Columbus Worthington Air

This was a service call for a fan on our outside unit of our heat pump not running. I also asked them to install a new inside thermostat that would control a humidifier. The tech came out reasonably close to the time they said. He proceeded to pull the electric cutoff for the outside unit. When he did that, it broke. He charged $350 to replace it. He diagnosed the problem with the fan as being a bad fan motor. He suggested that I replace the entire outside unit even though the unit was only about 7 years old. I opted to have it repaired so this cost $500 to replace but he didn't have the part so he had to leave and get it. He came back and replaced the motor but they didn't have the capacitor that should come with the motor so he said when it came in they'd come an replace it free of charge. Once he was finished with the repairs he asked what type of thermostat I wanted even though I had told them when I setup the appointment. He of course didn't have it with him. He offered to come back the following day to do the thermostat but since I'd already taken the day off to meet him, I declined. During this visit, he supposedly checked out the rest of the unit to make sure it was working fine. That included hooking up his refrigerant gauges to check the fill. Everything was fine until two weeks later when the heater wasn't kicking on and the emergency heat was on to keep the interior temperature at the correct setting. I called again and again they sent someone out in a reasonable time period. This was a different tech than the first one. This one dumped about two pounds of refrigerant into the system before the unit would kick on. He told me I had a leak in the system and again suggested that I replace the entire outside unit. I declined That was two years ago and I still haven't had to add anymore freon. This was by far the worst experience I've had with a company failing to have the correct parts, charging to repair parts they broke and trying to upsell me to things I didn't need.

Not much to say. You call, they come and do a good job. We have used CW since August 2001 to replace our A/C and to perform annual check-ups on the A/C and furnace.

