Complaint Review: Brothers Heating And Air And Heat

I recently had the displeasure of dealing with Brothers A/C and Heat. They are a regional giant in the A/C business. Recently I had them come out to my house because my A/C was not cooling properly. I had hoped they would send out someone to recharge my unit with freon. I had a small leak in the line outside going to my compressor, but it has lasted all summer the past two years.

Their technician comes out and tells me that the unit is low on pressure, which I assumed, and insisted on taking a look at my evaporator coil. He goes into my attic and tells me there is oil in the inside of my evaporator coil which is indicative of an oil leak. He then informs me that my entire unit has to be replaced, because I have a 10 SEER unit. The 10 SEER unit is no longer available because it does not meet current energy efficiency standards. This change took effect at the beginning in 2007. So if you have an older home that was built in a cookie cutter subdivision, look out. This is what contractors used because they were the cheapest.

He goes out into his van and brings back a price book. He quotes us approximately $6100 (this is with a $600 discount). and leaves us his card. I asked him if he recharged my unit with freon and he said there was no point in spending the extra $179, because it would lose pressure within a few days.

I shopped around and had no quote higher than $4500. I asked them to resend their quote and got no response. The route we went with was ordering our unit online and having a private contractor do the install. Which cost us $3700 for all equipment and labor.

Upon removing the evaporator coil, the contractor indicated to me that he did not believe there to be any problems with it. However he had already done half the work, and I would have had to have paid him the same amount to re install the old one. I had him install the new unit.

He took the old evaporator coil to his shop and applied 400psi in the copper tubing (the average unit operates at 80-90psi). He left his gauges on it and after 48 hrs, there was no change in pressure.

Since I have sent numerous emails and placed several phone calls to both the company president, Roger Costner and service manager Steven Helms. The ladies answering the phones, though nice, lied to me on two occasions. With each communication I requested a call from either gentlemen.

Four days after my initial request for a phone call I got a response from Mr. Helms that they would be refunding me my $99 for the service call and that he had already sent me a letter in the mail. Who responds to a phone call or email via USPS?

My experience with both of these men is an example of cowardice, deceit, and flat out predatory business practices.

Jonathan
Indian Trail, North Carolina
U.S.A.