Alpine Air HVAC Services LLC

Andre is a champ. He showed up the same morning I called him. He quickly diagnosed the issue, left me on speaker while he got the cost of replacement parts from Trane and then added a fair margin and labor cost above the parts to fix the issue. This is the way it should be done. I'm more than happy to pay for expert service and the transparency here made me very comfortable paying for his time with full confidence that I'm also paying a fair price on the parts. Let's just say some of the big name contractors with their names on truck fleets just can't compete on the same level. Overhead has gotten too high I guess.

I'm a happy customer. Alpine Air is fast, efficient, reliable, and fairly priced. They showed up when they said they would, took less than a day to install the system, cleaned up when they were done, and came back as promised a few days later to make adjustments. I highly recommend this company.

unknown

Our ac unit stopped working late yesterday afternoon.  We called Alpine and left a message.  Our call was returned within an hour and an appointment was set up for early this morning.  Andre was here right on time.  He was pleasant and easy to deal with.  He is obviously very experienced and is straightforward in his dealings. 

He diagnosed one problem right away and later discovered another related problem.  Our unit is old, but he did not pressure us to buy a new unit.  He fixed our ac quickly and for a very reasonable price.  We are very pleased.

ve two outdoor units. Each has quit working one time, both times on a weekend. He arrived promptly and diagnosed the problems quickly. He had the parts with him, and the repair was completed each time within an hour. He charged regular rates, no additional cost because it was the weekend. I highly recommend him.

unknown

HVAC was leaking into the basement, causing a huge puddle of water. Andre inspected it and found the leak, which was caused by a defect in the HVAC. He even called the HVAC manufacturer for me to find out if it was still under warranty. Since it wasn't, he created an economic solution to the problem for now and told me to just let him know if it seemed to be leaking again.

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Andre made a service call on July 10th to investigate the problem with our AC freezing up.  He came back on July 13th to resolve the problem.  He had purchased a part which he thought would do the job but it did not as it was an inferior product.  In consultation with the manufacturer's distributor, he decided on a next step to fix the problem.  He was creative in resolving the mechanics of the situation by using a piston he had on hand in his own parts collection.  He did all that was necessary to install the part, test the system, and make sure it was functioning optimally before he left.  He took all the necessary time to do this and was working in sweltering conditions without complaint.  He is highly professional, calm and capable.

A HEART STOPPING start to my story:
For a parent, a call from a college student at 5AM is never a good thing, but I didn't expect anything this scary.  With a house full of FSU students up-all-night studying for finals, I received such a call with the report that both the upstairs and downstairs Carbon-Monoxide alarms we installed were going off... even after resetting them twice (ugh, what were they thinking).  I instructed them them to immediately open all windows and evacuate the home; I then call TalGov utilities who reported by 6AM.  Upon inpection, the technician identified lethal levels of CO in our home indicating a failure in our HVAC unit.  He turned off the gas and disabled the thermostat and left.
By 8AM I had contacted every Heating & Air Conditioning services company recommended on Angie's List in the Tallahassee area and identified one that said they could come by within the hour (Benson's Heating & Air Conditioning).  They did a thorough inspection and identified that the heat exchanger had failed and would cost approx. $3000 to repair.  The technician also indicated that the unit was 14-years old so recommended replacement and had a sales person call me later (their quote had a base price $6585)... Errgo, my second heart palipitation!!
Fortunately, by this time I was receiving calls back from some of the other companies I contacted.  One of which was Alpine Air Conditioning.  The challenge was that eveyone at the house was running to and from finals, study sessions, and leaving for the holiday break.  Andre at Alpine asked numerous questions and offered to stop by and inspect the unit without assurance to geting inside the house.  When he arrive, no one was there but he went about his inspection/diagnosis and sent me pictures via text of what he found.  Rusted out Heat Exchanger, as previously identified, but took the secondary step to check the evaporater cools which he reported were is good shape (several pictures sent to convey his assessment). 
I immediately felt comfortable working with Andre and he indicated that he would investigate options (cost of parts to repair vs. replacement).  He called me the next morning indicating that he found the part and estimated $1300 for the repair or about $5000 to replace the unit; he even recommended the repair over replacement - no up selling ... what a pleasant surprise.  He did not require a deposit or even a CC as guarantee; just my verbal "Lets do it". 
By this time it was approaching Christmas and the house would be vacant unitl New Years Day, so I indicated that we were not in a rush and for him to enjoy his holiday.  Shortly thereafter & before Christmas, I received more pictures during his work to repair where he found that the blower was rusted and was frozen as well and apologetically explained the cost would be another $300.  I approved and he completed the repairs.  He called me when complete, emailed me the invoice and provided insights as to what to expect including the procedure necessary to start it up and test that eveything was working.  Unfortunately, on New Year's day, the procedure did not work.  I sent him a text (on the holiday) and he responded indicating he would be by the next day.
He reported on-time and found that the gas company physically cut the wire from the thermostat as a precaution.  Andre repaired, tested the unit and contact me when he was done.
Although I could have done without the stress and expense, I am so grateful and thankful ....
1.  to God for protecting those children and giving me the insight to install the CO monitors
2.  to Andre Puzzuoli and Alpine Air for his dedication to customer service

