VALLEY HEATING & COOLING

They on time did the service within a good time.

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Roger was very professional and helpful and thorough with my questions. There was a travel charge for weekday work within the local area which I felt was unfair. The service few was fair and the cost of parts was also fair. I have had this service done before and it was on average $60-75 cheaper.

I first did business with VH&C when I moved into my house more than 10 years ago. I chose them to install a new Trane unit which they did quickly and professionally. When the compressor went out on it a few weeks ago they responded quickly and the technician worked for an hour in the mid-day heat to try to fix the problem and avoid a costly replacement. Unfortunately it was not fixable but he made the effort. I don't think a lot of companies would go that extra mile to save the customer money like that so I was impressed with the tech's integrity. So when my a/c stopped blowing air two days ago I did not hesitate to call them to check it out. This time things didn't go quite as smoothly.


The technician who arrived was an older gentleman named Willie. Unlike the courteous, helpful young men who had always showed care and concern for solving my problems, Willie was a dour, humorless man who seemed as if he'd rather be elsewhere. I had to explain twice where the crawlspace was to access the handler. After I pointed him in the right direction the second time he trudged unsmiling around to the back of the house. Approximately five minutes later he came back to my front door and said, "There's too much jungle back there. I don't think I want to work on it." I said, "Ok..." and was about to tell him to let me check out the problem and give him a hand when he simply turned and walked out. No apology, no "have a nice day," nothing. Needless to say I was a smidge angry when I called the Valley office but I kept my composure and told the nice lady who answered the phone what happened. I then said, "Now can you send someone who DOES want to work on my a/c or do I need to call someone else?" She apologized and promised to send someone out as soon as posible.


While I waited for the other guy, I went out and checked the crawlspace door that had so stymied Willie. Weeds had indeed grown up around the door but mostly there was a cover of wildflower creeper vines hanging from the saplings next to the porch so that there was a canopy of flowery foliage over the area. I took my electric weedeater and whacked away some of the growth and pulled the creepers aside, making a clear path to the door. The entire process took three minutes. But it was three minutes that Willie just couldn't spare. Willie had better things to do.


A little over an hour later two Valley techs arrived. When I told them what happened they seemed about as annoyed as I was. One of them, a young man named Roger explained that Willie was an independent tech who did work for Valley on a subcontract basis. So apparently he tended to shrug off jobs he didn't find apealing, which, as Roger put it, "gives Valley a bad name." I agreed and told them that next time I would just wait for them to become available and that Willie was not welcome on my property.


Roger and his help then went to work. They checked my a/c system, explained what was going on with it and what was needed to fix it. They then did the job like pros and in short order had my a/c running like new. This was what I had expected from Valley to begin with. Roger and the technician with him was prompt and professional. They had the attitude of pros bent on doing their job. Willie could learn a thing or two from these young upstarts. I highly recommend that if you call them with your heating and cooling needs, tell them to send their guys, NOT a subcontracted worker. Or at the very least, DON'T send Willie.


I originally ended this review on a high note recommending these guys with high marks all around. But then I got my bill. It was outrageous. The parts cost was in the parameters quoted by the tech. But the labor was double that and then they tacked on a seventy dollar TRIP CHARGE. OK, I can swallow the parts and labor charge. It was a bit painful but I understood it. But I have done business with these guys for years, given them THOUSANDS of dollars and they want to gouge me for another $70.00 to drive to my house. I live, literally, five minutes from them. So I gave them a call and talked to a nice lady who pleasantly shrugged off my terse questions on the matter. She told me they had fuel costs and other expenses to cover just to drive to my house to do the work that I already pay for. She didn't care how close I was or that we had a business relationship going back more than a decade.  This was their policy and she was going to stick by it. Nice. Real nice.


Bottom line: I enthusiastically support local businesses and I'm pretty loyal when it comes to companies I can trust. But start taking my business for granted and then gouge me because you can is a great way to lose it. The attitude of Valley Heating and Cooling's subcontracted guy and the cavalier gouging with a bogus "trip charge" has really gotten me to rethink who I am going to call next time I have a problem with my heating and cooling. I am positive there is no shortage of companies who recognize that in this economy, customers don't have extra cash lying around that they'll be glad to hand over "just because." I'm sure there's plenty of companies who will be glad to drive out for FREE just to get my loyal, reliable business. Next time, I'm giving someone else a shot.  

 I called Valley Heating and Cooling and they sent a repair men to my house four days later (two days later than they promised). The service man reported that I had a lose drain plug and he reported that he fixed the problem and it was find to turn on the unit and it would not leak. The next moring I had water all over my floor and my ceiling was ruined (had to replase two sheets of sheetrock). I called another company (Mr. Rifrigerator) and they had to replace a drip pan and they installed a over flow switch to cut off the unit if the problem happened again. I will never used Vally Heating and Cooling again.