IDEAL SERVICES HEATING & COOLING

I hired Ideal Services to replace a HVAC coil unit and during the installation the technician broke my concentric valve that us used for my heating system. This renders my heat inoperable and potentially allows toxic fumes into our home. This is 6 months after Ideal Services installed another HVAC unit at my home and 1 week after their technician did my semi-annual inspection. I've already spent over $17,000 with them in 6 months. They tried to get me to pay them an additional $732.29 to repair the damage that their technician caused!! They wanted $732.29 but offered to do it for $250 after speaking with their service manager, Mark and general manager Adam. An additional $250 to fix damage they caused!! Adam justified it by saying that the damage was caused by not having a proper support on the broken pipe. It was supported just fine prior to Ideal Services breaking it! My home is only 7 years old and has been through multiple inspections, including one by Ideal Services last week and this was never an issue before they broke it!! In my opinion based on our personal experience, Ideal Services is a con-job. I would recommend avoiding them and using one of the other many HVAC companies in the area.

I purchased a new HVAC system from Ideal in May 2020 for just under $6000....just about 18 months ago. Installation went well and I followed all recommendations for follow-up inspections and preventative maintenance. I noticed on 12/31/2021 that I was not able to access my unit so I called for service. I was advised a technician would be out on 1/3 and there would be a $99 diagnostic fee and that all parts were still covered undertone 5 year- warranty....no one was available to further advise on an extended labor plan or additional fee information. I waited for a return call which I did not receive. The technician arrives on 1/3 and conducts the roughly 30-minute diagnostic assessment and advises the thermostat is out. He also advises there will be an additional $341.00 charge just to replace it as the parts are still covered under warranty AND a $50 warranty processing fee. Of course this seemed extra expensive so I called in to speak with the office and was advised the Service Manager was not available. He was out all the following week and I was able to speak with him on 1/10. I was advised I am being charged for ALL labor and expenses associated with replacing the thermostat INCLUDING the Service Manager's 30-minutes of time for processing the warranty paperwork in his office AND the mileage for him to return the broken thermostat to Honeywell as well as the technician's time to sit and write his report in his vehicle. I was also advised these are standard fees for replacing a thermostat. I really do not think these fees are reasonable and appropriate. I called a couple of local service providers (Siler City, Raleigh, and Sanford areas) and learned the following: -one offers a $59 diagnostic fee and then maybe $100 to $200 to replace the thermostat since I would not need to purchase the parts from them. -one offers $95/hour labor rate compared to the $535.53 I paid for just over an hour's worth of work INCLUDING the 8-minute phone call in to the office -NO ONE charges $400/hour for labor....not even the dealership to repair/service my vehicles!!! Let me say this, I agree with the $99 diagnostic fee and I would gladly pay this amount in addition to a reasonable fee for the labor of replacing the thermostat. But an additional $450+ is not acceptable and I consider this price gouging for services. The Service Manager advised he would speak with the Regional Manager to consider some remedy in an effort to make this situation agreeable for both sides. -I did get a follow-up call on 1/11 with a refund offer of $50 for the warranty processing fee. This still in unacceptable to me as I would still be paying about $475.53 simply to diagnose and replace a simple thermostat....about an hour's worth of labor!! DO NOT use services from Ideal Heating and Cooling if you are expecting to pay reasonable fees for repair services.

Ideal Services is a PREDATORY company! They take advantage of customers in vulnerable situations. I got swindled out of $400 because their maintenance guy told me that adding temporary coolant to my leaky HVAC unit would provide me with "temporary relief" (which I desperately needed on a 95 degree day) while I explored options for new HVAC unit. I spent $400 and it provided NO RELIEF. Not even a 1 minute benefit of cool air. Ideal Services declined to give me a refund claiming in an email that's what I get for "taking a gamble" on temporary coolant.... That solution was never presented as a "gamble" during the time of sale or else obviously I wouldn't have spent hundreds of dollars on it... The maintenance guy presented it as a temporary solution. Terrible company and shameless management.

They came to fix out heat pump and talked us into a maintenance contract. We were led to believe that the maintenance contract included fixing problems. We had to call them because the fan in the heat pump stopped working. It turned out that the problem was that the emergency heat was turned on by accident. The technician stated that he thought that was the problem.

