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Good techs, dishonest business practices
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Our AC went out when I was feeling under the weather and we had Northern Air come out and look at it due to the owner of the previous company we were using retiring.
The engineer they sent was professional and prompt. It was $109 for the troubleshooting call, which was not applied to my repair later (many contractors I have used in the past apply the troubleshooting to the repair if they can't fix it in one trip). I thought it was a bit high, but I've seen worse. Then engineer quoted me $937 for the repair and due to the AC being out, a hot week on the horizon and generally not feeling well I agreed.
After the work was done, a friend from out of state was in town who is in this industry. I mentioned the job to him briefly over lunch, and he said that was high. And not as in a little high, as in double what it should have been. I figured I could look at the invoice and justify the cost.
But - I couldn't. Why? Because the invoice was not itemized, which is the first time I've seen a contractor invoice in this way. Very sketchy way of doing business. How much did I pay for each part? Who knows? How much was the repair work? No clue.
Looking up the parts, one of them goes for $200-400 in general online and the other goes for about $60-70. That's what I could find as someone not in the industry, so they could probably do better. Lets just say, at the high end, the parts are $500. That leaves $437 in labor. He must have been out there all day, right? No - my security system tells me he was out there for far less than an hour doing the repairs. So, $400/hr in labor I guess?
I filled out their web form yesterday asking for itemization or justification of this price, as I'd like everything in writing from them now and wanted them to email me. I mentioned in that form submission that I'd be writing reviews if I didn't hear back. One business day later I did not hear back from them so here I am writing a review.
The technician was prompt on the first call and was very knowledgeable. However, I did have to call about a week later to remind them they still hadn't completed the job, and then they came out the next day. I have a feeling had I not done that it may have been forgotten about.
So - good technician, but due to non-itemized invoices and potentially double the price of what the job should have been I'm going to choose a different company for any future HVAC work, and I recommend you do also.
I posted this same review over on Google Reviews and the owner replied with "You called for service and we sent a competent technician to accurately diagnose the issue. We then quoted the total repair cost. You agreed to the total repair cost and we then obtained the parts, returned and performed the repairs, and then charged the exact same total price that was originally quoted. Thank you."
Note he didn't deny overcharging or not providing an itemized bill.
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