One of our two 11 year old Lennox a/c units died Friday late afternoon. The second was in extremis. We called our a/c servicing company Service Experts which had installed and had been servicing the units. As usual, they sent a salesman along with the service tech. When we were told the cost of repairing the one unit -$850 just to replace the leaking coolant - plus a new evaporator, etc. we were primed for a sale.
Both salesman and tech pushed something they call the Advantage program. It was late; we were tired; so, we signed on the dotted line. Later that evening I read the contract we signed. It was a LEASE. If we sold our house, the buyer would have to assume the lease, or we would have to pay $750 per unit to have them removed and the buyer would be left with empty space where the a/c units once were. We would still be on the hook if the buyer didn't pay. For all of this, we were going to pay roughly $35000+ over 10 years. At the end of the 10 years, the units would come out - again at our expense - or we could purchase them at an absurd residual value. Fortunately, both federal and state law allow for a 72 hour cancellation period or right of rescission for home solicitation sales which we exercised to cancel the LEASE.
I know this is long, but I wrote it to provide a basis of comparison. We got a quote from Nisair on Monday for the exact same Lennox a/c units as would have been in the SE Advantage Lease. We weren't even asked to sign a contract or give a deposit, though we chose to sign the quote. We were able to BUY the same Lennox a/c units that we would have LEASED from S/E at a savings of approximately $15,000.
Nisair sent out two experienced two man teams the next day to install the units. By 5:00 o'clock, they finished the job, cleaned up, got paid and were on their way home. Were now living in a comfortable air conditioned house.
Oh, and the icing on the cake! When our air handlers were being installed, Nisair's techs discovered the air filters, which we had been paying S/E to maintain as part of our system, had not been changed since 2019 and were filthy. read more