Complaint Review: D.G. Meyer Inc. & Lowes

This is the first draft of a complaint package with photos that I am sending to the Florida Department of Regulations.

Background: 8-3-02
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I paid Lowe's for this A/C unit. Thom Brett from D.G. Meyer, Inc. was the sales rep, and D.G. Meyer, Inc. was the installation company.

I chose Lowe's because I have been a long time customer. Also, I am from North Carolina and have not lived in Florida long enough to know who to call for my A/C needs.

The comments around the photos are a bit sarcastic, but I have to have some comic relief since this entire ordeal has cost me at least $2400.00 in missed work and contractors to look at the duct work and so on. I will include that in this report so D.G. Meyer does not try to tell you that the entire problem resides with the duct work like they tried to tell me. Until proven otherwise.

Complaint:

1) The A/C system is undersized. The first 90 degree day we had the system had trouble holding 78 79 deg in the house. And hotter in the back bedrooms which are now offices. I questioned the sale rep about the size he was going to put in this house. I thought our old system was a three ton unit. And when I told me a 2.5 ton unit I was concerned. He told me that the new engineered system are so very efficient and that the new Puron refrigerant gets so much cooler that this system would function like a 3.0 ton unit. Well, looking back that just does not make sense at all. A 2.5 ton unit will displace 2.5 tons of heat. But the sales rep told me that he had 20 years experience in A/C and D.G. Meyer had over 35 years experience in the business. And with the new relationship with Lowe's and how Lowe's picked D.G. Meyer because they were the best. Trust me, he said. Well, I did trust him and I got taken.
2) The sales rep promised me that the air return duct would be fiber glassed in and when he stopped by he looked in the return duct and told me that this would not be done because the fiber glass material would not stick to the silver lined duct board. This apparently is not true, oddly enough when the man came to inspect the duct work he, on his own, asked me why the return was not fiber glassed. I told him the sales rep said it would not stick. The man went to his truck and brought back a metal flashlight and showed me fiber glass that had been stuck on there for three years. He said you can't get if off and suspected that the installers did not want to get messy putting it in. At a latter time when Steve Jones from D.G. Meyer had come over I asked him to address this, he told me that is was done like the company does it, and the sales rep was thinking old style ways of doing things. Says a lot about the sales rep, and everybody being on the same page.
3) Sales rep promised lower energy costs. Well, because the system is grossly undersized it runs all the time. No savings.


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4) Sales rep and I discussed the offices at the end of the house and the placement of the thermostat. This is when I made the decision based on what he said to get the top of the line air handler with the constant on fan mode. I was told that this would level out room temperatures. What the sales rep should have told me was the air ducts would not be large enough to cool the room. It has been 87 deg in the offices. If I had good info from the sales rep I could have made the decision to put more money into the duct work and not blow my whole budget on the A/C unit.
5) Poor workmanship see photos
6) Steve Jones, VP from D.G. Meyer came out with Tom Kruszewski who is the rep for the manufacture Carrier. I understand that the manufacture rep does not hold a license in this state and is not allowed to make changes to the system. I guess that is why Steve from D.G. Meyer come with him. Upon this visit the A/C system was set up to run pushed past the manufactures design specs. (latter confirmed to me by Tom's boss Dennis Harper). The cfm air flow was increased by 200, and the t-stat was change from an electrical functioning t-stat to that of a mechanical t-stat. And, I was told that the coil deg temp was 4 deg lower. All resulting in a one ton increase in output. This system is now noisier, per the sales process I was told this was the most quiet unit made. The system does not have proper humidity control, another feature I paid extra for and told I would have. Now the system does not work a efficiently as it should, I paid for a hisgh energy efficient unit. The unit now turn on / off like and older style unit, I paid extra for state of the are variable fan control system. I now don't have any of the extras I paid for, and the unit sweats. The bolts are starting to rust. Now I have a system that according to another contractor who looked at it (not going inside) told me this system would rust out in three years.

Ken
Deltona, Florida

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