Do not sign up for their furnace maintenance program. I learnt - painfully - that is a thinly-veiled scheme to allow them to come into your home to "inspect" your furnace and aha! discover that you have a major fault (which NEVER affected the unit's safety or efficiency before they showed up...). Then they RED TAG your unit - which forbids you from legally using it again.
One second, you have a perfectly-functional, safe furnace that you'd hoped to keep in tip-top shape by having it cleaned by those who purport to be experts.
Next minute, you're told that it has a cracked housing which could leak carbon monoxide and kill you and your family.
Of course, they won't explain why you really, really, cannot see this minuscule crack they claim to have uncovered in the innards of your unit. Nor can they explain why your carbon monoxide detectors do not show any elevated levels of the gas in spite of this horrible crack they say they've found.
What is important, is that they've got you. It's mid-winter and they've slapped a RED TAG on your unit (which, I remind you, was humming along fine until the moment they showed up) - you cannot use the unit until you drop a couple thousand dollars on these replacement blower motors or wait, better still, you should buy a new furnace and BY THE WAY, the inspector just happens to have some of them on special now!
I've cancelled my contract and will never have this company darken my doors again. I urge you to NEVER have them inspect your furnace, ever. Especially not during or close to winter. If your furnace is more than say, eight or nine years old, they *WILL* find some imperfection. They WILL turn off your furnace and legally forbid you from turning it back on. THEY will try to sell you a replacement unit.
I did not find them competent or ethical. Avoid them.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $4,000.00
- What could this company do to improve their services?
- Explicitly warn homeowners what is the underlying intent of their furnace inspections.
- Any advice to offer fellow homeowners facing a similar project?
- Have the maintenance carried out by an individual or business which has no direct interest in selling you replacement furnaces.