I had a Daikin air conditioner and furnace installed by Hamco. I went with Hamco over other contractors because Andrew's excellent sales skills along with reviews online gave me confidence that Hamco would do the job right, and would give me the best chance of being satisfied in the end.
I have never been so wrong or so disappointed. Problems started with the install when the HVAC techs ruined a $90 linen towel that were in a hamper on the other side of the furnace/laundry room by using it as a rag to clean up what appeared to be some kind of caulking/sealant. After they left, the work area was left a huge mess. Workmanship was subpar with leaks where they had attached ductwork to the air handler.
In determining sizing of the AC, Andrew appeared to use a general rule of thumb instead of doing a proper heat load calculation. He suggested a smaller capacity air conditioner than other contractors, and 2 tons smaller than the one I currently had installed. I decided to trust him because of his experience, the Daikin Comfort Promise (which guarantees that a Daikin Comfort Pro will correctly size and install your system or fix it at no cost to you), along with Andrew's personal guarantee that Hamco would make things right if there were any problems.
It turns out that this trust was misplaced. The house regularly went 2 degrees celsius above the thermostat setpoint in July/August. Andrew and Hamco refused to make things right. The Daikin Comfort Promise turned out to be worthless. In the end I had a proper thermal load assessment done by an engineer which found I need 53,000 BTUs of cooling. This is equivalent to just under 4.5 tons, and 1.5 tons more than the 3 tons Andrew calculated and had installed.
Since Andrew made a mistake, I expected him to fix it by replacing the installed AC with an appropriately sized one. Instead, Andrew's solution to the undersized AC was to claim that a second-floor room set up for listening to music was essentially a server room, and that server rooms typically need extra cooling.
When I questioned how an amplifier and receiver with a typical active load under 200W or 600BTUs of heat generation could make the entire house so hot, he continued to nonsensically assert that it was a server room, and server rooms need extra cooling or they can heat up the whole house.
Andrew decided that the best solution to him miscalculating the thermal load and air conditioner capacity was not to replace the air conditioner with an appropriately sized one (even when I offered to pay the difference in equipment cost) with an appropriate sized unit. He said the only thing he could do was to sell me a second HVAC system (mini-split) for the second floor at an additional cost of $14,000.
Eventually I contacted Daikin, and attempted to get them to hold Andrew to the Daikin Comfort Promise. Daikin's only response after Andrew's failure to uphold the Daikin Comfort Promise was to say that they do not deal with end-consumers. I eventually learned that the Daikin Comfort Promise is part of a marketing program that Daikin offers to help contractors sell more Daikin product, and there are no repercussions for the contractor unless the they were to act fraudulently toward Daikin itself.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $16,000.00
- Company Response
We value feedback and are continually striving for improvements. We sincerely appreciate the constructive feedback pertaining to your May 2021 Daikin FIT Installation.
As per our previous communication, you had asked for an estimate in early 2021. Upon receiving the estimate from us and multiple other contractors., you then contacted us to barter about the estimate. The unit quoted was sized for your 1300 sq ft home. None of your other estimates quoted anything larger. The sizing you are claiming you need is typically for 4000 plus sq ft home or a light commercial space.
This size of equipment would have required a larger furnace to move the volume of air needed. Selling you a larger, more expensive unit, knowing that your ductwork is not properly sized to work with a larger system, would have been unethical as it would cause frequent start/ stop (short cycling) which limits the total amount of air circulation and causes premature failure of equipment.
Almost a year after installation, we were contacted with concerns of excess heat in the basement. Specially a basement office, of which the use was never properly disclosed to us or any other estimates. Upon coming out and meeting with you at your home, we immediately got in touch with our Daikin representative and technical support regarding the size of your home, your existing ductwork limitations, and what options we could present to you to remedy your concerns.
Based on our recommendation and the confirmation from Daikin, a separate ductless system was the best solution to cool this basement office. This option was only suggested almost a year later when you mentioned the gravity of the heat situation in this space. To make an accurate evaluation of the heating and cooling loads we should have been made aware of this indoor contribution of heat prior to quoting, as it would have affected the total heat load in the home and we would have recommended a separate unit then.
We do apologize that the system did not meet your needs and we hope that you understand it was not our intention to fall short of your HVAC expectations.