ARS / Rescue Rooter Atlanta (PL)

A service person came to my home, I believe the same day that I called to diagnosis the problem. Jonathan was very professional, punctual and polite. I asked him to wear booties to walk on my carpet and he complied. He answered all my questions with reference to the cost, the warranty on the parts and what may have caused my AC part to break. Thankfully, this particular part was under warranty; therefore, I did not have to purchase the replacement. I was disappointed that the cost to diagnosis the problem was not used to offset repairing the AC the following day. I paid $84.00 plus $189.00 for repairing the AC. I paid a total of $273.00. He

Replaced AC system, all of it except ductwork. Job looks good. Works fine. Did everything they said they would. Wore the little booties for walking in the house. Gave me a great price. Very polite and explained every question I had. I'm an engineer in construction so mine were a little more involved. Only issue was schedule. Set up one day and they had to reschedule for the next. Then they were a little late showing up. Still waiting on the city inspection, but so far so good.

They're good at what they do and they are nice guys. I was satisfied with their work and they've been fine.

The technicians that come out are really respectful, polite, professional and clean. They do not linger. They just go about their business and leave.

Everything went fine - no problems.

The cost of replacing the UV bulb was $99. I was instructed this should be done annually.

Repair has not yet been completed. I started this process Monday morning, it is now Friday afternoon. My water heater has been apart since Wednesday, and the new parts are here, but I was scheduled for today as a "work-in" instead of having someone assigned to show up and finish the job. Scheduling and communication are the worst. They are even trying to blame the scheduling SNAFU on the technician, but communication has been non-existent from their end since the word go. I have had to call every few hours to get updates on why someone isn't here to do the work and whether they will be. The scheduling people simply become rude if you press the issue that a job is half-complete and someone needs to come finish it.

Universal came out on Nov. 14 2013 to do the fall service (we have had a contract with them for several years). The furnace had been shutting off for no known reason. They checked it out and said it was the thermostat. Replaced the thermostat and did the usual filter replacement etc. Had asked them to change the uv bulb in the spring and fall before, said they would get one and call to come out and replace it. Never heard from them. This time we insisted the service tech go get one and replace it. In January the furnace stopped again on the night when we went down to the single digit temps. They could not reach the tech on call so we had to wait till the next day. Wood burning fireplace ran all night. The tech came out and this time decided that it was a loose wire in the thermostat. Fixed it and the furnace started to run. He went on to his next call. We noticed that the furnace was still cutting out before it got up to temp. (we keep it at 65-67 in the winter). We called and insisted that they send someone out to look at it in the next two days (lots of people without any heat). New tech arrived 2 days later and took the thing apart. While doing this he noticed that the exhaust fan was "throwing codes". It was starting to fail and was overheating and when it shut itself down it shut the whole furnace down. He had to get the parts and would be back first thing in the morning. Came back, went to replace the blower and the 2 switches associated with it. Found they had only packed the blower and 1 switch. Called and they would have the second switch in the next day around 2pm. Said they would call after that and let us know when they would be out to finish. I called at 4:30pm and asked when they would be out. I explained what they were needing to do and that we had been told they would have the part by 2pm and would be out to replace it. She said she would check and call back. The next morning at 8am I called again (no call from them). They said the tech would be out late morning to finish. Finally had a fully functional furnace. Not sure we ever needed the new thermostat ($$$) or the second call (loose wire) that did not fix the furnace. Third trip required because we insisted that it was still not right, and it wasn't. Fourth trip required to diagnose the real problem. Fifth trip to put in some of the new parts. Sixth trip, after two phone calls from us, to finish the job. Will be requesting a partial refund on our yearly contract and will be using someone else from now on. Would give them overall F if the last tech hadn't finally fixed the problem.

THESE GUYS ARE BAD NEWS, STAY AWAY. On Christmas morning we find water in our guest bathroom. Our 20 year old toilet has a stress fracture at the bottom of the bowl. We call American Home shield and they assign us to Rescue Rooter. AHS calls them and RR committed to next day service. I call them the next day and they tell me they can service me 3 days from now. I had to call AHS to call RR for them to keep their promise (very dishonest). After reading reviews(horrible reviews) I tried to get AHS to switch providers but they wouldn't. Finally the plumber for RR shows up. This guy had to be 300 pounds, smelling of body order and jeans hanging half down his backside. Goes into the bathroom, never touches the toilet (it would have been physically impossible for him to see the issue based on his size). Takes a picture of a small part of the crack between the bowl and toilet (view from above) and emails it to his HQ. He never bent down to look to see the stress fracture at the bottom of the bowl. American Home Shield calls me a few minutes later saying the plumber said it was probably hit by a baseball bat and will not be covered. Then the guy says he can get me a $300 toilet and install it for $225 (I would pay him directly). TOTAL RIP OFF ARTISTS. These guys get in your house through warranty companies and then try to upsell you. I asked AHS to send out another plumber for a second opinion. That company comes out, actually looks at the problem and diagnoses it as a stress fracture. The toilet on the second floor is right above the washing machine on the first and the pipe vibration over 20 years stressed the toilet. AHS then covers the job completely. The people at Rescue Rooter are rude dishonest and lazy. If they are assigned to you from a warranty company, cancel the work order and call back and start a new one.

