The Cooler Co

They did a good job at putting it in. They were way overpriced. I wasn’t happy with it because I thought it was ugly, but it’s my fault. A neighbor one house down from mind had just put one in and I didn’t look at it. If I had looked at it I would have never got that thing, but it works. Then every year they have to come out and take out the stuff and put everything back in. We can’t do it ourselves. That I didn’t like either, I like to be able to do it myself and save some money. It seems to be a good system. They cut the wall and then they put these vents up in the ceiling. That I never would have had either. I thought they were going to have it coming up through the furnace, through the vents. I really wasn’t too happy with that. I really don’t need it, but my family, they are always real hot and I’m always cold. You have to suffer sometimes so others can be comfortable. I would give them a 4 because they did put it in. Every time you call they come out, but they’re going to charge you every time they come out. I’ve had just one problem with it and they came right on out and took care of it. Their punctuality I would give them a 5 for that. Professionalism – I would give them a 5 for that too.

As expected

While The Cooler Company is a bit more expensive than what you will find with other companies, they provide a top-of-the-line cooler from Breezeair and perform quality work. The ducts look great, as does the cooler. Everything works properly and as expected and the technicians stayed around until we were happy with the unit. In the dead of summer heat when the outside temperature can reach 95+, the cooler is able to keep the indoor temp down to 67 if desired. They also work with xcel on getting the rebate offered by them, with no work on the homeowners part.

First, I'll say their customer service is friendly, and Jeremy, the tech who came out today, was personable, knowledgeable and thorough. He took time to answer my questions and explain some things to me, and even called ahead of time when he thought he might be a little late. And most importantly, the cooler is now working. That said, I will not be using this company again because of their insanely, obscenely high markup on parts. I thought the final bill was high, but it wasn't until I did some research that I realized just HOW high. I was charged a total of $382.50 for three parts that retail for $40.16 (and that is for the most expensive ones I could find). That's over 900% markup. Granted, I probably should have educated myself ahead of time about how much things cost, but I'm a new homeowner and it just didn't occur to me that it was something I needed to be aware of. It's a shame, because other than the prices, they were a pleasure to deal with. The only way I would use them again is if they would install parts that I had purchased myself, and I got the distinct impression that that wasn't an option.

They do a great job when they come out. They come twice a year.

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Work was completed within a day and everything was cleaned up before they left.

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They were very knowledgeable, they were very efficient, my house was really clean no problems with tracking things or anything. Complete satisfaction.

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AMAZING. This company is the best. They may not be the cheapest, but they are the best.

Dave from the Cooler Company came out on a Monday to evaluate my house and decide what was needed. He was very thorough, pleasant, and on task. He wasted very little of his or my time. He told me exactly what I needed, explained the price, and asked when I wanted it done. When I responded as soon as possible, he said, "how about tomorrow?" My mind was blown. We scheduled the installation for the next day and my negative side couldn't believe it.

The next day, I left for work and, just as promised, the workers called me at 9:45 am to let me know they would be there by 10. I met them at my house and they were already there ready to go. I gave them access to the house and attic and they insisted I go back to work and they would call me when they finished - they called no more than 5 hours later. I ran home and the house was cool! Something I had never experienced in that house. They walked me through everything, explained the installation, and, most of all, the price didn't change. They were absolutely wonderful to work with.

 

Installed a new thermostat (much better than the one I had)Educated me about proper closing of doors on the unit so unit would work properlyEducated me regarding the proper care and maintenance of unit

Everything went according to plan.  Company was very professional, communications were good.  A $1000 Xcel rebate was allowed and the Cooler Company took that amount off my price and applied for the rebate themselves; this help me avoid doing the paperwork myself and then having to wait for the rebate.

They did a very good job and cleaned up. Very nice to work with.

The Cooler Company technician went in to check out the furnace and came out reporting the heat exchanger was cracked, then proceeded to give expensive estimates for furnace replacement.  
I called another company, Air Masters, to verify.  They sent out an estimator, who was fully expecting to do a sale, because I'd told him we probably needed a new furnace. Instead he cleaned off an electrical wire and got the furnace running.  He inspected the furnace and reported the heat exchanger had no problems. The estimator from this other company, Air Masters, did not even charge for his call. To repay Air Masters for their ethical service, I scheduled a thorough cleaning and safety check a week later (for which I gladly paid $79).  This Air Masters technician ran all his testing equipment did a great cleaning and corroborated what his colleague said, that the heat exchanger was fine. 
My conclusion is that the Cooler Company technician was looking for a sale, and either was mistaken or not honest in his assessment.

