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Jones Heating and Air
I have had a disappointing experience with Jones Heating and Air. The second week of July, my air conditioner stopped working. I was ecstatic when I called and could get a technician out that afternoon. So I took a few hours off from work and met the technician. He said the air conditioner was freezing up because it was low on freon. He put a pound of freon in and said it was fixed. Six days later, the air conditioner stopped working again. This time it was a Sunday, so I called and had to leave my name and number with the answering service just so the on call technician could call me to tell me how much it costs for an after hours call. Since that tech could not tell me if I'd get some consideration since the first service call did not solve my problem, I waited until Monday. I took the day off from work and called as soon as they opened, asking to speak to the service manager. The woman who answered the phone started the call back ticket and then transfered me to the service manager who explained they wouldn't charge another service call fee (which is about $80) since they did not fix the problem on the first call out. So the same technician from the week before came back. He saw it was frozen up, but it needed to thaw before he could really check anything. He left and came back around an hour or so later. At that time, he ran through some checks and found a small leak. He fixed the problem and added two pounds of freon to the system. He then charged me for an hour of labor rather than the freon - since the cost was the same either way, I figured that was fine.
I can say I am happy with my fixed air conditioner. My first disappointment was in having to call them back out, but I figured it probably would have happened no matter who I had come out. However, I discovered a third charge on my credit card for two days after that second call. I admit, I was really angry at first. I had a couple of days to think about it and figured it was probably an honest mistake becase they had to pull the paperwork from the first call out and put that paperwork in the wrong pile so that they just accidentally charged me again for that first call out. I called on that next Monday, explained I had an erroneous billing, and was told they would reverse the charge on my credit card. I waited a week and then called back because the charge had not been reversed. At that time, I asked to speak to the billing manager. She had left for an appointment, but they said she would call me back when she got in around 9am. I waited until after 1pm and then called again. She was just pulling up outside, so I waited on the line for a minute to speak to her. As soon as I explained to her what had happened, she passed me off to the same person who had failed to correct the erroneous billing the week before. This woman apologized and said she would process the refund immediately. In fact, she called me back just a few minutes later to say she was processing the refund. We had to go around a couple of times on the amount as she thought the wrong charge was the smaller charge from the second call out, but we finally got it straight and she even gave me the confirmation number. So I was extremely suprised two days later (this past Wednesday) when I saw that instead of a credit, I had been charged a fourth time. I was furious, but I reigned myself in. I had to leave work early to physically go to the Jones Heating and Air office. A nice, but a little giggly, woman did help me and I now have the receipt that says refund with a negative sign in front of the dollar amount.
I personally will not use Jones Heating and Air again. I wouldn't tell anyone else not to use them, but I did want people to know my experience so they can be careful.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Floyd on -
In reponse to Worker Bee:
First, I didn't give you enough information to know how much I paid for their service. But it was well more than $150.
Second, the technician did not use freon with a leak detector dye in it. On the first visit, he just put in the freon and said it was normal for units to be low about one pound. On the second visit, he used a hand held device to search the pipes in the outside unit which immediately led him to the source of the leak. It was not hard to find.
Third, I did not know exactly when the technician would get to my house, but the unit was off and just had not had time to thaw out.
Fourth, I thought I was pretty clear that my problem was with the billing portion of the business. I would have been happier if the problem had been found the first time out, but I understood why the tech didn't look for a leak the first time. I never said I had paid too much for the service, either. I feel the prices for each service call were fair. I just did not appreciate being charged an additional two times nor having to take off from work in order to get the erroneous charges refunded.
I posted this just as a warning that if you use Jones Heating and Air, you should carefully watch their billing. If you'd like their number, look it up in the phone book. Or drive down the street to their office on Edison.
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Permalink Reply by Dave Thomas on -
I sympathize with you Jennifer. This is the problem you often run into when dealing with large HVAC contractors. I would recommend finding a 1-2 man operation that has been doing HVAC work for years. They have faster response times and you dont have to deal with office workers billing you, plus you get a much more reasonable rate.
I also saw that you said he charged you for an hour of labor instead of 2 pounds of freon. How much was that. Most Hvac contractors charge $25/pound for freon. So if you were charged more than $50/hr for labor, you paid more than what 2 pounds of freon cost.
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Permalink Reply by Jennifer Floyd on
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Dave: The freon cost $40 a pound from them. I knew that from the first call out when I had to pay the service call charge and for the pound of freon added to the system. An hour of labor and 2 pounds of freon are the same price with them.
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Permalink Reply by All4Kids on
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I agree Dave. Our unit went out 3 weeks ago, the morning we were leaving for vacation. We spoke with someone who has knowledge of HVAC and told us what the problem was, but he wasn't able to come over and fix it. My husband and I went to Sanders Supply to see if they had the parts that we needed (although it didnt fix the problem, because even with the parts, we didn't know how to fix it). When we pulled up to Sanders Supply, there was a man getting in to his truck. On the side of the truck, it had his name and said, HVAC Certified. I approached him and told him what our problem was and what we were told we needed to fix the problem. He was very nice, and gave us his business card and told us that if we had any questions, to please call him. I asked him if there was any way possible, could he come to our house and repair it for us (especially since we had no idea what we were doing and we were trying to leave for vacation) he was at our house within 2 hours and made the repairs. He brought the parts for us (we never purchased them at Sanders) and he charged us just over $100.00, for parts and labor. We were so lucky to find him, my sister's unit went out the night before and they (not sure who she called) told her is was going to be Friday before they could get to her, because they were so busy (her unit went out on a Tuesday night). They man that fixed our unit was, Alan Levart and his number is 501-779-1668. He was great and we will use him and recommend him every time!
