Ascending Dove Service & Repair LLC

After receiving the estimate, which was priced very reasonably, we received a phone call from Brian, indicating he had miscalculated the cost of the job. He requested an additional amount in order to do the work. We agreed, as the new price was still the best estimate we had obtained. The bulk of the work was completed within a few days as agreed, they were supposed to return later to add an additional air return, to increase the air flow throughout the house. This was never done, even though it had been included in the estimate.. We are pleased with the work that was done and have had no problems with the system since installation, however, we're not happy about the fact that he never completed the additional work, we have since had that work done by a different company.

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The price they quoted was far below anything I was expecting, and their service (as always) was top notch.  I regularly recommend this company to any friends who need any HVAC work.  For the furnace,etc install, they were in an out in one day even with the issues my house has with wiring, and they went above and beyond by replacing the crappy wiring of the thermostat as well.  As with previous work, I can always count on them to show up within a day or two, and sometimes same day if the timing works.  They are easy to access by phone, and very easy to talk to.

Everything works as it should and the HVAC and water heater are high quality, very efficent .  The owner and installers are easy going and professional.  Getting the job completely finished was a challenge; getting someone to show up at a scheduled time or at all was a problem. 
I'd suggest adding a "completed no later than date" if you decide to use them.
I was told by the owner that "Mr.Utility" was called for the last portion of the job, removing the heating oil tank.  However, it's "Miss Utility" and one call into the service revealed it was never requested by him or any one from Ascending Dove.  I put in the request myself just to be sure I could get this job complete.     
This could be a top notch company with a full time operations officer that can set priorites and direct installers ensuring the jobs are started and completed in a timely manner.

I had used Brian Black and his company, Ascending Dove, previously on a bathroom renovation project. He was flaky about showing up but he is a certified electrician, plumber, HVAC, and was able to do all aspects of the jobs I needed and was affordable.

I hired him again to finish the extensive remodel of the rest of my house on 2/21/2012. I paid him $600 to start pulling permits and $1000 as a down payment for materials.

As of 4/26/2012, he missed an estimated 21 out of 25 scheduled appointments! After each previous episode of not showing up, he would promise to make the next appointment and would proceed to again miss the next appointment (with the exception of the 4 times he did show up) without giving any notice of cancellation, followup, or apology. Of the four times that he did show up, one of the days he wasn't able to work because he said he needed something else. Of the three other days he worked, I estimate he put in somewhere between 1 to 4 hours of work.

On 4/27/12, we agreed to meet at my house at noon, so he could finish the part of the job he was working and give me the permits he had pulled. After that the plan was to hire other people for the rest of the renovation project.

When I arrived, I found one of his employees in front of my house in one of Brian's work trucks. The man in the truck had previously worked on my bathroom remodel. Since that time I had been told by Brian to call the police if this man showed up because he had been attempting to steal from some of his customers. Brian stated that his employee would show up to a client?s home and would ask to gain entry into the home on behalf of Ascending Dove to retrieve an item that was left at the home in an attempt to rob the homeowner. As far as I know, nothing was ever actually stolen.

With this in mind and the growing hostility of being lied to for the past several months, I was extremely alarmed. I contacted Brian and told him I did not want him to do anymore work and wanted a refund for the permits ($600) and the $1000 down payment. I also contacted Arlington County to find out if the permits had been pulled. They stated the permits had been applied for but the checks from Ascending Dove had been returned (bounced).

At this point, I am still trying to recover my money from Brian and my project is on hold until I can get the permitting issue resolved. While I do not believe his intentions are bad, his actions are dishonorable, and he cannot be trusted. Brian has at no point apologized for his actions. Hire him at your own risk.

My experience with them went pretty well.  We ended up working with them because we had worked with somebody related to them for a different project.  They took care of the repair work.  The work that they did on the repair work was very good.  They also gave a quote for doing our roof, but we weren’t comfortable having them do our roof because they seemed to be involved in too many different things to be really good at any one particular thing.

Feel like I've found 'my' HVAC guys.