In a word, great; technician a little tardy from time promised, but other than that - great.

Universal ended up being out SEVEN times and nearly each time a different part was wrong. It was very disappointing service and a great deal of trouble. Several parts had to be ordered and come from MI. Universal asked at one point if we would like to pay another $150 to have the part arrive sooner. After each visit, we were assured that all was fine and the AC would work for about two hours and Universal would have to come out again only for us to learn that yet another part had gone bad. Universal was terrible about calling and just saying that they were around the corner as opposed to making an appointment window and sticking with it. On the last (we thought) scheduled visit, they called 15 minutes before they were to show up and said they weren't coming at all due to the part not having arrived. Only after we called ARS, the parent organization, did we get the attention of management at Universal. At that point, Universal bought the last part and we paid labor. The entire experience was poor, poor and poorer.

The 2 installers, Jeremy & Leslie, had a tough job removing & replacing my furnace, because it was located in a small designated spot on a back hallway. They really worked hard for hours; and once the old units were finally out, they worked meticulously on the new installations, taking great care to make things as perfect as possible. This was done today, so as for the performance of the machinery, I'll have to add that later, but it seems great thus far. Both workers were extremely polite, considerate, and easy to talk to. I enjoyed having them coming in and out with the various parts of the machinery, etc., throughout the day. I'd like to also note that my "comfort specialist" (salesman), Joseph Wilson, gave me lots & lots of helpful information when he came out yesterday to give me a quote for the job, even though he knew I had already agreed to use a different company. He never pushed me to cancel the other order & do business with him; and his bid was the highest of 3 that I had gotten, so he had no good reason to think I was going to change my mind. But his attention to detail and explanation of the importance of getting the work permitted, as well as doing everything up to code, made me feel more comfortable with Universal ARS than with the other company, which was not going to bother with the required permit. I feel very confident that the unit is installed extremely well, will pass inspection in the next few days, and has all the Ts crossed and the Is dotted. It was an all-day job. *Adding a note a few weeks later: I am now much less enamoured with this company than I was at first. The salesman, Joseph Wilson, from whom I purchased the HVAC system has not called or contacted me in any way since before the installation. I've had several questions and/or comments for him and have tried to reach him by phone many times. He has NEVER called me back. The "work permit" which he so highly touted as being necessary for doing the job, has yet to be obtained, though the work was done a couple of weeks ago. Also, I am supposed to receive a $500 Home Depot cash card as a rebate, but I have little, if any, confidence that this will actually happen, since it turns out that Mr. Wilson is not at all the person he purported to be when telling me all about what was required for a company to do a proper job of installation. Follow-up and the county permit were high on his list. So much for that. I'm very disillusioned, as I paid more than an extra $thousand, over other quotes, believing that this was the company which would do everything properly. Make no mistake, however, I do believe that the actual work of installation WAS done properly and with great care.

I have used them since they isntalled the original system and never had a problem in some 7 years of operation.....