We called for a bad igniter (no heat). The phone receptionist tried to up-sell to an expensive service plan that we declined. The technician (Jamie) arrived on time and spent a fair amount of time trying to up-sell the expansive service plan again and we declined it again. While he was here we learned that the company did not qualify for our home warranty so we asked to just pay the $84 visit fee and not have any additional work done. He had spent less than 5 minutes brushing the sensor with a wire brush so he charged us an additional $60 for cleaning the sensor in addition to the $84 for the visit which lasted less than 20 minutes. He pulled out the bad igniter and wanted to charge us $275 for the part to replace it, we did a quick search online and found the EXACT same part (by model number) online for only $25. The whole experience was terrible. I cannot believe a company this large would inflate their prices so dramatically, try to constantly up-sell expensive service plans, and would charge you $140 for a 20-minute sales pitch and no real work. Infuriating! +++ UPDATE: The Provider's response does not really address the cause of our frustration. We were frustrated because the company was overpriced (for the specific job) and was extremely pushy with their added sales. We had another (maintenance) company come out and inform us that the "required" maintenance was not needed in the immediate future. Dishonest sales. I don't doubt they can fix broken furnaces; I'm also certain that they attempted to create non-required work and charge us a premium for it. This is a classic case of buyer beware. If you have a small job, hire a small company/independent contractor. If you have a big job, *maybe* consider these guys... but note that if they are dishonest on the small gigs, they might also be dishonest on the big ones. Finally, I'm posting our response to an email they sent to us following our complaint. I know it's long, but it goes into detail about how the company did not meet our consumer expectations/needs. Maybe it will help you when shopping around for help. +++ From the company: First and foremost I apologize if you were not pleased with the service you received from our company. I assure you we are a top notch company that puts our customers first. Our prices by no means are the cheapest in town. We are also not the most expensive in town. Yes you can get that part on line for the price that you listed below, but also remember when purchasing the price on line you will also pay shipping cost and the have to wait the arrival of the part with no heat. You will also have to install the part yourself which could be risky when working on a gas appliance. My Comment: I accept that there will always be some premium charges for faster work, less risk, and specialized labor. In this case, the premium price did not reflect the speed, risk level or required skill/labor level. The part in question is a plug-and-play part fastened by an easily accessible bracket. Your price for the part (more than a 500% markup) was unreasonable based on the ease of replacement. This price could have been justified if the time to replace was in the 1-hour range, but it simply was not. From the company: Our company provides quick service with drug tested and back round checked certified technicians that go through hours of training per year to get your equipment back up and running so you can be comfortable in your home. Also our parts come with a 2 year no questions ask part and labor guarantee that if anything would happen to that part on your furnace within the 2 years we will come out to fix it for free. The parts that we purchase from the manufacturer are only guaranteed for 1 year in which we add an additional year and also 2 years of labor because simply most parts will not fail within that first year. If you order it online it will not come with those offerings. My Comment: By charging 10 times the cost of the part, I argue that you are not fixing anything for free. From a pure sourcing perspective, you are betting on the part failing less than 10 times in two years in order to maintain the part margin. Of course, it costs you when you need to send service guys to repair the part under warrantee, but the numbers here work in your favor. The technician mentioned that this part has an expected field life of approximately 9 to 10 years. This is a classic insurance/warrantee model. When taking the model population in its entirety, warrantees always benefit the person offering them. [So arguing your extended warrantee forces you to charge higher prices is disingenuous.] From the company: I will admit we cannot compete with on line purchases and don’t expect too. All online companies just simply do not have the overhead that we carry. In order to service our customers 7 days a week 24 hours a day comes with overhead cost that simply are added to the cost of parts and labor that you pay. We will make between 5 to 10% profit on every part that we offer. In your case would have been around $25. My Comment: This is by far the biggest argument not to use your company. It sounds similar to an insurance pass-through approach. You argue that in order to provide a valuable service (24/7 availability), you need everyone involved to pitch in. This could potentially benefit people who are regular (subscribing) customers, but this really burns the one-time customer. We needed one part that was easy to install. Cheap part, little labor. You charged us an unreasonable rate because you offer robust support to your other customers. There appears to be no benefit to using your company for one-off projects. In fact, independent contractors will certainly beat your prices and (if they are good) will stand by their work. Anecdotally, in a previous house we had a full electronic ignition system replaced (by a small heating/cooling contractor LLC). He spent a few hours installing, charged a reasonable price for the parts and later came back to fix something he didn’t quite get right the first time. From the company: The only thing I can offer you is the service backing from one of the number one heating and cooling companies in the industry. As for the expensive service plan that we were offering you, I am pretty sure the technician did not explain the benefits. First and foremost every furnace and air conditioner should have routine maintenance done once a year. The amount of hours that a furnace will run per year is the same as putting about 60,000 miles on your car per year. I am pretty sure that most people these days will not drive their car 60,000 miles without receiving a routine oil change. A furnace is the same thing. There are components in that furnace that need serviced every year, such as, blower motor, inducer motor, flame sensor, burners, heat exchanger, condensate traps, and so on. That plan also offers free service calls at any time of the day and year, in which we would of waived that cost for you today. My Comment: Understood. We’re particularly averse to these types of insurance/service plans. If we were mildly irritated by this, it was because it felt like our service guy was trying to sell us services on top of a really expensive part. From the company: You also would not of paid the $60 charge to clean the flame sensor because it would have been included in the plan. It also offers 20% off on all parts and labor and a $500 automatic discount when purchasing a new heating and cooling equipment. You will also be guaranteed an appointment within 24 hours of the service call. One more comment on this: This really appears like up-selling people who are in a desperate situation. Pushy sales for people in a bad negotiating position (i.e. they are cold and need heat), wreaks of a predatory sales approach. Each benefit in itself sounds fine, but how happy should I really be about getting 20% off of a 500% markup. The numbers were complex enough that I would have needed at least 15 minutes to compare plan benefits before even considering it. Over the course of the year… or two years… which would save me money? For example, buying the service plan will cost this much, and not buying the plan will cost this much. It was too many numbers to crunch in anyone’s head. For that reason, it felt like a high-pressure sale. And that feels dishonest. From the company: The one thing that struck me the most in your email is you called this morning and we sent out a technician right away. We try our hardest to be there for our customers and have rapid service so it does not take away from your entire day. That is not an easy task. I can only imagine how stressful it is having no heat myself and our job at Columbus Worthington Air is to make that less stressful. My Comment: Fast response was definitely appreciated. However, I would have been happy to wait a day for more reasonable and fair prices. In summary, the quick response (for me) did not justify the outrageous pricing. From the company: I apologize once again that you felt CWA did not provide you with the type of service that you were expecting. I hope that this email explains more of who we are and what we do. If you would like to discuss this further please feel free to call me at the office and I will do my best to make sure you are satisfied. Thank you for your time to write me and hopefully you will be able to use our company once again. My Comment: I respect and appreciate that you took the time to respond to the email (good business practice), but your business pricing/sales approach and my ideas of fair market value are chasms apart. If your overhead is truly such that each 30 minute $400 call only yields $25 profit, you have desperate need of an efficiency expert.

We have used their services for many years and have had no complaints with their work or service. They've generally been able to accommodate our schedule and needs.

They did a very good job. They added some anti-freeze and did some other work. I was very pleased with their work. Their price was comparable to others.

Please see above. There aren't really more details than that.

I had a new furnace installed by a contractor under a home warranty and then, later, the same contractor replaced an exisiting humidifier. As it has turned out, that contractor was inept and, thankfully, Columbus Worthington Air stepped in and we have gotten the situation remedied. Matt is a great guy!

