Sila Heating, Cooling, Plumbing and Electrical

Was a gift to a friend- please do not send me another email on this one

I was happy with the service and have had no troubles since.

Went great. On time. Professional in all respects.

They did what they were supposed to do. They were unprofessional because they were on the phone while doing work. I don’t know how much they were paying attention to what they did. It’s hard for me to gauge the quality of their work because it’s a furnace and I’m not a professional.

I purchased an Angie's List Big Deal for this service and they are great. They sent the same man I had the last time -- I think his name was Jim -- and he was incredible. I had to pay about $25 more because he had to replace a small part in the toilet. Their pricing was very fair and reasonable. They seem honest and they do good work. Jim has been doing this for a long time and knows what he is doing; he is very knowledgeable. I have nothing bad to say about them.

The really outstanding thing about this provider is that he noticed that my water heaters were developing some water seepage through valves and gaskets. He gave me a quote for servicing both of them. The quote was reasonable and so he performed the work there and then. I would use Sila Heating & Air Conditioning again.

Tech arrived onsite early (dispatcher called and asked if it was ok for them to be early). Was very polite and professional, checked the boiler out and cleaned it. Helped diagnose 2 minor annoyances even though they were outside the listed services, pointed out a few things that we may want to do in the future but didn't try to hard sell us on additional work. Very pleased with the service.

They came on time, they did the work. We have been very happy with Sila for keeping our heating and cooling systems running in this 4-unit condo building.

Angies deal was just for replacing an old 40 gal with new 40 gal. A small amount of extra labor and material involved. No problem with Sila. Only cost an extra $100 dollars with Angies deal. Gave a quote before doing work with no extra added after work completed. Job done on time. Quality workmanship and would use Sila again.

DO NOT HIRE THIS COMPANY TO SERVICE YOUR OIL FURNACE!! Last November I had Sila come and do an annual maintenance service call for our oil hot air furnace. When I scheduled it, I asked for their best guy because we also had been having an intermittent problem with the furnace shutting off and we were having to manually reset it at the controller. This problem had been getting worse during the previous year. Sila told me they were sending me their best guy. The serviceman did the annual maintenance, but could only "guess" about all the possible causes of the intermittent shut off issue. He made a list of 6 possible things that could be causing the problem. He wrote that these were "Highly Recommended" and addressing them all would total $1361 if I decided to do them on the current service call. If they had to come back I would be charged a service call fee and the "fixes" would of course be on top of that. I opted for the two least expensive of his "guesses" which totaled $171. These included a "spin on filter" to better clean the oil coming from the tank and the replacement of the "cad cell eye" which senses the flame. These things did nothing to effect the intermittent shutoff problem. We continued to have trouble the same day and the problem grew increasingly worse over the holidays. We also were having a different symptom where the controller wasn't requiring to be reset, but the furnace would not run until we restarted it by cycling the thermostat off and then back on. I hesitated to have Sila come back because I didn't have a good feeling that this was going to be straight forward and I thought I was going to be having to do the other 4 things on the "guess" list before it would be solved and that meant about $1300 ! Finally on Friday, January 17th, the manual reset of the controller didn't work to restart the furnace, nor the thermostat toggle, so I broke down and called Sila to have someone come out to again diagnose and hopefully repair it. I was told that the "expert" that had come to service my furnace in November wasn't working that day, so they sent me someone else, but that he would be "good". I emailed a copy of the list of 6 items generated in November because they didn't have a record of it. I did this so that they had a "heads up" about the previous diagnosis and would arrive with the right parts. The service man came and spent two hours here. I told him all of the history and the two different ways that we had been "restarting" the furnace recently. He got the furnace to turn on, it wasn't that hard since my problem was intermittent. He was on the phone much of the time that he was here. I know this because I could hear him talking down in the basement though I was upstairs. I feared that this meant he was getting advice from someone else (I hope he wasn't just down there gabbing on the phone!). I think this is true because he didn't really seem to know how to fix it. In the end, after talking a lot about the poor condition of our chimney (and our chimney does need some work but it is not the problem causing the shutoff), he or whoever he was on the phone with decided that I would need to replace "the primary control unit, and the retention head" ($585), it would require an additional hour of labor ($180), and they couldn't do it that day (Friday) because he didn't have the parts on the truck that he brought !! In fact they couldn't get the needed controller until the next Tuesday and so because they would have to come back I would also be charged an additional $89 service call charge when they came back to do the actual fix. He wanted me to also immediately have chimney work done before they came back so that the furnace could be "adjusted" for a properly working chimney. I couldn't believe it! Having the right parts with them is why I emailed the list from last November as these two items were on the original 6 item guess list that was generated in November!!! The serviceman admitted to me that if the original guy had come with his truck he would have had the parts. Oh, and also, I owed them $360 for the current service call for their 2 hours of "diagnosing" the problem, --a diagnosis that just included two items from the original 6 guesses !! I got on the phone with the guy from Sila who sent me this serviceman. We went round and round about this. I didn't want to pay them anything for that day since they didn't really fix the problem. In the end they said either I pay them the $360 or they wouldn't come back to do the "fix" next week, or I could find someone else to repair it. So I decided to not pay and get someone else. The furnace stopped working within an hour after they left my house ! I called Metrowest Oil Service from Framingham. The guy came right over and fixed both of my intermittent problems for a total cost of $383. It turns out none of the 6 items on Sila's list had anything to do with the problems, nor my chimney condition. The controller restart issue had to do with an improperly working transformer, and the thermostat toggle restart issue had to do with a bad terminal base A/C ready relay unit. So bottom line is: Sila does not know what they are doing when it comes to oil furnace repairs. Also they want their customers to pay them for the time they take at your house to play around "diagnosing" and "guessing" and are not at all prepared to do 24/7 servicing for customers in January on a Friday when they have no heat !! I have had Sila service our AC unit and furnace in the past starting with an Angie's List special offer several years ago for their annual AC service. I had also had them repair the AC unit a few years ago when something cracked and water was leaking where it shouldn't be. That repair, while pricey, seemed to be ok. I will never use them again however for anything!!

