My father in law has "a guy" for everything. He's a small business owner himself and knows a car guy, a pool guy, a taxi guy, a real estate guy, you name it.
So when it came time for us to find an HVAC guy, my husband called his dad, and then we called Hobson Heating & Cooling.
Owen (who owns the business) came out himself to look things over. He had a sort of gruff demeanor, but in a friendly way. He did a lot of measuring, asked some questions, confirmed a few things I'd already heard or suspected, and dissed a competing national HVAC company, home warranty companies, and the developers who built our house. (All sort of amusing.)
After poking and measuring and asking, he said he would get us a quote and sure enough, a few days later a written quote showed up -- for a new furnace, AC, coil, thermostat and installation. While it was certainly a large number, it wasn't unexpected, and seems very fair given the magnitude of work involved.
The only real problem we encountered was scheduling wasn't as fast as I might've liked -- but it's a small operation and he's a busy guy, so not their fault.
Owen and his son showed up bright and early on a Friday morning to get things going ... and then discovered various fun facts about our house along the way.
Such as: the chimney was the wrong shape to handle the furnace. (So he offered to replace it... free of charge!) Oh, and the ductwork on the first floor is smaller than the ductwork on the second floor. (Apparently Pulte is sort of lousy at these things. Thanks, Pulte.)
And they couldn't finish the furnace in one day.
But that's ok, because we have AC now, the house is wonderfully cool, and we also know we have an HVAC guy we can trust. read more