It went wonderfully, Excellent work. I am extremely pleased, they are so professional.

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They put in a brand new air conditioning for us and two days later, the condenser was stolen. Although we still had to pay for it, they were very quick and responsive and gave us a little discount and put a little gate around it to protect it.

I would absolutely use them in the future.

I cannot recommend Ideal Services at this time. We had two units installed this spring and we've had multiple issues. Once the units were installed, we ran the heat which produced an awful smell like a rotten crotch. They looked the unit over twice and stated they could replace the air ducts. This wasn't an issue before and I'm not replacing the air ducts. Next, the drain line stopped up in the attic which shut the system off due to a filled drain pan. They had me vacuum out the drain pan that evening until they could come out the next morning. The drain pan filled back up and some water dripped onto the attic floor. This could have caused a major issue because the unit didn't stop running this time. The HS Town inspector came out to inspect the units, but they failed due to the clogged drain line. Ideal fixed the line and told us we were lucky to have the one year warranty. This shouldn't have been a problem in the first place. The tech left and the bedroom (were the attic door is located) and left the room smelling like cigarette smoke. A month later the drain line was stopped up again. The tech came back out, fixed the line and reminded us how lucky we were. The room didn't smell like smoke this time, but he left a stain on our bedroom carpet. Thanks! I called Ideal and request the owner call me back, but a service manager returned the called in which he proceeded to tell me how great a company they were and did nothing to reassure their work or provide any comfort this install wasn't going to cause more issues. Basically, purchase the annual service package (I think $250 a yr) and we'll make sure it works. If I were the owner and my customer had this many issues I would have offered something for a piece of mind. At this point we've had a few issues, missed a bit of work and the units have yet to pass the towns inspection after 3 months. They also stated they were going to clean up install on the side of the house and caulk, but that didn't happen either.

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My system was cycling on and off or not coming on at all. I initially
thought it was an issue with the compressor however I'm not a trained technician.
I called the installer (Ideal Services) of this system for an diagnostics and  eventual repair of the system.
Things went South from there, I set up an appointment on 14April2015 , again I'm not a trained
technician I called Ideal to provide a thorough diagnostics of the situation. I was
traveling on business and my wife had and a medical appointment (daily radiation
treatment for breast cancer) , the appointment was scheduled on 14Apr from 3pm-5pm.
The technician shows up at 3pm and my daughter lets him in the house to begin
his assessment of the system. At the time of the assessment the system was
operating so the technician basically spent 15 minutes measuring the system pressures
and cooling temperature. I'm not sure if the technician was in a bad mood but
he started to badger my daughter  for payment of the quick  15 minute assessment.
I was called (while traveling) by Ideal, stating the job (diagnostics) was complete
the system is working properly and only needed  more refrigerant (at a added cost $$$) and they would need payment for services
rendered. I indicated that the system was working intermittently and after my
initial call to Ideal Services I noticed the furnace was operating in the same
manner , I requested further investigation of the situation. The technician
refused to provide service based on the fact there was no one at my home to
provide payment for the quick and inaccurate diagnostics/assessment.  I talked to the technician over the phone and
he persisted to say he would not provide any further service unless there was
someone  capable of paying for the visit,my wife was on her way home from her medical appointment.... we are talking
about an additional 15 minute wait to the 15 minute diagnostics work.  Twenty minutes after the visit by the Ideal technician
the system shut off completely.
Previously  before all of this I had a good relationship and history with Ideal Services , they have
been out to my house to work on my upstairs unit.... no issues. This time, with
new system they installed , I guess they saw an opportunity to make a quick
buck . To Adam, the service manager I will pay you only if you can provide a
accurate  and detail assessment of the problems with the HVAC system you installed.

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They gave me a good service at a decent rate.

Performed winter maintenance on hvac systems under service contract.  Also performed inspection and maintenance of gas hot water heater.  It went well.

Annual HVAC system check ($150) |Added a $33 service to clean and test my humidifier (no filter change as that was $135 and I did it for $33 and 2 mins of my time) |Sometimes these folks like to "upsell" but this rep was good, he knew not to push the lines...

