long screws into the sides of the new unit. Duke said only shorter screws should be used because longer ones can damage internal parts, which they found. They also did their best to repair our wood trusses. Duke said if Halls had just removed them from the staple plates (customary) it's easy to replace, but Halls had sawed them out!-and left them out. Alliance did contact Matt Hall for us and Matt agreed to pay their bill. We believe Matt Hall is a good guy, but his team is not the professionals we expected. We will always regret not waiting the 5 weeks for Alliance to do the job right the first time. Yes, this is the longest Yelp ever, but wanted to warn people, be careful. read more
