Mathis Plumbing and Heating Co Inc

"In responding to his complaint, I need to provide you with the other information that he left out. Previously, on 1/3/08 he called in for service. We responded promptly on 1/3/08 & found the "water source" heat pump performing to it capacity. We informed him, to maximize the under-performing unit, some duct work needs to be reworked & new valves, flow meter & pressure temp gauges were needed. He declined all options to help his insufficient unit to work better. For these two trips we only charged one standard fee of $59. He had bought this house and wasn't familiar with this type of system. The service trip that he is referring to in his complaint was taken on 3/30/09; he called for no hot water & no heat. He was informed again of our fees. We again promptly responded the same day. Since he said "no hot water", my Service Manager dispatched a plumbing tech. He found nothing wrong with the hot water heater, but a bad expansion tank, in which he declined to replace. My tech called back to the office for a HVAC tech to respond. My pluming tech didn't charge for his trip/time. When the HVAC tech arrived, there was no mention of having a previous well problem. If he had, my plumbing tech would have inspected the system while he was there. The "closed loop system" wasn't putting enough water thru heat pump. The line pressure gauges indicated that there was a water pressure drop so the "common sense" deduction is there must be a leak int he closed loop. They asked him about the location of the outside water loop, but he said he didn't know. He even told my men that he had two wells & he didn't know which one supplied the heat pump. Finding a leak in a water loop without knowing location can be very costly. This is when they told him, since it must be a leak in line and the unit is old & under performing anyway, it would be best to install a new standard heat pump. He declined & we charged him the $59 trip/diagnostic fee but no fee was charged for a repair. He later called to complain, so I sent our HVAC Operations Manager, to his house at no charge just to appease him. By doing a visual inspection & knowing what our tech's did, he also deducted the conditions indicate a leak. Afterward, he calls the previous owner for any details. The previous owner told him a place where some valves were located & make sure they were open. He said he opened a valve & heat started working. But he now contradicts himself by saying another plumber said the leak was an open valve that should have been shut, so which was it? My tech's didn't open or shut valves to re-regulate any flow. Why would they, they were told the system just stopped working so they deducted the loop line not staying full was due to a leak. He failed to give them the critical information of his past well problems. He did tell me later about opening a valve & it started working. I told him I was glad it was working now for him. He evidently doesn't realize that we didn't charge him for a repair. We only charged one $59 diagnostic/trip fee for our trips. I don' t think we have been unfair with our charge. But why wait 6 months to complain? If I felt this strong, I would have reported it to the BBB or taken it to small claims court. He just chose an easy avenue to intimidate us. This is an unfair complaint. Surely, he can see the whole picture & can realize his part in the misdiagnosis. Mathis Plumbing and Heating has just been honored by S.C. as the "SBA Family Owned Business of the Year" as well as the entire Southeast 8-State Region. Since documented customer service and fairness is just one small requirement of being nominated, I think this should give credibility to my response. He quoting our ad, "If we don't treat your home with care and respect, you don't pay". We didn't damage anything? I now realize we have actually lost way more than the $59 he paid. Wayne Mathis-VP"