It went very well. As it turned out we didn't need any additional work, but the technician who came over explained what work he was doing and it was pretty good. They were pretty good about scheduling it. There was no additional cost. The quality and price was good. I would use them again if needed.

Very thorough. Provided a detailed written report.

All of that went well. My only minor complaint was with the telephone customer service person who in spite of my correcting him and in spite of my clearly masculine name, he insisted on referring me as ma'am. Indicates a lack of listening skills. No big deal, but annoying

I purchased the furnace maintenance & check on our gas hot air furnace which had not been serviced for a couple years. They found that several parts were either deficient or inappropriate and presented a list of recommended corrections and prices, all of which seemed reasonable and included replacement of the humidifier (which I had broken). The technician also looked at our hot water heater and made recommendations for maintenance steps, with prices. In each case, the technician gave a price for each item on the list so that I could make decisions based on the seriousness and urgency of the item. |When I gave the approval for the heater work, they came back the next day and completed the work in a very professional manner. Shortly afterward, we had the very cold spell and the heating was just fine, day and night. |Since that time I called with concerns about the humidity control and the blower noise which seemed high compared to previous experience. A technician came when scheduled and adjusted the humidifier and reduced the speed of the motor which reduced the noise and the temperature has been still maintained. |Note that they also gave us a year warranty on their work. |My only reservation about cost is that I had no way to compare services and prices for the main work but I did contact our plumber, whose prices for work on the hot water heater were generally in line with the Sila estimate. |Excellent firm and I will certainly use them again if needed.

It was an Angie's List Big Deal that I purchased. It was fine. There was no extra cost. They gave a list of things I might want to think about doing in the future, none of which I'm going to do currently. There were some prices and explanation why I might want to consider it so I appreciated it. The system is very new so I'm not moving forward with any upgrade up to this point.

The technician was very knowledgeable with information on preventing this from happening in the future.

Fantastic! I had not heard of this company until I purchased an Angie's list deal. They were very responsive and the service was very thorough. I wish I had hired them to do the installation!

Offered me 3 options. Came back the following week with the parts needed. Brian M my tech was great: professional, yet still very personable.

I think that was very good. I think we have used them now twice. It was very favorable.

I used SILA HEATING AND AIR CONDITIONING.

Went great. I had been worried it would be a chance for an upsell once someone was already at the house but they gave us a tidy run down of how everything was and it all checked out okay! I'd definitely feel comfortable using them again if we ever do run into problem.s

They could not figure out why the toilet was having a specific issue with the work that included in the Big Deal. It turned out that they couldn’t solve the problem.

My appointment was scheduled and 8:00 a.m. and at at that exact moment, Brian McFarland arrived. The thing that immediately impressed me was that he took out covers for his shoes before stepping into the house. The job took less than an hour and when he was done, he gave me suggestions to consider to increase the efficiency of the furnace. It didn't pressure me to buy anything. I asked him about the feasibility of transferring from oil to gas and he gave to a quote on a gas burner and even took the time to go online and estimate what I might expect to save by switching from oil to gas. All in all, I'm very pleased. If I had not been in the process of signing up with Mass Energy and will have a very reasonable service contract, I would have given serious thought to using Sila.

It was great service. Craig had some great ideas, good coaching about some things to do with my heating system that I should pay attention to that would help me out.

They were great! After we made the appointment, they kept calling to see if they could come for an earlier date. We finally agreed on an earlier time and arrived on time to the appointment. One technician completed the work and he cleaned up well after the job was complete.