I specifically asked for a good technician, Kenney Ward, to perform the maintenance check. This company will let you pick any good technician as long as he or she is available. They have many good people to choose from. I watched him perform the furnance check and he answered all my questions regarding the maintenance check. Excellent company and employees.

I had CWA install a top of the line furnace/AC system by Bryant. The people involved are very professional and knowledgable, I am very pleased with them. They are also very timely, I had the estimate done on Tuesday, and they installed my system on Thursday the same week. However, when the temperature outside dropped, the thermostat stated that the system was malfunction, and the heatpump inverter was defective. When Matt the technical specialist came, he also noticed the water on the basement floor, he said it was due to the condensation of the furnace, and the drainpipe was slightly misplaced. He had the problem fixed in no time, but we had to wait two days for the new inverter to come in. All together the experience was not too bad, when the heatpump inverter did not work, the furnace kicked in, so the temperature inside the house was comfortable. I am impressed by the friendliness of everyone, they really wanted to do their best, but these things happened. I will use the company again in the future. Right now, the heatpump is humming nicely, very quiet, and I cannot wait to see the utility bills from the heating and cooling.

They called to remind us time to set up appt for service and did so. We have annual service contract of $339 for 2 furnaces and 2 air conditioners. Service person came at time established. Identified himeself and was very professional and courteous.

We got 3 estimates and they were the cheapest. They did a real nice job with the installation. I am very pleased.

We have the maintenance contract with them for an air conditioner and furnace check every year. We were a little late on the a/c check this year but they were helpful in getting to us promptly and checking the unit as well as replacing the filter. This latest technician seemed to be somewhat new at it and was a little slower than our regular tech but seemed to do the job okay.

I called Columbus Worthington Air on 5/13 because our house wasn't cooling. They promtly sent a very nice guy out and he said we probably had a leak, but put in 2 or 3 lbs of freon to make sure. I had a family emergency, so I wrote him a check for $175 and he finished up outside. A week later, the house was heating up again, so I placed another call and they promptly sent another man out. He said our fan was out and recommended that we replace it. My husband purchased their "service program" (about $200) in addition to the new fan ($600). More freon was added. That tech didn't mention the leak. A few days later, it was getting hot again (it was during the heat wave and we were having near 100 degree weather). Another tech came out (again very promptly, especially given the demand they must have had). He said there was a big leak and recommended a new unit. He then told my husband that because all of the freon was gone, he'd have to put in 7 or 8 lbs (at somewhere around $80/ per pound!!) of freon. Even though he just said there was a huge leak and the 2 lbs that had been put in before had leaked out. I told him that under no condition was he putting that much freon in. He then said that maybe just a pound or two, just to make sure. He told us to contact them for a sales person. The sales person came out quickly and showed us our options. Even though we had just spent hundreds of dollars on wasted freon and a brand new ($600) fan a week before, he quoted us around $8000 for a whole new system. We did get a price break because we had purchased the "service program" and after I raised heck about having just paid $600 for a brand new fan that was going to be trashed, he agreed to credit us $300 of the $600 we had just paid. Nothing was mentioned about all of the freon we had purchased (and wasted) because the techs kept telling us we had to have it. The new system is in, and is working fine. My complaint is that (after the first tech came out) the remaining technicans continued to come out and put in more and more freon even after a leak was suspected and that we purchased a brand new fan that was not needed. I felt that a couple of them took advantage of us.

Service was good but a little expensive.

They did a great job and they cleaned up after the work was completed.

I use CWA for the seasonal A/C and furnace check. On top of normal inefficencies that come with 20 year old units, the furnace was growing increasingly louder, and the A/C wasn't able to keep up with the summer heat. A sales specialist was sent out. He took some measurements and gathered some info. Afterward, he made some recommendations for replacements and also explained about financing offers. The work was completed about two weeks later. The two workmen were here all day doing the installation. When they were done, they walked me through everything explaining how to use the new thermostat and the humidifier. My only complaint was that they used my bathroom a LOT. I expected that they would use it since they were going to be here all day, but I work from home, drink a lot of water as the day goes on, and *I* don't use my bathroom that much. Aside from the awkward restroom habits, the work was done well, and the choice of equipment has been great.

Service techs are knowledgeable and helpful. They took time to examine and explain the condition of the equipment.

