American Vintage Home Heating Cooling & Plumbing

This is the second time we hired AVH to perform upgrades to our home. They installed Space Pak air conditioning system in June 2015 ($16,000) and a new boiler in October 2015 ($7,400). On both occasions we were super pleased with their punctuality, professionalism, quality and follow-up. The work on both projects was completed on schedule and the crews kept the area clean. AVH is not the cheapest HVAC contractor but they are among the best.

About 10 years ago we had a negative experience with this company for plumbing work---the plumber insisted on charging us even for the 15 min he took sitting in his van writing up how much he was going to charge us. Seeing the good reviews here, we tried them again for a plumbing job. Our experience was entirely positive. He fixed a somewhat unusual problem, gave helpful advice, and while plumbing is never going to be cheap, he billed us fairly. Over the phone they had promised a flat amount quote before starting the job (in addition to the $59 visit fee), but for this small problem a quote was not appropriate and we did not mind paying by time.

They came on time and performed the service.

Very professional, knowledgable, and helpful. I have an old house, so they were able to assess the problems with the home and find the areas that needed immediate attention.

The technicians worked diligently and professionally. Once the job was completed a supervisor inspected and approved the work. The entire job was completed on schedule and within the approved budget. I would definitely recommend American Vintage Home.

Have spoken with American Vintage about the problem a few times and have tried one solutiion they suggested which has worked for awhile but then the water heater has stopped working again for a short period of time. We are currently working together to figure out why it goes out intermittently. They have been cooperative and responsive to resolving the problem.

I am incredibly impressed by the professionalism of American Vintage. During one of the hottest weeks of the year, our air conditioner broke. They sent someone out the very next day who correctly diagnosed the problem and promised to address it by installing a piece early the next week (the issue occurred on a Friday). Sure enough, when I called to follow-up that Monday and explained that I had an infant at home and no air conditioning, the entire team sprung into action, picked up the part from the warehouse that very same day, and had Kevin L. install it well before the promised time of 2 PM. Kevin was professional, efficient, and a complete pleasure to work with. This company is responsive, accurate, and takes its business and clients very seriously. I will continue to work with them and they will be my first call for any future heating and cooling issues that I have. Job well done!!

Walter L. from American Vintage Home arrived promptly, was very knowledgeable, and repaired our air conditioning perfectly! He diagnosed our problem on a Friday night and returned on a Saturday (had to wait for condenser to thaw) for no extra cost -- unheard of-- top notch treatment. He was polite and efficient. Reasonable repair cost----I would highly recommend American Vintage Home and Walter L. in particular!

See above. It went better than I could have ever expected.

The price on this job was pretty steep, but it was a heck of a job. An air handler was installed in the attic with power, refrigerant, and condensate lines fished down to the basement. An insulated trunk was installed in the attic with 2.5" supply lines fished through the walls and ceiling plenums to reach every room in the house -- no closet ducts here! I could swear our installer was magic; the entire job was done with only three holes cut in visible drywall, two of which were less than 6" square and the third only due to a wall that had unfortunate blocking installed mid-high all across the room. All the rest of the work was done through holes cut behind baseboard molding. All the cold air supply vents were well distributed and arranged intelligently to avoid blowing directly on sleeping, sitting, or traffic areas. The humidifier job was comparatively trivial: the humidifier was installed on the ceiling in an out-of-the-way corner of the basement, wired and plumbed for supply and drain, and wired to a nearby circuit. A flexible duct was routed to a centrally located floor grate on the first level. They even spray painted the inside of the ductwork black so there wouldn't be any shine visible through the floor grate. Everything was buttoned up perfectly every night before they left. There was minor dust and disturbance during the day, but come 5pm you wouldn't know we were having anything done. In short, I'd say American Vintage charges a premium price for premium work. We have neighbors that had A/C installed for less, but they all have complaints about how the work was done or how the system turned out. I've never met an American Vintage customer who was less than completely satisfied with the job done.

