AA Richards Heating & Cooling LLC

Very bad contractor. Bad attitude. Do yourself a favor when using him get an estimate from a different contractor. He will give you a price then tell you he had other issues and charge you more. Never dealt with a contractor as bad as him

Excellent service, perfect service, excellent company, they were professional, they came every time we need them, clean efficient and on time, I will never use other company.

When I turned my heater on for the first time, it did not go on. Being new in the area, I screened some companies from friends, Google and Angi. Chris of A.A. Richards Heating & Cooling was selected due to his experience and positive reviews. When Chris came to evaluate the boiler, his initial assessment was grim due to the age and condition of the system. He did some research and was able to make the necessary repairs! In addition, the service were affordable. I was comfortable in my home as the temperature dropped below 32 degrees that night!! When this system has to be replaced, he is the person I will call.

had "atitude"

I would never hire them again or recommend them to others.

Provider was initially very responsive and arrived on time as scheduled. Some possible causes for boiler malfunction were given, but no real diagnostics conducted or solutions provider. I wad told that if the heat shut off again that I should call the emergency number and that since the tech lived around the block he would diagnose the system while it was in lock out. Well, two days later when the heat shut off in the middle of the night, I called the emergency number and nobody answered the phone. Nobody called me back like the message said they would. As a matter of fact, I still have not received a call back. These people are quick to take your money without providing any solutions. I guess a basic boiler was too much for this company to handle. If you want a solution to your heating issues, call Arctic Air. Their tech actually touched the boiler and solved the issue in 15 minutes the next day. I want my money back!!!

We thought the price was fair and was told it would take 3 days to complete, they would take care of the permits and could start in one week. We paid the deposit and the start date came and went without a call from Richards. I called the next day and found the job was never scheduled and would have to wait another 2 weeks.Two weeks later a subcontractor that Richards hired from Florida showed up to do the job. He took 4 weeks to complete the job but to be fare that time included the contractor driving back to Florida for Christmas and then again for New years. The job was carried out in an extremely unprofessional manner, the contractor put his foot through the ceiling in several places, the only sheet rock that didn't need to be replaced. Vents were not installed straight, holes cut out too large and then poorly installed. He installed the wrong evaporator unit that I brought to his attention and was told I did not know what I was talking about, luckily another Richards employee inspecting the job spotted the error and made him change it out for the right one. Upon completion I expressed concern that the single return air vent they installed was not large enough. I was assured  by multiple Richards employee's it was,(keep this point in mind). Then trying to schedule a building inspector so we could start the system and get heat in the house I found that Richards never applied for a permit until after I complained.
One year 9 months later the furnace failed and Richards was called, they did respond promptly. Richards said the problem  was insulation in the furnace cabinet came loose and blocked off air flow to the blower cutting the unit out on high heat limit. 3 days later the unit failed again. Richards tech said it was a bad limit switch, he got the furnace working and would be back to replace 
it the next day.4 days later on a Friday night the unit failed again, the tech never returned to replace the switch. I called first thing Saturday morning and was told a tech would be there in 45 minutes, 4 hours later the tech showed up but in the mean time the furnace started working and was working when the tech got there. He said it is running so there is nothing he can do and walked out.
Saturday evening the furnace cut out again, I called Richards 24/7 emergency service number and got a recording to leave a message and someone will return the call in 15 minutes, No return call all night and at 8 am Sunday morning I called again this time getting a live person. I was told it was Sunday and it would be a $200 service charge to get someone out. I tried to explain it was an ongoing problem with equipment they installed and got hung up on....that's right, HUNG UP ON. I though for a few minute and called back this time getting voice mail and left a massage saying that my wife is disabled with a debilitating heart problem and we needed heat so I would pay the fee. I never heard back from them. During this whole process I was told I needed more return air for the system to work properly, something I had been telling them from day one but now they want me to pay for it. I paid $11,600 for what I thought would be a properly installed system. i did not ask them to cut corners or even haggle their price, I paid what they asked for and expect a system to work for more then 2 years.
After no return call for 2 hours Sunday morning and tired of a cold house I called another company, explained my story and they had a tech to my house in under an hour. With my luck after the call the furnace came on again and was running when the tech showed up. He said no problem let him have a look. After looking the unit over for a few minutes he cycled the unit a couple of times until he got it to fail. After it failed he cycled it a few more times and could not get it to light. He told me the ECM (electronic control module) was not operating probably and checked to make sure all connections were tight, cleaned the flame detection sensor and the unit fired right up. he cycled it a few more times trying to get it to fail but it fired each and every time. 26 hours later (knock on wood) it is still running. The tech said he was going to talk to Amana about replacing the ECM and the induction blower motor because he thought it was not sounding right. This second company with me not being a client charged $57 for the Sunday service call that I happily paid.
Another problem I just found out is Richards did not register the system with Amana like they promised they would and I now have a problem with warranty. 
I would NOT recommend AA Richards to anyone for even the simplest service. To get the job they promised they would handle everything from design, to permitting, to installation, to warranty registration.  After they get your money all the promises go out the door. 

