Because 0 stars is not an option for these criminals. I used Hughes for years prior to their recent ownership change. Never had a problem with the old ownership. This company with its new ownership, I wouldn't have fix my sprinklers if my lawn was on fire. I scheduled a turn on service about a month and a half ago, so I've waited to try to work out these issues and have not received the courtesy of a call back to discuss my concerns, so I'm left with leaving a review here to hopefully save others the trouble.
Hughes came out to turn on the system, and my first concern was the guy was high, 100% positive of this fact. Immediately after he turned on the system and had tested the first zone, he started digging a hole in the middle of my yard to fix a sprinkler. Maybe that's customary (one of the issues I wanted to discuss with mgmt, who wouldn't call me back) but I assume it'd be reasonable to ask me if I wanted something fixed or replaced, not just going ahead and doing it. I told him my main concern was to get the system on and notify us of any issues, and we could fix anything later, and just asked him to cap the head if it was broke. He seemed irritated with me, and he proceeded to finish capping that line, but after that, walked to the side of my house, and then walked to his truck, sat for a few minutes, and drove off.
Two days later, I noticed my sump pump was running constantly. That was strange, with 90 degree days and no rain. I walk to the valve boxes by the side of my house, and they were flooded. In fact, the entire side yard, that we can't see from our front yard or back deck, was flooded with standing water. I turn off the water to the system in the basement and after 4 days the sump pump finally stopped pumping.
I called Hughes several times after I noticed the flooding and it was several days before I got a call back, and they offered to come out 3 weeks later. I can appreciate the busy season, but it's not unreasonable to expect emergencies are addressed, either. When I finally had a new company come out to look at the system, he mentioned to me that a valve was loose immediately because water was spraying out. Surely it was something that couldn't have been missed during a turn on and he'd never seen this particular malfunction in his 20 years experience. I had not originally told this new company that Hughes had been out, I had figured it was an issue with my system. But I then relayed my recent experience with Hughes and he mentioned that it was likely a purposeful sabotage of the system. Apparently Hughes employee felt it appropriate to sabotage my system.
Throughout this period over the next 6 or 7 weeks, I have called Hughes dozens of times. I have left messages and spoke with the receptionist, and have never received a call back or been patched through to the owner or manager. That's the customer service you can expect with Hughes!
So, in closing, if you want property damage and possibly catastrophic losses to your home, hire Hughes. Any response by the company to this post can be treated as complete trash. The company had numerous opportunities to reasonably address the these issues and failed by not even reciprocating the lowest amount of courtesy due a customer. Interestingly, the Hughes employee didn't leave an invoice, and they've never called to receive payment, so it's pretty obvious there's a cover up and no records by Hughes that they were ever at my house, in an attempt to deny their criminal actions. read more