I contacted several companies regarding replacing my 40+ year old hot water boiler system. The engineer from American Vintage Mark came out to my house and carefully measured out the dimensions of all the rooms, locations of doors, and windows in order to calculate the most efficient new system for my house. I chose American Vintage because they seemed to put the most thought into what my needs were. We discussed future expansion plans and chose a boiler that could easily accomodate future expansion. Once the install started everything moved pretty fast. Everything took about 4 days. The technicians were very polite and happy to answer all my questions. The new system works incredibly well and everything went as planned. There were a few minor issues that came up after installation, but the company was very responsive and took care of all the issues right away. Overall, this was a big investment but well worth it. I don't think anyone can beat the expertise of American Vintage when it comes to older homes.

I called and someone was out the next day for to give an estimate. I agreed to service and they were out a day later. Everything went to plan.

Very well. Prompt and he cleaned up well. Very happy with the service and work.

The team did a great job. Very prompt, courteous & tidy. They applied a few promotions to help with the cost.

A/C compressor stopped working on Sunday night. Called them on Monday morning and they were out at my house by noon. Very professional scheduling. Service person immediately discovered the issue (faulty electrical breaker) and several others and offered me 3 options: 1) Replace the breaker: after looking it up, offered "book price" to replace it (standard electrician price of $11 for part plus 2 hours of labor at $100/hr). 2 hours of labor took him actually 5 minutes for replacement of something I could have easily done myself, but I was busy with work and couldn't very well say "Hang out in your truck for an hour while I go get a new breaker and install it myself". 2) Time delay relay+ breaker: he made a convincing point that this would reduce cycling on the compressor and minimize wear 3) Filter+ time delay relay + breaker : Tried to sell me on a $1000 filter system that I declined Then he sold me a "membership" package that would include discounts on the parts and labor today and in the future as well as complimentary 40-point inspections on A/C in spring and my boiler in fall. Since I just bought the house and don't trust the previous owners to be up on their maintenance (especially on a 40-year-old boiler), I bought the package. If they don't call me in the fall. I think this is pretty standard practice with HVAC companies and I don't mind having someone come out automatically in the fall...also got "good" discounts on the current services. He completed his installations and inspections with lots of detailed explanations and ultimately said I need a freeon recharge due to explicit temp diffs on the coils. I said fine. I'm not wild about the sales-y-ness of their technicians, but I don't think I got screwed here by any means (relative to what many HVAC people are about). I would have appreciated it a lot more if he had given me an actual parts and labor price on the breaker replacement rather than "book price", but I can't necessarily blame them for that. Overall, competent and professional, if a bit too pushy on sales. This isn't a mom-and-pop shop, but there are certain advantages with dealing with a company like this.

We were very pleased. The units are very quiet. I didn't like the way they took my paintings down. I would have liked to take them down myself. I would still use them again.

We had a leak coming from our ceiling and they found it to be the humidifier that was leaking. Being our first year in the house they went ahead and did a full inspection of the furnace and will be back in summer to do the air conditioning system.

I had some basement bathroom flooding over the weekend. I chose American Vintage because they're in Evanston and because they were rated well on Angie's list. They told me it would be $59.00 for the visit, and that they would quote me a price for the work when they were here. I want to say up front, the technician who came out -- Sherman -- was fantastic. Punctual, professional, efficient, and a very nice person. Within 5 minutes, Sherman diagnosed that my ejector pump had died, and went out to his truck to put together the estimate. He returned back in nearly 25 minutes later, with the following estimate: (1) pump = $1055 (1/2 horsepower pump, Zoeller); (2) check switch replacement = $199; (3) other house inspection = $199. Of course, while he had been outside I had been doing research on the cost of such pumps, and they can be bought for a few hundred dollars. (Another plumber has already quoted me at half this price.) Sherman looked embarrassed as he handed me the quote. Even he understood the incredible markup American Vintage was trying to impose on me. I apologized to him for having to go in a different direction, and told him I'd obviously pay for his time in coming out. He told me it would be $105 -- the $59 I was quoted, plus $46 extra because he had been there more than 30 minutes. I told him I was told it was $59 for the visit, and reminded him that he had spent only about 5 minutes in my house, the rest in his van putting the pricing together. He quickly called the home office and resolved the price back down to $59. But come on, American Vintage! You're making it hard to "go local" when you gouge your neighbors like this!!!

