Mulligan Heating & Cooling

Our A/C went out the day before so we were scrambling to find HVAC company to come out ASAP to look at it and hopefully fix it. I picked Mulligan because they were close and had great reviews and it worked out great for me. Work was diagnosed and finished in about 15 minutes and our air is back on and working perfectly. Replaced a bad part that must have gone bad in a brown out due to storms the night before. I think we just found our go to company for HVAC problems.

They were good. I’ve used them for myself for 30 years.

I don’t know what they charged, but the part was expensive. I would use them again. I’ve known them for 50 years.

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I was very pleased, we were back up and running in a matter of hours.

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So he comes down in the basement again and opens up the furnace and starts taking everything apart ripping wires out from their sockets like he's weeding it, unscrewing screws that fall everywhere. I was around in the basement watching him and occasionally asking questions but seems that this somehow offended him because he was very quick to shoo me away answering "this takes 4 hours and I really need space here to watch what I'm doing". Anyway, I gave him space as he wanted because I was worried that indeed he would do mistakes and then blame them on me. As he was working there I occasionally went down to see what he's doing but couldn't really say anything as he did his best to ignore me. Seemed stressed about time and was rushing things pretty hard.

As he got close to the end, I was paying more attention to what he was doing, especially when things started to come together and wires went back into their place and he turned it on for the first time. First time, it was still showing code 23 and was resetting right before the blower motor had to kick in. He messed some more with the wires and now code 14 was blinking. Oh boy! He started looking around, pulling some wires out, push them back in and turns it ON again. This time, a loud rapid clicking sound could be heard (possibly from a valve or relay), lights in the house started flashing with the clicks and the furnace was blinking code 13. He clearly got something wrong. He said that the A/C is turning ON together with the furnace. OMG! Went back upstairs and waited and after a while, a strong smell of burning was coming from the vents - the inevitable happened, he burned something down. I could hear him talking on the phone and then he came upstairs and told me that "the circuit board is broken, water must have leaked on it, I am going to get a replacement. You'll feel a smell now from the new heat exchanges.". He left the furnace running while he was gone to get a new board. I could see it running for a while and then resetting with code 13. Loud clicking sound was still there. Who leaves an unfinished project and just walks out with that burning smell and leaves the machine plugged in and running with errors? It could have caught on fire, leak gas, explode, who knows?.

He came back 30 minutes later with a new aftermarket board. I immediately asked him if I am going to be charged for the board. He said "for the board not because maybe I have done something to break it, I cannot tell if it was like that, but I'll charge you for the pressure switch". So, he was going to replace the pressure switch also (perhaps assuming that they were broken per code 23 that was shown earlier). I also asked him if he's sure if the board is broken (seemed to me a lttle odd since water cannot easily get onto that board). His reply was "I'm doing this for 20 years". So, I was just suppose to bow down to his experience.

So, he replaced the board, replaced the switches and turned it back on. Guess what? It was doing the same thing - run for a  minute then shut off with code 13.

I looked at the broken board and I see a popped relay on it. Also I see the board is epoxy coated which makes it even less probable that it was water damage that broke that contact relay. I asked him about code 13 and he said that it must be from the igniter and then I see him swap two wires at the gas valve. As soon as he does that and turns it back on, the clicking noise goes away and the blower started running. Now it seemed that the furnace was running but it was still showing code 13. He wanted to put the panel back on and call it a day but what about that code 13?. He said that it might take a while for the code to go away and the furnace needs to cycle (whatever that means). Couldn't tell if he was right or wrong to be honest - I am no HVAC expert, probably it does need to run for a while. So I told him that I will keep an eye on it and call him if it does not go away. His awkward answer was: "don't call if you have heat. We're very busy and we're all over the place this time of year". Oh yeah? my furnace is displaying an error and you just want me to sit cozy?

Payment was $495 (400 for the heat exchanges and 95 for the pressure switch).

