MY HEROES! (Saved me $15,000!)
One chilly morning my wife complained that the furnace was not working. I checked my 34 yr. old Carrier HVAC and was alarmed to find water all around the base of the unit. I opened the front panels and saw water had leaked through a screw hole in the plate separating the blower chamber (where the fans are) from the combustion chamber, but it wasn't obvious where the water was coming from.
Panicked, I called Atlas-Trillo, who had serviced my furnaces before and scheduled an appointment for 10 a.m. the next day. When the technician showed up at 2 p.m. he spent about 2 hours inspecting everything and then gave me the bad news that there were rusted holes in the chiller coils and drain pan and that the water was coming from freezing and thawing ice blocks. The chilling unit had to be replaced, but since the unit was so old, and new technology was incompatible, I would need to replace the ENTIRE system.
He insisted on scheduling an appointment for a salesman to come out that day or the next and advised that replacement cost might be anywhere from $12 - 15 THOUSAND dollars! (I believe he actually said, "Don't faint, when you hear the price.) I replied that I needed to confer with my wife first. The service fee for this advice was $99.
Since this was a major problem, I began to call all of the HVAC companies I could find in the YELP website listings for a second opinion. I called EIGHT (8) other service companies starting with Saturn HVAC. Each time I got one of three responses: 1) phone was not answered, or 2) left a message on answer machine voice-mail, or 3) the earliest available appointment was 2-3 weeks out. One company warned me that there was a $120 service charge regardless of what was found. I got a return call from another company the next day and I never heard back from any of the others.
Thankfully, Chris from Saturn HVAC called me about 7 p.m. that same night and suggested that the water might be coming from condensation leaking through a rusted drip pan in the chilling unit but he doubted that there were rusted holes in the coils. He said that he could send someone over the first thing the next morning to check it out.
Geraldo showed up at 8:30 the next day and after about 30 minutes told me that he was able to fix a commonly found minor problem and that the furnace and A/C were "good to go". WHAAAAT? He found a blocked up condensation drain line and he showed me the blocked segment he cut out and replaced..... problem solved. He also gave me a quick lesson in how my A/C works. 1) ALL air conditioners create water from condensation in or around the chilling chamber (you see it all the time in running window A/C units that have an external drain line dripping); 2) the condensation water has to be drained to the outside and away from the unit through a pipe or hose; and 3) if the drain line is blocked or clogged, water will back up and leak out of the unit.
I happily paid the $200 service fee (which actually included some service and parts) and gave Geraldo a generous tip as well..... he had just saved me $15,000!!
Moral of my story: Caveat Emptor...ALWAYS get a second opinion about HVAC repairs. Also, call Saturn HVAC first.... I don't know about you, but I'm NEVER calling Atlas-Trillo again (and I'm taking all of their service stickers off of my equipment). read more