APPALACHIAN HEATING & COOLING

unknown

On November 7 2014 my heating and cooling unit (geothermal water furnace) came on and immediately went back off twice then made a humming noise. I shut the unit completely off. On November 8 2014 I called Appalachian Heating and Cooling, described what had happened. One of the techs called me back, told me to turn the fan on continuously until they could get out here on Monday. I did just that and it worked fine. On November 10 2014 two techs came out, checked it out, one of the techs came in, told me it needed a contactor because it was going bad and that was all they could find wrong with it. They would need to order it and would call to let me know how much it was going to cost before ordering it. I paid the $82 service charge and they left. On November 12 2014 the same tech called me about 1:00 p.m. to tell me he was in the area and had my part, did I want him to come and put it in. I asked him how much the part was and he replied " All I know is it will be $160 for parts and labor, didn't they call you before ordering it?" I told him they hadn't called but come on and put in in. He arrived at 2:00p.m. Told me it was fixed and accepted my $160 for payment and left at 3p.m. On November 14 2014 at 6 a.m. I got up and the unit wasn't working. At 8:30a.m. I called Appalachian Heating and cooling, told them about it not working. I was told they were backed up and couldn't get out here until Monday. So I built a fire in my wood burner (that is for emergency power outages) and plugged in two oil filled heaters. On November 17 2014 a different tech came out. He was here about an hour, told me the transformer had blown and that it blew two of his that he tried in the unit. He said he would have to get their electrician to come out with him to find the problem because it had a short. He also said it would cost me an additional 4-5 hundred dollars to fix it. He charged me $100 for the two transformers that it blew and left. On November 20 2014 since I hadn't heard from the tech I called and spoke with one of the owners. He said I shouldn't have been charged the $100 because it was under warranty from the work they had already done and he would have them come back out. Also on November 20 2014 the original tech came out, repeated to me what the other tech had said and left. Frustrated with this company I called another company. On November 26 2014 the other company came out and looked at my unit. This is what they found: The contactor wasn't mounted to the box, it was hanging by the wires connected to it. Wires were loose and hanging in the unit. (He would need a wiring schematic to fix the wires before he could even diagnose the problem) The burnt out transformer had one wire on it that shouldn't have been on it and the rest of the wires weren't connected at all. One section of the duct was removed and left completely unattached. So the same day, November 26 2014 I called Appalachian Heating and Cooling and spoke with the other owner. He said he couldn't make it out here that day and he would be out of town for the holiday he would come out on Monday (today) He came out with the tech that left it in that condition and told me his workers wouldn't have done that. That the unit was a mess and he would have to get a schematic before he could make any sense of it, blamed it on the other company and left. Note: The second company went to view the unit with my son so it was in that condition when the second company got there. Now here I sit telling you my problems because my grand daughter and I have to use up our emergency wood to keep warm now and I don't know how I am going to keep us warm when that is gone. Not to mention when the power is out. This is a disgrace!!!!!

They responded quickly to request for estimate. The unit was in the attic so it was more tedious and time consuming than if they had to replace the lower level unit. They were punctual, efficient, courteous, and I was very comfortable letting them have access to numerous areas of my house. All in all a very positive experience.