It took him 6 hours to complete the job. But the worst part was not over yet as the furnace started putting a bad burn-like smell in the house. Even after leaving the windows open all day (in the midst of winter by the way), my wife could smell the bad odor as soon as she walked in the house. She's also asthmatic and this smell - likely coming from some bad fumes - could hurt her bad. Burned smell and code 13... Thanks Mulligan!

The guy left without even doing a check. I took matters into my own hands and I looked in the burner view and checked that there was enough flame. I put my hand on the blower motor's case and seemed cool (not overheated). I checked the two venting pipes: one was cool and one was hot - as it should. I went outside and checked the exhausted air - it was smelling differently that the one indoor. What could it be? I remembered that he used a red caulk (I researched and it's called RTV sealant) to seal the heat exchanger to some faceplate and perhaps that was smelling - I don't know, but it was not pleasant. About code 13, I looked it up in the furnace manual and seemed like something was wrong with the igniter. I checked the schematic and I found a mistake. The guy swapped the ground wire with the blue wire from the gas valve. I turned everything off and put the wires back according to the schematic and when I turned it on: Voila! no more code 13. Hey Mulligan, how much are you paying me for "cleaning up" after your guy? For a guy with "20 years experience" this sure is a lousy job. Are all their customers supposed to do a check-up themselves after the technician is gone?

Next morning the smell woke me up before the alarm clock went on, and I never wake up without an alarm clock. It was bad. At 10AM I called them from work and explained (this time a man picked up the phone, let's call him greeter2) that there is a smell and they need to come over and check right away because it could be carbon monoxide or other burned gases that can kill us. Greeter2 said that that's indeed worrisome and he'd like to send someone over but all his technicians are out now and I should call the next day in the morning (before 8AM) to catch them when they are in the office before they leave so that one of them comes over. Next morning, I called at 7:20AM only to get an answering machine. I did not leave a message but called again at 7:30AM and another man answered (say Greeter 3). I told him my name and he says "ok". Ahem...like "ok, so?". I told him about the smell and the call from yesterday and he said that he has 4 "no-heat calls" ahead of me and one of his guys would probably come "sometime this morning". Right. Again no specific time. He said that I should have called their 800 emergency number to leave a message - so my call from the day before apparently did not matter and greeter2 never talked with greeter3.

Again, needless to say, took time off from work and waited home in that smell for someone to show. But, I had no clear guarantee whether someone would come or not and when. On the phone, greeter3 sounded very evasive like he wanted to get rid of me. Perhaps I should have reminded him that I did pay for a job that was not completed. By this time I was fed up with hooligan heating - I mean Mulligan Heating - and didn't wanted to see the same guy show up again and break something else. Instead, I picked up the phone and called another company. They offered to come right that morning which was very pleasant to hear.

I called back Mulligan to tell them that I do not require their services anymore since I hired someone else to look that the problem. I spoke wit

Everyone we have dealt with from Mulligans has been helpful and courteous! There is always follow ups and they will politely contact us from time to time to see if we need any services. that was why we contacted them fo a quote on our windows. They are honest and reliable.

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Our furnace has been operating fine.
I would recommend and use Mulligan Heating again.
We live in Novi, MI

We had to show them the door. Every time we had them do service we either had to end up replace the unit or replace an expensive part. We had to follow them around. I followed hin down to the room and I had just been in the room not 20 minutes ago and he walked in there looked around then came out and told me we had a leak. I asked him what he did because that water was not there 20 minutes ago. We had to have our coils removed and our drain removed. The time before that he checked the outside unit and he told me I needed to fix something out there. I told them I didn't want to speak to them because they costed me an arm and a leg, the lady got a little mouthy so I hung up on her. The guys seem to know what they are doing.

It's $175 for the year for two units, they service it, clean the coils, check the freon and cooling levels, check the duct work, thermostat and make sure the dial is running up to snuff. 

I think that they are very honest. They give you the problems with anything that is wrong with the heating and cooling. They let me know about how everything is operating and whether I have to change the filter and things like that. They tell me before they actually do it so that I don't have to pay it if I am not liable.