What a nightmare it was working with them. They seemed super friendly and motivated at first--very…read moreeager to please. They offered extra ideas, like mounting the indoor unit to the ceiling, sweeping the ducts to improve airflow, adding a duct to a new room for free, and adding bracing to our existing ducts to stop the banging. They said it would be a quick job.
Cool. These guys are awesome, right?
Then we signed the contract with a one-week start date. One week passed. Then two weeks. Then three weeks. Then a month. There was a new excuse every time. We were told they would take $250 off for all the reschedules. Fine--just please install it.
They finally got to us in January, after we could no longer take advantage of the energy rebate that was only valid through the end of the year.
When they finally showed up and started working, I noticed two major issues near the end of the day:
They installed the outdoor unit under a roof valley instead of 5 feet to the side, as discussed.
They installed the indoor unit on the floor of our basement instead of hanging it from the ceiling--in a basement that floods often. We had explicitly discussed ceiling mounting, and it was extremely important that it be installed that way.
Then, two weeks later, I realized that instead of a Carrier unit, they installed a Payne--a much cheaper, less desirable unit. It also had many folded-over cooling fins. I strongly suspect I was given a damaged unit or a showroom model.
After several months of trying to contact him--calls ignored or promises to "get back to me"--I finally spoke with him. He was very impatient. He said he would give us the $250 off as agreed, but insisted the Carrier-to-Payne swap was normal. He gave me his supplier's phone number and told me to verify that Payne was an acceptable replacement. He wouldn't even address the floor-versus-ceiling mounting issue.
So I called the supplier, who was clearly confused about why I had been given his number. After talking with him, he said, "I've convinced some of my friends and family to go with Payne to save money." I responded, "Yeah, but we didn't save any money." His response: "Yeah, that's not right at all--you should have received a significant discount."
I tried again to square things away with the installer. More ignored calls, more excuses. When we finally spoke, he was short and annoyed. I addressed all of the issues. Am I really in the wrong for paying for one thing and receiving something else--and then being ignored?
It was decided he would come out the following Tuesday to take a look and see what could be done. By this point it was mid-spring, and we were having condensation issues that needed to be addressed.
Tuesday came. Nothing. Wednesday came. Nothing. I called him, and he said he was driving back from down south due to a family emergency and planned to call everyone that night. He said he would call me. I tried to be understanding.
That was six months ago.
I've called twice since then and have now given up. I was hesitant to have someone else fix the issues because of the warranty--until a friend of mine who also does HVAC said, "Why? He's not going to honor it anyway." And honestly, he was right.
My friend came over to look at the installation. He shook his head--a lot. He said it was a very sloppy install with many cut corners. He asked, "Why would you do it like that?" at least a couple of times.
I am an extremely polite and forgiving person. I give people the benefit of the doubt--sometimes to a fault. I've dealt with many contractors over the years, and I have never dealt with one so uncaring and willing to completely ignore a customer.