HIGH PRESSURE RIP OFF ARTISTS!!!! I hired Rescue Rooter Atlanta to come clear my sewer pipe, run a camera to inspect the line, and install a clean out pipe. I agreed to the asking price for the job of $700 for the COMPLETION of all three items mentioned above. I, myself, had already dug out and exposed the problem area of the pipe. When they showed up, they smashed a hole in the pipe which took two hard hits and tried for approximately 1-2 minutes to put a camera in the line while my husband and I stood there and watched them. They were unable to see anything and said the line needed to be snaked first. They tried to snake the line for approximately 10 minutes and then told us it was useless and that we needed an entire new sewer pipe. They refused to snake the line any further after we asked them to try some more saying "they knew when a line could not be snaked". They then tried to high pressure us into a $9K job on the spot. I said that we would need time to price comparison shop before saying yes to a job of that price. We had no idea we would need the entire line replaced. They pressured us even further saying that if we pulled the trigger right now they would take several hundred off the price bringing it to $8,500, but if they drove away the price would be 9K. We said we would still need time to decide and comparison shop, but asked them to close up the sewer line so we were not left with exposed raw sewage in our yard (we have small children living next door that play outside). They refused to even seal up the open line and install the clean out pipe saying that they would do it when they did the entire line and not before because installing it now would not be the correct way to do this job. We learned later that this was incorrect information and had the line closed up before the pipe was replaced with no problem. Without a sewer line the house we were living in was suddenly unusable. The toilets were at least working before they came out. Needless to say I was confused when he gave me the invoice for $700 which was quoted for completing the job and I complained about it to the plumber. I told him that they had been there for less than half an hour, and I had received none of the completed promised work. They told me to not worry about it because the money I was paying would all go towards the final services of putting in a new sewer line. When I said that was only IF I used them for the job, the plumber became very confrontational and defensive so I decided take up the issue with the manager of the company versus the plumber himself. Feeling that if I pushed any further with him at my house it would turn into an ugly confrontation. The plumber then proceeded to sit in his truck out front of our house for more than an hour. I found out later that was to bump up his time so he could justify his charges. His manager said he was on site for over two hours (WRONG) When I followed up with the manager, after several days of calling repetitively, she herself acknowledged that it seemed like we were over charged and offered to refund for the services left uncompleted. She said she needed to ok the refund with HER manager and return a call to us the following Monday (we had spoken on Friday). I did not get a return call and left several more messages with her and her secretary with no response. Every time I called I was asked my name and all of a sudden no one was available and I needed to get called back. As of yet I still have received no call back! Since this incident I have had another company successfully run a camera all the way down the line (the line had to be snaked 1st to get it through) which took them approximately 2 hours . Something Rescue Rooter said could not be done, but was willing to charge for anyway. I also have had the sewer line replaced for 4K which was half the price of what Rescue Rooter was attempting to strong arm me into by leaving me with an unusable line. A couple of weeks after the incident I ran into the plumber at Home Depot. He knew I was complaining about the job and proceeded to to get in my face and curse me out. EXTREMELY unprofessional and I am not kidding when I say that writing this review makes me a little nervous for possible retaliation from them. . p.s. If you click on the filtered reviews at the bottom of all these reviews.. you will see a whole bunch of other people who have had similar experiences.

Initially, called service on the 4th of July since for non-working A/C. They were able to come out the next day and recharge the air. Since we could not stay in the area long enough for the full repair, they were able to schedule it for when we were back in town. We had the same technician both days (Terrence) and he was very professional and capable. He diagnosed the issue and gave advice regarding our options and was able to fix the problem within the day for us.

My overall experience with them was good! I may or may not use them again in the future.

There installation is great, have used them twice. They have an impressive quality program to make sure all works will and you are satisfied.

My appt. time was between 8 am to 1 pm. I was supposed to get a call, when they were heading to my home. I called them at 10 am, to get a better idea as to when I could expect them. I was told that there were two more stops before mine. I called again at 12 pm, and was told that I was the next stop, and that the technician got to the stop before mine, at 11:15 am, and that it was a routine servicing, that should only take an hour. The staff person told me he would call, when he was leaving from that job. I called again at 1 pm, still waiting for the technician. At this time, I was told that the previous stop had needed unexpected repairs, and it was obviously taking longer. Again, the staff person said he would call me, when he was on his way. I'm not an HVAC repairman, but I'm quite sure he would have determined that there was a problem at the previous stop, within a short period of time after arriving(11:15 am). In other words, they should have called me, to let me know it was going to be much longer before he arrived. At 2 pm, he finally arrived, and, I might add, without ever having called me, to let me know he was on his way. He worked inside, initially, and then, outside, on the compressor. When he came back in, he tracked in dirt and debris, into my living room, which he never cleaned up.

They did a good job and I was happy with the work they did. Their pricing was better than the other two estimates I got. I got them through Home Depot.

They have excellent service. I do not like their sales. They quote high prices.

So far, their service has been good. When we agreed to an annual contract, they extended the warranty. I have to call them to schedule the spring and fall check-ups.

They have been excellent. They are professional, prompt, and responsive. They have a great product.

They were good and did what was needed. I thought they were polite and showed up right away. The service was good.

So far it has been good service. They showed up when they said they would, did the work that they promised, and cleaned up after themselves.

I've had some problems with the units. The follow up hasn't been very good. They don't call back or let me know if they're going to come out or make an appointment. The equipment does not appear to be top quality and I was not made aware of the options when making the purchase. Now I feel like I'm kind of stuck with them.