| rev:text
| - I should have known better than to respond to a phone solicitation.
I just bought a new home, and someone sold my cell phone number to third party vendors like Emergency Air. I'm not happy about that, but it's not the fault of the folks at Emergency Air. One of their people called me unsolicited to offer me a free HVAC inspection. Okay, I live in Phoenix, and that is a necessary task anyway. I figured, why not?
A technician came out. I'm not going to name him because he seemed like a great guy. The part I was shocked about was when he came back in the home and wrote me out an estimate to get me caught up on my standard maintenance. The bill he wrote up was $1,400. I decided at that point that the business was called Emergency Air because I almost needed an emergency room to mend my ailing heart when he showed me that estimate.
Included in that estimate was $200 each for an "acid cleaning" on both coils, $200 for a new capacitor, $200 for a new thermostat and $400 for duct cleaning plus a couple of other odds and ends. However, he said that if I was to buy a seven year service contract for $1,500, he would knock everything off except the price of the capacitor. Plus, they offered zero percent financing. One thing to add is that he swore that my unit was a 2002 model when my home inspector claimed it was much newer (and still under warranty).
I figured it was time to practice some due diligence. I called the guy who inspected my home back when I was in the escrow period of my home buying purchase. He pulled up my file and promised me that my A/C unit was a 2009 model, just a little over six years old, with almost four years left on the warranty. I decided to get a third opinion, and I called another HVAC guy to take a look.
When the second HVAC guy came back into the house to announce his findings, that is the point where I became disgruntled with Emergency Air. He said there were essentially four problems:
1. He agreed with the guy from Emergency Air that both coils needed to be cleaned, but that was free as part of the service visit.
2. Condensation hose was unhooked. He also offered to re-hook it up for free as part of the visit, but he wanted to make sure it wasn't clogged first. How did they guy from Emergency Air miss that?
3. The fuses in the unit were the wrong size. How did the guy from Emergency Air miss that?
4. He also agreed that I should probably replace my thermostat.
The second A/C guy offered to do all of that for $400. When I showed him my estimate from Emergency Air, he said the only things from the invoice that he did not do were capacitor replacement and the duct cleaning because it wasn't necessary. He also agreed with my home inspector that the A/C unit was a 2009 unit still under warranty, so if the capacitor did go out, it would be covered under the warranty. Plus, he unclogged my condensation hose and replaced my fuses, two things that the guy from Emergency Air didn't even catch.
I hate leaving extremely negative reviews, but I feel this one is completely justified. I have always had a rule against engaging with phone solicitors. This one took me off guard, but I have now reinforced that rule to myself. Now, to find out which vendor in the home-buying process sold my cell phone number because a complaint to the FCC is in order.
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