They were very unprofessional and rude when I called to set up the appointment. I do not want to use this company and would like a refund.

John ( the AA Richards electrician) checked everything and told me that I need a new furnace panel because the panel wasn't able to hook up a humidifier.  A new panel costs around 600. I paid him 53.00 without fixing anything.  I am very skeptical about his explanation for I know people hook up their humidifier without replacing their furnace panel. It should be a wiring problem.
Fortunately I shopped for a second opinion. I hired J&S heating & cooling to fix the wire problem and my humidifier works perfectly right now.
In summary, I won't hire AA Richards again. The technician was either not qualified or he was trying to sell more expensive service.  The service experience was very bad.

That was great! They were fantastic and very good. They were done when they said they were, nice to deal with, and nice people. There was no additional charge and that was it. I used them probably within a month when we have here. I just thought their follow up and their scattering and office people were fantastic.

I was told there was a Freon leak, but he wasn't sure where it was leaking.  He said it would cost about $400 to replace the Freon and $350 for a dye test to see the location of the leak.  It was too expensive to repair and another company gave me a much lower price.  Since the HVAC system was very old I was considering a total replacement.  I had already researched various brands and the man tole me he would work up an estimate for me.  I never heard from him again.  I called the company twice and asked about the progress of the estimate and was told they would check with the guy that came out.  I gave up and hired another company.  They are not customer service oriented.  It seems he just wanted a quick $85 and on to the next.

I was excited about the gas and electric savings I was to experience though this upgrade.   When I started receiving my gas bill during the first part of the year they were significantly higher than the previous year.   I had them come out and they found that the unit they installed was a two stage system and it was programmed to only use the first stage.   This accounted for the system working very hard to keep up on minimal power.   They fixed this however this was at the end of the heating season so I am not sure if this worked.  Then I entered cooling season.   Once again the electric usage is far higher than it was previously.  I have called them to come and determine what is wrong as I am seeing some fluid leak from the system.   They have yet to respond.  Overall my electric and gas bill have been higher than what I experienced from a 30 year old system.  It is not obvious to me that this was a good program and I ended up with an efficient and cost effective system.   I am investigating this situation with the New Jersey's Clean Energy Program to determine what happened here.   

I was told that a service technician would arrive between 1:00 and 3:00 PM.  At 2:00PM I received a call from Lee who told me that he was on his way and would arrive in 20 minutes.  Lee showed up 20 minutes later and immediately checked the wiring in the attic to see why the thermostat wasn't turning the A/C unit on.  He traced the problem to our thermostat and recommended we install a new one.  The thermostat that he had with him was a very simple and easy to use non-programmable unit.  Lee had it installed in less than 1/2 an hour.  He then checked and tested the unit outside the house to make sure it was operatring withing limits which it was.  We were very pleased with Lee's expediency and professionalism, and we thought the price charged was very fair for the service he provided.  We will definitely use A.A. Richards again if/when the need arrives for any HVAC service.

tech showed up early and quickly ascertained the problem.  I had just had my home sided and the workers disconnected the electrical box to the unit while they worked on it.  they failed to replace it correctly.  tech completed task and a/c worked perfectly!

It didn't go.

The inspection was completed by someone who was unaware that I had paid for the visit at the time of the appointment, so my son paid the bill at the time of the visit as charged.  However, as soon as we contacted their office they immediately mailed a refund check and included a $10 gift card with apologies for the oversight.

I called them and referenced the offer that I was interested in and they scheduled a time to come to my house. When they got to my home, they said hello and got straight to work. I wasn't sure what they were doing, so I let them continue. They started by blocking off the front door. They were checking for heat efficiency, so I figured that that was standard procedure for figuring out what furnace to install. I assumed that once they were done they would get down to discussing the offer with me. Once they were done, they presented me with their findings. They said that I needed a new A/C system, insulation under the eaves, a new furnace and quoted around $6000. They presented a payment plan of $48 a month and offered a tankless water heater for an additional $10 a month. The offer that I called about never came up. They said that if I chose one of the options they wouldn't charge me for the efficiency inspection. I decided to go ahead with it and signed the paperwork.
It was supposed to be done by April 31st and then all I continued to get was more requests for documentation. By the end of May work still wasn't done and I called to say that I didn't want the tankless water heater. Basically, I requested to drop Contract B and go to Contract A. They never went back to the gas company to advise that I wasn't getting the water heater anymore and the next thing I knew, I got bill for the heating inspection. The bill said that because I hadn't followed through with having them do the work, I owed for the inspection. I contracted with them to do the work and it is on them that it wasn't done, so I am not paying the $300 requested for the inspection. Honestly, when they came out in the first place, I hadn't been advised that there was a fee for the inspection. I didn't find out until the sit down when I was offered a contract for $6000 or $300 for the assessment. I might actually have to use this company for because of the contracts in place and they fact that there aren't many companies out there that work with the gas companies for the rebates. However, I'm not happy with how things have turned out thus far and am not overly confident that things will be corrected.

fast service, great price would use them again .