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Permalink Reply by Dave Thomas on
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All4Kids,
Out of curiosity, what was wrong with your unit. I would guess a capacitor?
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Permalink Reply by All4Kids on
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Hey Dave,
It was the capacitor and the fan motor. We were just lucky he could repair it so quickly.
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Permalink Reply by Donna Jones on -
I hate this happened to you. I am thankful I have been using them for about 10 years & we have never had a complaint. Yes, I will knock on wood, and No, we are not any kin to these folks.
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Permalink Reply by Jade on -
I have a friend that had a huge issue with Jones.. He has an older unit that had both heat and air on it. His air would not come on.. He called them, they came out and told him it was a small part. He paid for it, around 100.00 –not bad and summer rolled on.. Then winter came, it wouldn’t heat, he called them, they came out, only a small part, so again 100.00 or so for the service. Summer rolled around and same thing. This time he watched from the kitchen as they “fixed” the unit. They were simply switching a part from the heat unit to the air unit and vice versa as the season demanded! Not ordering a new part or actually fixing anything! When confronted, they denied it of course, but a phone call to the boss and a meeting and they did admit it. However all he got was a shrug and sorry about that, but good help is so hard to find. WHAT? They wouldn’t refund anything or didn’t even act like they cared that they had been caught! My friend reported them to the Better Business Bureau but nothing happened.
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Permalink Reply by Nicholas Stehle on -
I use Middleton. They're a big outfit, but I get great service, they stand behind their work, and their techs are very professional. Their prices are very comparable to Jones, judging by my past interactions with both companies.
I had to call them out this past weekend during the big storm. The tech worked in the rain to get me going and then made sure to put on "socks" over his shoes to prevent tracking in mud/water. No other company I've dealt with ever did that. They also stood behind the unit (bought & installed using them) and didn't charge me a thing.
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Permalink Reply by Lori on -
I had a disappointing experience with Jones too. And I have used them for YEARS.. I know good help is hard to find.. but really.. when you see damage done to a H/A unit by your employee.. at least man up and reduce or refuse to charge.. I had one of their "service techs" remove screws from part of the lid of my unit and cut and bend it to see inside unit instead of removing all of the screws to lift the lid. Mr. Jones came out and checked it.. offered apologies and proceeded to charge me $500 for the repair, which took several trips to diagnose. I won't be using them anymore either.. my money is hard earned and for their tech to damage my unit to take the easy route instead of the right route is just plain wrong.
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Permalink Reply by Dave Thomas on
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I had a bad experience with Middleton. Here is a review I posted about them.
Come spring time (2010), I turned my air on and it wasn't cooling. I'd used Middleton for their Spring and Fall maintenance check up before (costs about $200 total) and thought that was a fair price. So, I called them to come out since I figured my Freon was just low. I had an early afternoon appointment (12-2:30). The guy didn't show up till 5:30. I have 2 condensing units (the square looking unit outside your house where you put freon in). He pressure checked both units and neither had any freon in them. As soon as he found this he said he would recommend not putting any more money into the units and recommended to replace my entire system (2 heating and cooling units) because they were 14 years old (thats not real old)!!! He wouldn't give me an approximate price but I've had them quote another system before and it was $6,000 for one unit, so I new I'd be looking at about $12,000 for 2 units. He said he could put freon in the condensing units and see what happeed. So he did, and turns out I just had a hole in my refrigerant line in both units which caused the freon to leak out (an easy fix)! So here he was wanting me to spend $12,000 instead of just fixing 2 small holes. He said he could'nt fix one of the condensing units because of the location of the hole and that I would have to replace that condensing unit out (cost of $2,000 approximately). I said well just fix the other unit then. So he fixed it and I was charged $650 dollars total for 1 1/2 hours easy work and $130 of that was material cost. That breaks down to $346 an hour!!!!
The next day I had another company come out to look at the other unit that Middleton said couldn't be fixed. This guy was referred to me by a plumber friend of mine. The guy fixed the problem in 30 minutes. This guy did the exact same work as the Middleton guy plus he had to do some additonal work because of the location of the hole in the refrigerant line. To be fair he only had to put 5 pounds of freon in as opposed to Middleton putting in 7 pounds. So to recap, this guy did more work (about twice as much as I watched both guys from start to finish) and charged $10 less per pound of Freon ($15 vs. 25). His total bill came to $174 dollars. And if your thinking this guy must just be a shade tree mechanic type, he's not. He has been doing nothing but heat and air work for almost 30 years.
Middleton charged 3.5 times what this guy did and Middleton did less work and tried to sell me something I didn't need. I will never use Middleton again. Shop around for an independent HVAC guy. Think about all the overhead Middleton must have with all their new buildings and vans/trucks they drive plus advertising.
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Permalink Reply by Carol Bowers on -
We had almost the exact same experience at our house. However, we rent so i dont know what the homeowner has been charged. We had our unit freeze up, we turned it off & called Jones. the serviceman came out put freon in it. It froze up again a few days later, we did the same thing. He told us it had a small leak. We left on Friday, July 22nd to go to Florida for a week. Turned the AC up to 80. When we came home it was 95° in the house. We dont know how long it was running constantly but are very afraid to get our bill this month. When we called, they sent a different tech out. Turns out it was a part that he said the other guy should have seen was broke. He put Freon in it and told us he would order the part but may have to come do it again in a couple of days if the part hasn't shown up. It has been 8 days now and we luckily the AC is still working but we haven't seen part yet. I will definitely talk to the homeowner about this and make sure he is not overcharged for an unexperienced service tech.
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