This company is awful. It appears that they love to take advantage of property owners that may not live in the state and/or customers that do not understand how HVAC systems work.
Today, our tenant complained that the heat stopped working in the middle of the night. Snowflake Air was contracted by our property management group to go out and diagnose the issue. They told us that our furnace was is poor shape, and that the capacitor for the motor was faulty. Furthermore, he told us that we needed to replace our computer board. When I asked why he thought it was in poor shape and what codes the computer board was throwing, the owner could not tell me anything, other than the unit is old; he just offered vague details.
This repair was estimated at $1000 which included a "tune-up" (btw- any company that wants to do a "tune up" is a red flag being that there is no way to "tune up" a furnace- other than wipe down the inside of the unit and possibly clean a filter)
Beyond that, they pushed at replacing the furnace with a total estimated cost at close to $6000. The only explanation given for this was that our unit was 16 years old and is almost at the end of its life. Snowflake Air claimed that they just wanted to give us options. (This reminds me of a car dealer who pushes you toward a new car because a fuse is out on your existing car.)
We decided to call another local company that told us that it was just the capacitor, and that the board was fine. The total cost was $218.
I asked the tech if our unit was close to the end of it's life. He told me that the unit was in great shape and that we could get at least another 10 to 15 years out of it and possibly more as long as we kept it in good condition.
I see that this company has good reviews, and I will say that the representative that I spoke with was nice and friendly, but it makes me wonder how many others were taken advantage of by their appearance at being kind. Clearly, I would not recommend this company, and my advice is to always get a second opinion.
In response to Snowflake Air's comments and mischaracterization of the situation is as follows:
1. I understand that you work for multiple property management companies, but that really says nothing about your character. My point is that you are able to go out to a premises where an owner may not be able to go, you are trusted to give your best opinion and a fair and honest evaluation of the issue. Clearly, you did not do this in this case, and it only leads me to assume that this type of dishonesty is the status quo- but that is a guess. As a client, I would never want to be in a situation where I have to question whether or not my vendor is honest or not.
2. I was told specifically by you that the furnace was in poor condition. When I asked why it received the poor condition label, you could not give me an answer. Furthermore, the control board was not reset. It was simply cleared of the existing codes. If there was damage, as stated by the other technician, you would see some kind of a short circuit on the back of the board. In the end, the capacitor should've been replaced first and then the board should have been tested and evaluated at that point.
3. As far as the "tune up" goes, cleaning and checking the system is not considered a tuneup. It is just considered an evaluation which should be included in any service call. The tech from the second company that we called out took care of all these items as part of his normal service fee. He did not add any charges nor did he create this bogus "tune up" term.
4. I understand now that the $6000 was for both units, but this was not made clear by you or by our management company. With that being said, neither one of those units needed to be replaced. When you bring up a needless argument to replace $6000 worth of equipment, your statements that some owners like to do this only leads me to believe that you have pushed them into replacing units that do not need to be replaced.
5. As far as your professionalism goes, I would argue that wall friendly, you like a true professional lens into what needs to be serviced and what does not. It is clear that you live convinced others to replace things that do not need to be replaced. In the end, everyone has to make up their own mind who to hire. I just want to lay out the facts for others who are looking for a reputable company. This company, for now, is not a reputable company in my opinion. I would invite you to go to the Better Business Bureau and look up code of conduct as well as code of ethics. This information might be helpful in the future. read more