We returned from a short 4th of July vacation on Sunday, July 7, around 10:00 pm, to find that are air conditioner had stopped working and the house was a sweltering 88 degrees . On Monday, july 8, we called multiple companies via Angie's List recommendations & Cooler Company had an opening at 1:00 pm the same day. The technician called at 11:00 and said he was finished early and would be over in 20 minutes. He came out and diagnosed a blown capacitor. He left for an hour to pick up the part and installed it when he returned. The capacitor cost $200 total for part and labor. The motor started for 30 seconds but then stopped. The tech then went through a diagnostic checklist and found the pressure in the refrigerate lines were too high & our 'smart' AC was shutting it down as a fail safe. He gave us two option, install a new system or try to find the blockage in the lines. The cost difference was about $2500. The tech said with a 13 year old system, he would replace rather than repair due to the possibility the compressor would blow given the stress the system was in while we were out of town. We thought it was better to try the cheaper option first because we needed AC since we don't have an attic fan & my autoimmune diseases cause me to overheat (my temperature spiked at 102 degrees just due a hot house). We would have needed several estimates from different companies and given the unavailability of several companies until the following week, the repair had to be tried first. Of course, vacuuming out the lines takes several hours, so we had to wait until Tues morning for the same tech to come out to perform the service. He arrived a little late and started the procedure. Then he didn't have the tool specific to our brand and had to wait awhile for another tech to bring it to him (but he did not charge us for the wait time). He found a rubber plug in the line into the HVAC, which was not part of the system and he & we have no idea where it came from. He removed the plug, blew out the lines to make sure, reattached everything, charged the refrigerant with 1.5 lbs (he was able to push most of the refrigerant back into the outside AC unit). The AC started working and has run great ever since, but is a little noisier than it use to be. We paid $150 for refrigerant and $860 for labor + a couple of minor parts. The tech was working for about 4 hours and stayed another 45 minutes after the AC started working to verify it was working properly. The tech was nice and answered our numerous questions. Additionally, he showed my husband via his gauges that he only lost 1.5 lbs of refrigerant and charged the system with exactly 1.5 lbs.

It was great. They have someone answering phones during business hours. Receptionist & technician were great. On time. No problems.

Sorry for the long write-up, but this was a horrendous experience and one of the all-time worst for me with any service provider. Their only saving grace to some extent was the professionalism of Laurie who works in their front office.
So, I have an old Kenmore roof-top swamp cooler that I inherited with the house we bought 3 years ago. Nothing fancy but straightforward enough for me to maintain (and I'm no mechanical whiz). The cooler was working just fine this year, but suddenly stopped blowing cool air (or any air for that matter) in the second week of July. Went up on the roof and tried to diagnose it, but the main motor, blower, pad motors (turn the cooling pads through a water reservoir) all seemed to be working fine. I could see the motor turn the blower wheel but absolutely no air was coming through the vent in the hallway (single vent for the whole house). I figured the main motor was getting fried and not turning fast enough. So, I called this company because they had been profiled in the Denver Post a few years ago as one of the premier HVAC companies in the area. (I wasn't an Angie's List member at this point).
I explain everything to the technician, Andre, who shows up on July 17. Andre goes up on the roof checking out everything with a multimeter while he requests me to turn the switch inside the house to various positions (pump, low/high vent, etc.). After 15 minutes of doing this, Andre asks me to turn off the cooler and he closes everything up on the roof. Then as an afterthought, he opens it up again and tests one of the pad motors (while the switch is OFF, mind you), closes everything again, and starts measuring the dimensions of the cooler. Then he comes down and puts away all his equipment and his ladder. By this point, the suspense is killing me. Can he fix it or not? What's it going to cost me? Andre says, give me a sec. He fills out his invoice form and finally declares, one of the pad motors is kaput and needs to be replaced. Or, "the entire system may need to be replaced as it is very old." The cost of coming out and diagnosing this is $79; parts + labor to fix it is TBD.
I'm no technician, but I know for a fact that both pad motors seemed to work fine last evening when I was up on the roof. Moreover, even if one of them WAS bad, that wouldn't explain the fact that the cooler wasn't blowing ANY air at all! Surely it's the main motor that's going bad? So, I explained this and asked Andre to reconsider his diagnosis. We go into the house and we turn on the cooler and...still no air coming from the vent. Andre shines a flashlight up through the vent, thinks for a few minutes, and says maybe the bad pad motor is draining power from the main motor and that could be affecting the whole operation. It seems to make sense to my non-technician brain, so I ask him for a quote to fix it. Andre tells me his supply shop is closed for the day and he will call me back tomorrow with a quote. This is a Wednesday.
I don't hear back until Friday morning, so I call and leave a message that I'm still expecting a quote. Andre calls me back around noon and tells me the cost of replacing the pad motor with labor is $1,200. I'm stunned. So, I quickly navigate to the Sears Parts website and look up my cooler model. A replacement pad motor is $75.85 + shipping. I confront Andre about the extreme price difference and he tells me, well, you can get anything online for cheaper, but he is required to go through his company's official supplier. (Never mind that I'm not talking about the price on ebay...this is the OEM replacement part). And, he says, if it does turn out to the main motor that's bad, it will likely cost more than twice the $1,200 estimate.
By this point, I'm angry but politely tell Andre that I do not wish to proceed. I've already endured several hot days without a working cooler, but I'd rather get a second opinion. Over the weekend I have a thought. Maybe there's an obstruction in the vent. So, I turn on the cooler and shine a flashlight up the vent like I had seen Andre do. To my surprise, I see that rather than a vertical duct going straight up to the cooler on the roof, it's connected to a flexible duct that's veering off to the left. So, I scoot over THREE FEET and open the nearby attic hatch door...and am immediately engulfed by a strong breeze. I bring over a step ladder to peek into the attic and confirm my diagnosis: the flexible duct has gotten disconnected from the bottom of the cooler!!!
Now I'm both relieved and livid. I call the company back and explain everything to a sympathetic Laurie and ask for a refund of the $79 service fee and tell them I'll go with another company. Laurie agrees that the entire experience seemed shady and refunds the money. Long story short, the duct had not been properly attached to a collar like it was supposed to. Blue Sky Plumbing comes out a few days later, installs a new sheet metal collar, rewires the cooler to bring it up to code (also wasn't done correctly), and reattaches the vent, all for $289. They are my new heroes.