I have used them a couple of times and they are amazing. Andre is very trustworthy and honest. They are who I call first!

Service was quick and on time. Can't remember the exact cost of the repair but was very reasonable.

unknown

Ok, a couple of weeks went by and the A/C had been cooling really well. During that time I found out that the city was offering double the rebate on a high efficiency, energy star rated 15 seer unit or better. That would be 700.00 . I decided to replace the unit and asked Andre for his recommendation on a brand. He suggested a Goodman heat pump, so I asked for a quote. In the meantime I did some research on the internet on several brands, including Goodman, their warranties, sizes and reviews. He was right, Goodman is a good brand, especially the 2 stage high efficiency 16 seer model. I asked for a quote for 2 stage high efficiency 16 seer model and got that the next day. I opted for the Honeywell Total Connect Comfort Thermostat. This allows the inside and outside systems to communicate and increases efficiency and diagnostics. It has a wireless outside temperature and humidity module and internet connection to remotely check and adjust temps. The quote was acceptable and I asked him to order it. Andre and another tech installed the unit about 10 days later and they did it in one day. The Goodman 2 stage unit is quiet and amazingly comfortable. The temperature never varies from the set temp. Andre is the owner of Alpine Air and is very professional, reliable, and does really high quality work. He is very knowledgeable of his trade and I am thankful for the guidance that led to such a happy satisfying installation.
I definitely recommend him to anyone needing A/C equipment installation or service.  

Alpine Air revived a dead AC system.  I left a message at April Air on Sunday evening before Memorial Day.  Andre got back to me on Monday morning (Memorial Day) and said he was working and could come over about noon.  He was at our house at noon.  He found the problem was a dead capacitor.  This came as a surprise as we had had the capacitor replaced by another AC company about a year ago.  One year ago the other company charged us $120 in parts for the capcitor.  Alpine Air only charged $45 in parts for the exact same capacitor.  Alpine Air sold and installed the capacitor for only $5 more than the cost of just the capitor from the other company.  Excellent price and excellent work.

I am an engineer, so I have a very critical eye for technical work.  We knew there was a leak in the evaporator coil so the options were to replace the evaporator coil or the entire AC unit.  We had three companies bid on the job.  One did not bother to send us a bid. One sent a bid but forgot to put the amount on the bid.  Andre, the owner of the one employee company Alpine Air, sent us a bid the same evening via email to replace the evaporator coil and to replace the entire unit.  We decided to replace the evaporator coil.  Andrea showed up exactly on time.  He had set aside the entire afternoon to replace the evaporator coil.  He worked at a good pace.  I spent the entire time asking him about the AC system and what he was doing every step of the way.  He was very patient and answered all my questions.  As an engineer, I had a very confident feeling that he was doing an excellent job and we were going to get a lot more years out of the AC.  In particular, towards the end of the job he said that it would look like he was slowing down becasue he was going to take time to remove water from the copper AC lines before he added the refrigerant.  He added nitrogen gas to the Cu lines and let it sit for quite some time.  He said the longer he waited the greater the amount of water in the copper lines that would evaporate into the nitrogen gas.  And the less water in the copper lines, the less problem there would be when he replaced the nitrogen with refrigerant.  After he filled the line with refrigerant, he spent another good amount of time measuring the temperature and pressure of refrigerant in the two copper lines and also measuring the temperature inside our house and the temperature of the air coming out of the ducts.  He did this to make sure the system was working at its top efficiency.  Andre was very professional and I highly recommend Alpine Air.

Called with no heat, had an initial company come in to make repairs and when the second extra charges were being requested we terminated services and called the manufacture for another contractor in our area. Alpine Air came in redid the first companies work at a much smaller cost including additional repairs. We were more than satisfied!