I'm giving these guys 2 stars because I am happy with our new heating/a/c unit for the most part, simply because I'm happy to have heat and air conditioning. But... we've had our unit for almost a year now. Our A/C went out last summer. When they came to fix it, they "found" that our furnace in addition to the a/c needed to be replaced. This was on a Friday.
My husband has a heart condition, so we were concerned about the heat wave that was going through and how to handle it over the weekend. The salesperson finally talked us into a new unit at 5:30 in the evening. At this point, we knew we would not get to talk to another company for a second opinion until the next week sometime. We listened to how this unit would really cost us about $3,500 less than the actual price due to a $1,000 rebate (which turned out to be $500) and a tax credit of $1,500 (which you only get, depending on what YOUR individual taxes are), etc. In the end , the new unit cost over $10,000. It didn't really hit us until we got our final bill, because it's all laid out very "smoothly" so that the bottom, final number (after "savings") is less than the top, actual cost number. It's deceiving.
We were happy to get the new unit on Monday and happy that we felt like we were getting fast service after a very hot and miserable weekend. They said the unit would be covered for 10 years (as in guarantee and warranty) if we took their service plan. The service plan was included for the first 3 years, but we would have to pay for it the final 7 years. What they don't tell you when they are doing their sales pitch is that the service plan ONLY includes coming out to check your unit. It does NOT include routine maintenance or if they find anything wrong, or if it needs service.
They would like you to schedule your service checks before the weather gets cold for the furnace and before it gets hot for the a/c. On the one hand, this is good because it seems it would catch problems before you need to use it. On the other hand, this means that you have no idea if the unit is working properly because you have not had it on. If there is a problem later, you pay for that service call. When they came out last Fall to check the furnace, they warned us that the Humidistat would likely cause the windows to fog up - it was the same sales pitch we got when we bought it. We thought this would help with the dry air in the house, but it has not. We had the Humidistat set on the max it would go and never had foggy windows nor did the unit show a humidity level in the house even close to the lowest they said it would read.
As it turns out, the humidifier that is attached to the furnace leaked all winter. They started calling us to check our a/c in March. Our schedule never worked out until June, which we figured would be better anyhow, because we will have used the a/c unit by then. We got a call the day they were scheduled to come saying they couldn't make it because they had people without any air conditioning that they needed to see right away. I can understand that, so they came the following week.
After they came to "check" (not service as it appears in the Service Plan) our a/c, I realized just how much Bob Hamilton is out after your money and does not care about YOU! They replaced the filter in the Humidifier to the tune of almost $100. The a/c unit "needed" to be torqued to clean the debris. That cost another $200. They said it could not be cleaned out with a water hose. My husband watched the guy do this and still does not understand why it needed to be torqued. It barely had any debris in there.
Please understand, we've had this unit less than a year. When I called the company, they said this was all routine maintenance and that it is not covered under the service plan. What happened to the 10-year warranty/guarantee??? I feel like we've been royally screwed!!! I cannot recommend this company to anyone at all.
more