JP Mechanical, Inc.

John responded on time, was very professional, explained what he was doing, and went above and beyond to troubleshoot the problem and rule out other causes. I have used many other HVAC companies in the past but I will always call JP Mechanical in the future - an honest, fair, and dependable company.

unknown

unknown

unknown

unknown

unknown

.

12/12/12:
I called JP Mechanical and spoke with Pam. She said John is the name of the man that does the service calls. She took my information and said he'd call me to schedule a visit. I described to her three problems:
and quot;heatand quot; coming from vents is barely warm, at best;
fan runs for much too long after heat shuts off, but only inconsistently;
rattling internal ductwork needs removing.

John called just before 8:00 that evening, and said that he would come the next afternoon.

12-13-12:

John did not come. Someone named Scott called to say he was coming in his 1-ton truck. (I can't recall why he would have mentioned that he was driving a 1-ton truck.) I asked that he park in the street, rather than the driveway, as I was concerned about his 1-ton truck on the rutted gravel. He said fine.
He arrived, and parked in the driveway.
When I opened the door, he stepped inside and heaved a huge groan/sigh. He didn't introduce himself or say anything about why he was here. I waited. and quot;What a day!and quot; he said. I stared. and quot;Is it Friday yet?and quot; he asked. and quot;No,and quot; I said, and finally expressed a bit of sympathy, thinking that might move us toward furnace repair. He talked about what a rough day he'd had. I led him to the furnace.

He acknowledged the noise, and looked into the hole already cut in the ductwork (previous company that I fired mid-job) that exposed the internal rattling material. He agreed that the internal ductwork had to come out. He'd have to bring his sheet metal guy in, and that couldn't take place until the next day.
___
Re the cool air coming from the vents:
He tested the thermostat, and said the temperature there was accurate enough.
He removed a panel at the furnace in the basement, and sounded very pleased that the coil was nice and clean.
At the outside unit he took a side panel off, felt a pipe, and said it appeared that the refrigerant wasn't low, because the pipe was hot, but went to his truck and brought back a gauge. The pressure reading was over 200, and he said it was just fine.
Inside, he plugged a temperature sensor into his multimeter and tested the air coming out of one of the vents. With the auxiliary heat on, the reading, he said, was 104F, which he called good. and quot;Without the auxilary, it ought to run between 95 and 100,and quot; he said. He seemed to be putting away his multimeter. and quot;Well,and quot; I said, and quot;since it's when the auxiliary isn't running that the air feels cold, how about we test the temp with the auxiliary off?and quot; He seemed tired, distracted, and a bit resentful, but agreed. We turned off the auxiliary heat. He stood and stared at his multimeter for a few minutes, then said it was sitting right at 94F. At the time, the air coming out felt somewhat warmer than what I'm used to, but not by a huge amount. and quot;It ought to be somewhere between 90 and 96,and quot; he said. and quot;You just told me it should be 95-100,and quot; I said. He said a bunch more words until the discrepancy faded into oblivion.

Later, with my uncalibrated thermometer, I got 89F.

___
Re the fan not shutting off when the heat pump does:
Scott said the only things it could be are the sequencers and the relay, and they're and quot;connected,and quot; which I eventually understood to mean that they are sold as a unit. He was preparing to leave, but had not checked the sequencers. I asked him to, and he said he'd check them when he came back next day with the sheet-metal guy.
___
As he was leaving, I asked Scott why he'd parked in the driveway, only minutes after I'd asked him to park on the street, and not in the driveway. and quot;I just didn't want the truck to be in the way,and quot; he said.
and quot;Traffic gets around vehicles parked on the street just fine,and quot; I said. and quot;When you come tomorrow, will you please park in the street?and quot; He said he would, and he did.

12-14-12:

Scott arrived a little after 9am with Josh, the sheet metal guy. I asked Scott whether my recent difficulty with the cold air might be because the last guys had changed the blower speed from low to high. Scott said that had occurred to him as well, and explained to me at length about the dispersion of heat in fast-moving air.
Uh, yeah, that's why I brought it up.
At my request, he changed the speed.

The air from the vents feels warmer with the slower blower speed.
___
Scott and Josh removed the internal duct work. Some of the rattle remained. There is a plate, inside the main (functional) ductwork that partially covers the opening from the blower motor; it was the source of the additional vibration. Scott and Josh were attempting to ignore that, but I pressed the point. They decided the solution was to put tape on it. I was dubious that tape would fix the problem, and asked about just setting a weight on the vibrating plate. They looked uncomfortable, but otherwise ignored me, proceeding with the tape plan, and with sealing the ductwork. I don't know whether they had another job they felt pressured to get to, or whether they just didn't feel like applying themselves to the problem, but after putting tape on the plate, they would not turn the blower back on to see whether the rattling had stopped. They seemed determined to get the access hole in the ductwork sealed and the job wrapped up.

The noise was much reduced with the internal ductwork removed, but that vibrating plate was not fixed or improved with the tape treatment. Weeks later I re-opened the access hole and laid a brick on it. The furnace has been perfectly quiet since then. It would have taken two minutes for Scott to try that, with that hole already opened and the plate right there. It would have been quicker than putting tape on it.
He and Josh were so proud of the shiny aluminum tape with which they sealed the hole shut, but that got sacrificed when I had to open the hole again; now it's plain old duct tape there. (The duct tape -- it is called and quot;ductand quot; tape, after all -- works fine, so why did they use the super-expensive tape? and quot;This stuff's ten dollars a roll!and quot; They seemed to want me to think I was getting extra-special treatment, because of this expensive tape.)
___
Scott was getting ready to go again without testing the sequencers. I reminded him again, and he finally tested them and said that they seemed fine, and that I may just have to wait until they go completely. and quot;You're saying they will probably work intermittently for a while, before they stop working entirely?and quot; I asked. Yes, he said. and quot;Well, since they're problematic now, how about we go ahead and replace them?and quot; Scott checked on availability, and said they may come soon, they may come late. There was much confusion about how much each sequencer and/or relay cost, and how many I needed. Something was $50 each, but I'm still not sure how much I'd have spent for parts.
With installation time, and the $160 I've already got on my tab for the duct work, it would probably come to $300-$350.
After they'd gone, I decided to live with the sequencer problem. I couldn't face any more visits from Scott for a while. He was unprofessional and double-talking; he seemed impatient and sometimes barely able to maintain a helpful demeanor, and he apparently had a lot of things on his mind besides repairing my furnace. His mercurial and contradictory claims led me to trust nothing he said, since I had no way of sorting out fact from fiction, and since he seemed to deal a large portion of fiction in the name of convenience.
___
Since then I

Our heat pump blower was not working at all. Even though it was the day after Thanksgiving, John Providenti didn't hesitate to come out on a service call. When he arrived he knew exactly what to look for and found a blown capacitor. He had the correct replacement part in his truck and was able to repair it on the spot. John checked the unit for other potential problems before he left which made me feel more comfortable that there were not multiple problems. Excellent job! Excellent service!