Last year, Ideal Services repaired a blockage in my air conditioner that caused the drain pan to fill.  They came out in a reasonable amount of time, and gave me a diagnosis and cost estimate.  I paid $243 and I emptied the drain pan myself, with sponges, to save additional charges.  The HVAC technician was polite and it was all fine so I called them again.  This year, I called to have my two HVAC's serviced and to make a correction to a noise in the upstairs unit.  The downstairs unit was serviced but for the upstairs unit I was charged a service fee of $99 and was told not to fix the noise as it would cost $800 - $900.  The repair advice was wrong.  I had the noise fixed and paid another company for that, but Ideal will not give me a refund of the $99.  Ideal Services said that to fix the noise, they would have to evacuate the freon to make the repair and then refill the freon which would cost over $800.  The HVAC technician advised that I live with the noise.  I called the company that installed the unit five years ago and he told me that they have valves so the freon is put in another chamber during the repair and then can be allowed to reenter.  He fixed the noise for $220.  I called Ideal Service and they said no, if you reuse the freon, you are going to have debris in the coils that will ruin your coils much faster.  I called back the installer and he said no, there is a vacuum that removes the debris and this is how the units are now designed purposely for repairs.  I called Ideal Services again and had to give them the number of my installer to explain the repair to them.  Then they finally agreed that my installer was right.  I have asked several times for a refund of the $99 since I had to pay someone else to repair the noise.  I am told each time that they made the correct diagnosis, just not the correct repair advice, so I still have to pay, but they would talk to a manager and call me back.  I never receive a call back.  Five years is really long enough for this company to have learned how to use a new repair feature to save on costs and make repairs possible.  I did not want to listen to the grating fan type of noise when my air conditioner turned on during the night.  My installer just switched out a small piece of copper pipe with a wider one and I thought $99 was fair.  Since I paid Ideal $324 to service the downstairs unit, I feel they should refund the $99 for misadvising me on the upstairs unit and not fixing the problem.  I would not call them again.  

On May 16th a technician from Ideal inspected our homes A/C unit which was not functioning properly, and advised we should replace the unit instead of repairing the existing unit.  Because the unit was less than 8 years old, we decided to have it repaired at a cost of $469.
We then called two other A/C companies to ask them for their opinion regarding replacement, and both of them advised we should simply have the unit serviced not replaced, and told us Ideal was simply attempting to sell a new unit when it was not necessary.

Incredibly well.  Bryan and Jeff were great in keeping us posted on what they were doing.  They took it on as a personal challenge to get these 20 year old plus units back up to full working order and did that in less than one week's time.  Prior to their arrival, three units were not working at all, four were sub optimal and one was working fine but the thermostat was not set right so that unit appeared not be working.  They systematically focused on each unit bringing it back up into operational status -- and got our building cooled down in short order.  We had one unit that several companies thought had to be replaced.  But, they spent the time to examine it and were able to find the source of the Freon leak and only replace the one part that had an issue. While that was expensive, it was 20% of the cost of a replacement unit.
After everything was working Bryan spent his own time (no charge) to personally program each thermostat to give us the greatest efficiency we could from the units.  While the cost of the repair was around $5K, I wouldn't be surprised if we safe that much in 12 to 24 months in future electrical and gas bills.
Again, just awesome performance by Bryan and his team.

I am very pleased with them. They were on time and did everything they were supposed to do.

I thought the service was great, they didn't push me to buy a replacement part from them, or the service to replace from them,  they were very educational about what the problem was, they gave me pointers about how I could fix it myself, and they diagnosed it accurately, so I was happy.

Ideal Services was one of four contractors we contacted to bid on replacing our heat pump. They made the initial cut because of the reviews we read here.
Ideal Services:
1) was prompt coming out to make the estimate, which it explained in detail;
2) followed up without prompting to see if we were interested in its bid;
3) came out again (at least) twice to answer questions;
4) answered more questions over the phone; 
5) worked with us on the price;
6) adjusted its schedule to install our heat pump earlier; and
7) installed a heat pump that has been totally problem free.
While one of the other contractors provided a very strong, professional bid, Ideal Services went the extra mile to earn our business.

The experience with them was perfect. They were on time. They came in and did the cooling check and they were very professional. It was a very good experience, which is why I chose them. They were on time. They were very polite and did a good job. I've had no problems with him and he was courteous. They did what I expected them to do. When I first called them they were very responsive and polite. Then we scheduled my first session and that is when they started my service contract. They are very honest.