I wasn't overly impressed, but I felt that they did a satisfactory job. I felt like they knew what they were doing and they were really quick. They have a quick turnaround to do the work.

I was unable to give a half star review, so one star, as inflated as that is, will have to do. I called these guys to work on two swamp coolers, one at my house and one at my rental. I took the afternoon off, to meet the tech, and when he got to the first house, he looked over the unit, and told me my pulley wheel was warped. I told him I know, that is what he was here to fix. He went back up and came right back down saying his wrench wouldn't fit, and asked if he could borrow my tools. Seriously, he wanted to borrow my tools. That has to be a huge insurance issue. He borrowed a couple of wrenches and came down with the wheel in his hand. "Here is the problem", he said "We don't' carry these parts on the truck. You'll have to go to home depot and pick one up." I said fine, and sent him to my rental. I went to Home Depot and Lowes, neither had the pulley wheel, so I went to a true value and picked it up.
Meanwhile he was at my rental for almost an hour while I was running his errand. He called, I ask how it was going and he said he hadn't done anything because no one was home. After explaining that the problem was on the EXTERNAL swamp cooler, I got there to find him sitting in the van. He got up on the roof, and came down to say that the belt was getting old, and I'd have to replace it. Said they didn't carry that part either. I wonder what they carry in those big vans if it isn't parts or tools. He fixed two leaks, I paid and he went on his merry way.
The next day, my tenant called to say the leaks were back and worse than before. I called the office manager to let them know what happened. They were very apologetic, and said they could get ANOTHER tech out the following Monday. Fine. I took the next Monday afternoon off, waited and waited for the guy to show up. When I called the front office again, I was told there was a scheduling mix-up, and the guy would be there on Tuesday. I said after three, so I could stop taking vacation hours to fix this mess. On Tuesday, no one showed. the tech called at eight thirty to tell me he had gotten busy and would be out there tomorrow. I explained that no on would be there, but he would need to fix a couple of leaks.
By this time my tenants had gone to the hospital to have their baby. This is important, they turned off the water because they didn't want it leaking while they weren't there. They got back from the hospital on Friday, turned on the water, and it leaked like an NSA contractor. I called the tech that day and he said he went by, but didn't see any leaks so he left. He saw no leaks because the water was turned off! I've tried to call the office three times now, and gotten either voice mail or an answering service.
 I'm still waiting on my refund check for the non work they did at my primary residence. Call these guys if you have a tall ladder, some tools that they can use, and time on your hands. Don't call them if you want professional service and workmanship. I can't believe they will be in business much longer with management and employees this inept.

The repairman arrived on time and was courteous.  Our roof is steep but he did not complain as others have.  Even though he had to go get the pump, the job was done in less than 2 hours and we had a cool house.  I didn't like that he did not give an estimate of the cost in advance but he explained he didn't know the cost of the pump. He asked for $180 but then suggested I call the office for the details. When I did the office was courteous and reduced the cost to $160 and broke down the cost for me: $40 for the service call, $60 for the pump, $60 for labor.  The price was fair. They were timely, courteous and I will call them to shut down the evaporative cooler at the end of the summer.