Bottom Line Up Front: Shoddy workmanship, lack of integrity, terrible customer service, and complete lack of responsibility or accountability for any of it on the part of this company. Do business with them at your own risk.
We purchased both a heating and air conditioning unit in 2015 from Spencer Heating and Air. Shortly after the heater was installed we started hearing a loud, banging noise every time the unit would shut off. My wife reported the issue to Brian, the owner. He downplayed it, saying it was normal and alluded that perhaps it was an issue with our vents. Funny that our prior unit never made a noise like this. One three separate occasions, different contractors heard the noise and immediately stated we should have the heater checked. Each time we questioned the noise, Brian or one of his techs said the heater was fine.
In March 2018 our basement flooded when tubing from the unit clogged. We paid Spencer $588 to repair the condenser pump and replace the tubing. The $588 covered the cost of the repairs, as well as a prepaid 1-year maintenance plan (which covered spring and fall cleanings/check-ups for the a/c and heater, as well as any emergency visits). The spring maintenance was never performed.
When Spencer called to schedule fall maintenance on the heater, we asked if the spring maintenance on the A/C unit could be performed in the same visit. They refused and said spring maintenance would need to wait until spring of 2019. In other words, they just decided to blow off their contractual obligation.
Fall maintenance was scheduled for Oct 16th. During the call, my wife confirmed that the check-up/cleaning was included in the pre-paid maintenance plan and was told it was. On the afternoon of September 25th at 3:00 pm, my wife received a call stating that a technician was in the area and could be at our home in 10 minutes to perform the fall maintenance. She said yes. The tech was in our basement for whopping 7 minutes before he walked upstairs and went to his truck to get new filters. He installed new filters and handed my wife a bill for $86.97...for filters that can be bought for $22 on Amazon. Without disclosing ahead of time that the cost of the filters was not included in the service contract. Fine...the cost isn't included, but $86.97? When my wife complained, the tech got pissy and went downstairs and took the filters out and put the dirty ones back in.
Three days after fall the comprehensive 7-minute fall "maintenance" visit, our basement flooded again because of the heating unit. My wife took pictures and texted Brian the owner and got no response. She called a different heating and air conditioning company that is actually competent and responsive. The new company found that the condenser pump was broken (and probably had been for a while based on build up). Several feet of tubing was clogged - literally black. They confirmed that tubing was not fully replaced in March as it should have been by Spencer. Last they found a broken trap that had been patched back together with silicon glue in multiple places and that was being held together with zip ties (I can only guess left over from the quality repair job they did in March). The tech said these things should not have been missed if the unit had been properly inspected three days earlier.
My wife called and texted Spencer Heating and Air multiple times. Brian refused to respond to texts or return phone calls for more more than two weeks. We requested a refund for the "repairs" that were supposedly done in March, and got blown off. We filed a Better Business Bureau Complaint and at this point would be happy getting the bogus service contract refunded. No response from him.
And lest you think this is a one-off, it's not. You can read about someone else's experience with Spencer here: https://www.bbb.org/us/ny/syracuse/profile/heating-contractors/spencer-heating-air-0041-57100823/complaints
Bottom Line: If you work with this company, just hope everything is perfect. Because if something goes wrong, Spencer is going to leave you hanging in the wind. read more
