Bieri Heating & Plumbing

Short history. Bought an 1905 2-story house with only boiler heat. Wanted central heating and A/C installed with 2 seperate units (one for each level). 4 provided quoted ranging in price from ~14K to 17K. That's the total of the 2 systems. Steve was $9700 and $6700 and quoted the best stuff. ALL providers quoted installation time, once they stated, to be 10-14 days for the whole house. The good part is easy. Steve provided a high end product (Bryant heat pump & Bryant Evolution Furnace) at the lowest cost for similiar equipment. That's all the good stuff, folks. The bad is that he took 2+ weeks to install the system for the main floor ONLY. I asked him if he could guarantee that he could make the 2nd floor unit (smaller system) in 1 week (5 days). He said "No, I have other customers I have had for years and I have to work for them too." "So you don't want me to be a customer of yours?" I asked. "No, I want this job. The 2nd floor units are at the distrubutor. I'm ready to start on Mon. I'll probably have it done in a week but it could take 2 weeks if I find a problem." I hired a different company for the 2nd floor. 4 weeks to add 16 vents on 2 systems is too long. I did not like that Steve would NOT listen to me. I was the paying customer and he would not listen to many of my requests (If I asked hime to not come on a certain day, he was sure to do as I asked). ONE example, I wanted at least 10 vents on the main floor. (The other quotes had 11-13 vents). Steve said 9 would be fine. "It will be fine Glen, trust me. I've been doing this for a long time". The room that I asked for an additional vent is ~4-5deg colder (wintertime) than the thermostat. (Per a calibrated thermometer I bought.) And the outdoor temps are only in the low 30's presently. I expect a larger temp difference when temps get colder. He was not professional. Showed up without calling before hand (nursing wife), left without cleaning the messes (took the big stuff away), used the bathroom and made a mess my wife was disgusted with, and whined about how everything was so difficult. We got the impression he did not want to do installations and preferred to do service calls. He just worked on our installation to fill in the rest of the day. The first week he was at the house, only worked about 12 hours (in a weeks time). That is way too long to start a mess and leave it lay. After installation the heat pump was terrible noisy; rattled something fierce and the thermostat registered a malfunction, but it did continue to work. Called him 2-3 times before he came over. First time my wife said all was well, so good-bye. I call back immediately (next day) and told him he MUST check the unit. He did, days later, and said all was "Fine, It's running just fine Glen." I would have none of that so I called Bryant directly. After 2 more weeks, the national(?) problem solver come out to inspect. The Bryant Corprate guy called Steve and asked left a message which Steve did not return. I called back ~10days later and asked what was going on. Steve was not returning the phone calls so nothing is happening at the moment. I had to call Steve again. In the end, Steve had not installed the outdoor unit base correctly and that was causing the vibration/ noise. Finally, the energy company states that he should have reduced the price of his bill by the company's incentive program amount. So now I am out $600 because I paid him in full. Furthermore Bryant had a $1100 incentive on the equipment and I have not seen that. So I am still waiting to be re-imbursed $1700! That was monthes ago now. He says it coming. "It will be coming Glen. It will be fine." I've heard that line plenty and with little confidence. That money would go a long way at Christmas time.