This missed call is extremely exasperating as I annually purchase their premium year round service for $239.50 or so. That guarantees unlimited calls and covers spring and fall inspections, etc. When my wife called to check on the appointment, some woman answered who did not communicate very well. She kept babbling "$239.50 at my wife and was of little help after that. If what she meant was no prepayment no service, that was not the deal we had. I have received no advance notice of needing to pay for the annual service up front. Seems this company is not investing in customer service. Both times this year they claimed "technical problems" were the reason for the lost appointment schedules. They could at least write the request on a cocktail napkin and hand it to somebody if their computers don't work. If the owner or service manager will not give out his/her name, then they don't want to be bothered with anything but counting their shekels on payday. We invested over $11,000 with CWA based in part on their claims of superior service. They had a relatively good record with all the usual reference sources when we checked. But service issues happened last year (2011) also. On their spring visit they found the air conditioner was very low on refrigerant because someone left a service line cap off during their prior inspection in 2010. We were not charged extra since we had the premium plan (and I would not have paid extra anyway if it was their fault). Service bungles in 2012 are enraging and lead me to wonder if I can get better service on my equipment elsewhere. At least the equipment itself seems to work well. We pay the premium price (usual calls are $89-90 range on average for one visit). Many of their competitors charge less and run specials. Crappy service call handling makes me re-think that approach. There is no use offering a chatline for assistance if the requests via the chatline are lost or mishandled later. My prior service call in spring 2012 was called in live directly to CWA and they still mishandled that one also. Confirm all service visits with these people and ask for a confirmation e-mail or call back if needed. We scheduled in advance because we anticipated the rush of calls prior to cold weather. Now we start over at the back of the pile again. Maybe the consolation prize will be that they lost a lot of other calls and an appointment will miraculously be found in the next day or so. I'm not holding my breath in anticipation....

We trust them. We feel they are a very honest company.

Columbus/Worthington Air came out to do our annual furnace inspection. Part way through his inspection he discovered that our furnace was leaking CO a bit through the front of the furnace. It was enough to indicate a problem. He showed me the reading on his CO detector and told me he would check out the cause of the leak for no extra charge. He took awhile to do this and discovered that there was some rust and cracks on our heat exchanger which likely was causing the CO to escape. He told us that usually the furnace should be shut down due to that. He didn't do that since we weren't using the furnace yet and he thought it would be ok with limited use. He suggested it might be time to replace the furnace in light of this problem and since the furnace is 20 years old.

Moved into a foreclosure. Home inspector told us the heat pump unit outside was shot. We cranked it up and it made a VERY crazy LOUD noise so we shut it down quickly and figured it was a total loss. Their guy came out and I just expected him to tell me how much he could put a new one in for. Came to me after about a half-hour and says "all done". Turns out the bearings needed some love and it was good! I told him the issue up front and he could have easily sold me a new unit because the home inspector and I were both convinced the thing would probably blow up. The honesty and ability to fix something (as opposed to just replacing things) was refreshing. It's now a month later and it still runs like a charm - and we are setting records for days above 90 this year.

The technician called ahead of time to let us know what time he would arrive. Upon arrival he inspected the system and found that the freon level was low and added more freon. Since the system was only two years old the tech checked with the manufacturer to determine if the unit was under warranty in case the compressor etc, would need to be replaced. The tech tried to check the system for leaks but said his equipment was not functioning properly and someone would have to return the next day. Since we had purchased the maintenance agreement, there was no additional charge for the second service call. When the tech arrived the next day (not the same one) he inspected the system and did not find any leaks. He suspected that the since the refrigerant line was very long that the system may not have been adequately charged from the very beginning. The system now works as designed.

We chose them because of their reputation. The cost was fair. Their technician is very responsive and very knowledgeable.

Great. They were Prompt and courteous and did an excellent job. There really wasn't and "don'ts". I have no complaints.

My air conditioning blew out on a Sunday and they were able to send someone out the next day. Kenny came out on time and quickly diagnosed the problem (blower motor failed). Kenny then took steps to research the warranty status for me, made a few calls, and found someone that was going to be willing to provide a replacement motor free of charge - I just needed to pay for the labor. Two days later the part was in and Kenny came out and fixed the issue. Along the way I also signed up for their Advantage program which involves free diagnoses and free A/C and Furnace inspections (as well as some other perks). I did NOT include this fee in the price listed as this was supplemental to the primary service. I'm not really an expert but my A/C did seem to work much better once the inspections/tune-up was done. The only issue that I had with this company is that there was a frustrating issue with the timing of the eventual repair. I had been told on Monday that the part would be ordered and my A/C would be repaired the next day. It turns out that the part did not arrive until late on Tuesday so the repair couldn't be done until Wednesday. I had to take the day off of work on Tuesday to be around for the repair, so the fact that it didn't happen was pretty frustrating. I had to make several calls on Tuesday before I finally got a clear answer at around 2:00 pm telling me that the repair wouldn't happen that day. I think this company has a lot of room for improvement as far as communication is concerned, but I'm happy enough with the rest of their service that I'll give them another shot.