While renovating our home, we had the contractor install tubing for radiant heat in the basement under a new slab they were pouring. After living in the home for a few months we decided to finish the system and starting searching for HVAC/plumbing services. Throughout the entire process American Vintage was very punctual with their responses and appointments. We explained our situation and got 4 options at various price points. I was extremely satisfied that they payed attention to our budget needs and a year after installation, I'd say they were very honest with the pros and cons of all the choices we had. We ended up installing a middle of the road water heater that has worked very well and we've been pleased with the results. A few things of particular note. First, other quotes we got did not want to use a water heater but a high efficiency boiler. While I did read online that this was the better route to go, I didn't want to spend that kind of money. American Vintage said that, yes, a boiler is ideal but that a water heater was perfectly fine for our space. We may have saved a little more money on energy costs down the road, but we only had X dollars to spend period, and they understood that. And I will say it has worked out great. Second, our not so awesome plumbing contractor that worked on our house (not from American Vintage) suddenly remembered where a magical pipe went (he didn't know a week earlier when we asked him but after all the work was done it some how hit him). Because of this, he said American needed to come back and change the installation. We called them up and explained and they came out and made the change 2 days later, no fuss, no cost. Third, our water heater does not have an intake from outside. While I assume they did this to save on cost it inadvertently caused us some issues. Our ventilation to the utility room was no longer up to code, it needed to be larger. To keep the story short I'll say the gas company wasn't happy and we were without gas for some time. I didn't hold this against American Vintage directly, but as a new home owner, unless I Google something I'm not going to know what the city codes are for anything and sort of look to the contractors to look out for that stuff. Lastly, and I can't hold American Vintage directly responsible because this was in their contract (I just didn't read it carefully enough), but they did not cover the exhaust pipe with drywall/a soffit. So the reason this made me upset was because I remember specifically asking our sales person if they would cover everything up and repair any holes they put anywhere and everywhere and he said yes. After 18 months of remodeling, I was particularly sensitive to contractors who always seem to leave me with more work (painting, cleaning, caulking, etc). However when they were done and I came home there was this 4 inch pipe just running along my ceiling. That's when I took a closer a look at the contract. I didn't make a fuss over it, and finished the work myself, but I'll say I was sort of disarmed by a verbal promise and didn't read the fine print like I normally would. Frustrated? Yes. My responsibility to read stuff I sign? Yes.

They were very professional. They give me good information on my old furnace.

I contacted American Vintage Home by telephone to schedule a service call. Van V. came by and established that the circulator pump on the boiler had failed. Since, the pump had been replaced just a few months ago, Van put in an order for a warranty replacement of the pump. Van came back the following week to remove and replace the circulator pump. Van was professional and punctual. Van respected my home and was comfortable with my dogs. It took Van a few hours to complete the repair. I was very pleased with the service that he and American Vintage Home provided.

They were so conscientious and professional. Three men came and worked New Years eve. They had all the parts needed and had throughly communicated with Marek who came for the initial assemnent. They answered my questions and made sure the work area was cleaned and neat as well as the fact that they made sure the system was functioning and safe. I highly recommend Vintage Home.

The provider was responsive and professional. They were priced a bit high, but they seemed to provide very comprehensive services.

So after 20 years, the water heater finally gave way. American Vintage has done other work at our home (100+ years old) including SpacePak installation and Boiler repair. While I'm not totally delighted with the price you can't argue with their professionalism and pride of work. They know what they are doing, show up when they say they will, do the job they said they'd do and leave your place as it was (if not better).

I would grade them a B because they actually said that they will have someone to come and check our sewage line but they haven't done that yet. They were early.