The unit installed initially didn't cool the house as well as we expected. Call the owner of the company, Mr. John Boyle,
and he informed that they would install a larger unit. AA Richard absorbed most of the cost of the larger unit. We were only asked to pay a miminum amount of the larger unit. Larger unit cools the house well. Very please with the out come. The installers were
very professional and very respective of our home. Worked very neat.

The origianal unit was not strong enough to cool our home. The owner made arrangement to replace the recently installed unit with a much larger unit. For this significant upgrade the owner only asked to pay slightly more for the larger unit. His firm absorbed
the majority of the upgraded cost. We were very satisfied with the outcome.

The estimation and installation went very well. But it took some time for us to get county's approval letter as well as warranty from the company.

They were great but it wasn’t what I needed.

Picture this: it is literally the hottest day of the year, and our AC dies. We called a local provider we had used before, but they said they couldn't come out  for 3 days. So we checked the Yellow Pages and found AA Richards. Gave them a call and the dispatcher said someone would be out in 2 hours. 1 hour later, the AA Richards van arrived, and Chris and Dan got to work. Within 10 minutes, they diagnosed the problem as a bad capacitor, replaced it with one they had in their van, and our AC was fixed. Just like that.

Not only were they an hour earlier than expected, but these guys were helpful, courteous, and competent. They knew their business, and despite having been on calls all day (did I mention this was literally the hottest day of the year?), they had such a professional attitude, fixed the problem near-instantly, and charged an entirely reasonable rate.

We will absolutely call AA Richards again. What a great job!

I searched online for a local company who could service my HVAC system. I was contacted by AA Richards Heating and Cooling by phone from this search. 

It was a hot and humid week and my AC was not cooling the house. It is a Goodman system and only 4 years old. I wanted it inspected in its entirety, to be given recommendations for getting it back to better cooling and for overall maintenance as well.

I agreed to have AA Richards come, knowing that there would be a fee of about $75.00 for them  to come as it was in the early evening and therefore  I'd be charged an additional cost.

When the fellow got here, he did not inspect the unit and its parts at all.....he walked to the thermostat, looked at it, pushed a button or two and went outside. Without being apprised of the status of the system, he took my lawn sprinkler and hose out of the ground and rinsed the condenser for about 1 full minute. He then checked the pressure and added some liquid gas.

He put the sprinkler back, but not in the right spot in which it had been. (It had taken me several trials to get the sprinkler set to the best spot for coverage of my lawn). He came in and sat down with his invoice. He added  "65R" to the tune of $95.00 and said he had to charge me $25.oo to rinse out the condenser. He told me he was doing me a favor to then only charge me an additional $109.00 for the "diagnostic cost," which is usually 149.95 at that time of day. (7pm) The total bill came to $229.00!! The total time spent at my house was 10 minutes!!!!

He never told me what he was doing and why. He never even looked at the unit inside, which is in the attic. He said that what he'd done would get the house cooler soon....in a bout 1/2 hour. Well, it didn't. When I called the company to apprise them of their work yielding no results, I was told it wasn't the unit at all but that I had no insulation in the attic. (But, I had lived there 4 years to that point with no problems ever with my unit and I bought the house with no insulation. I actually had that job booked to be done, though, just to save energy). The guy who'd come over to my house, "Chris," told me that if I'd wanted, he'd get his company insulation truck over there that night and take care of it and if that didn't help, then he'd offer me a maintenance plan at a very discounted rate for the rest of the year. The $229.99 would go towards their  "1 year Blue" maintenance plan. He added that if there were any more problems through the year, concerning the unit's ability to cool my house, he'd take care of it for nothing, provided I were to sign up with them as my HVAC maintenance company. 

I made several calls to that company to complain about the exorbitant charge for 10 minutes of a visit which did not solve the problem. I even emailed them. I never got any responses in return.

I would NOT recommend this company to anyone!!!!!!!They ripped me off, took advantage of it being a very hot week and me wanting to get my AC working well again.

The A.A. Richards team was polite, professional and knew their stuff. They are truly a 24/7 company in emergencies, and we are considering a service contract with them, we were so impressed. They sell and service heating and cooling systems and service all of Ocean and Monmouth Counties in NJ. Wish we had known about them when we installed our heating/cooling system 2 years ago.