AFFORDABLE AIR

It started well I had worked with him on many jobs, as were sub contractors on many jobs together, so I felt that I knew what I was getting in to, but was I so VERY wrong. My wife and I had been dreaming for years of building our dream home that we would get to raise our family in. The fall of 2008 that dream had hit our very own property and had started. I had been in the business for 17 years as a custom cabinet install, so I thought I had plenty of experience on choosing our own sub contractors. The builder that we chose had always used Affordable Air, and I was unsure who to use being that I had built many friendships with multiple heating and cooling contractors. I got 4 bids from heating and cooling contractors and came to the conclusion to use Jason. Based off of his price, product, and what I thought was knowledge of the product that he would later install. The process seemed to go well at first he came set the furnace in our new basement and set our heat pump outside. A heat pump makes heat in the fall and winter and produces cool air in the summer. We have a three zone system (basement, main, and upstairs) which involves installing three dampers that open when that area of the home called for heat or a/c. We also have an electric plenum heater that we use as part of our "Dual" fuel system. Which means our home will heat with the electric plenum heater but when the power company cuts the power it switches to the gas furnace. We also have a whole house humidifier on our heating system, that he installed. Right now its May 2009 and now we are about done with our home and things are looking pretty good. Jason had just a few little things to take care of and came over to do them, and I thought that everything looked good. He finished with the concerns that I had. Jason then did a very quick and poor "show and tell" of how this very expensive and elaborate heating system worked. I then paid him in full and that is the beginning of the end. The winter of 2009 came and he gave me some pointers over the phone on how the system worked. Jason walked me though some settings but we just could not get the plenum heater to work properly. We were using more LP gas to heat than we thought we should, not sure though because it was our first heating season. The fall of 2010 the start to another Minnesota heating season I called Jason MANY times, about 20-25 times and never got a SINGLE returned call. NEVER!! Here we are in our new home in the second heating season and was certain that something in the plenum was not working. After never getting a response from Jason. I went and had our electrician come in and take a look. The electrician did a continuity test and found that all of the coils in the plenum heater had melted. Now what, upon further inspection found also found the reason that coils went bad. So now I at this time I'm calling Jason more and with still no returned calls, by now I have given up completely on Jason and in his company Affordable Air!! Taking matters into my own hands I called the manufacturer of the plenum heater from Monticello. This was a call of fresh air, they said that they had never had this happen in all of there years in business that all of he elements would burn out on a unit that quickly. They insisted on swapping a new unit with the one that I had. They sent me a completely new unit free of shipping both ways AWESOME! They were thinking that it may have been a bad electrical board or something. They did a bunch of testing to find that there was nothing wrong with the board, were thinking that the high limit sensor must be bad. So they had me look for the high limit sensor, and found it in the COLD AIR return. Yes the COLD AIR return, it needs to be in the heating area to control the temp of the coils. The high limit sensor was installed in the cold air return, you heard me right THE COLD AIR RETURN!! The sensor needs to be installed in the heating area so it can control the temp of the air in the heating system. I also found out the we were a very lucky family, that plenum was so hot that we could have had a fire, my floor trusses are only 8 inch above the coils. The specs say that there needs to be 16 inch minimum. Oh but we are not done yet it even better when I had a new heating and cooling contractor show up to fix his improper installation, he saw that I had a new pad in my humidifier. He then quizzed me when it was that I replaced it I said never. So this means that Jason never checked to see if it even operated, the electrical board was bad from the factory. By the time I realized that it did not work it was out of warranty. The board was $180 dollars, plus I installed it. Jason installed this April Air Whole House Humidifier and NEVER TOOK THE TIME TO SEE IF IT EVEN WORKED!!!!!!