Choosing Your H.V.A.C. Company

If you’re shopping for a Heating and A/C Professional you may already have noticed…there are literally hundreds in the Weber county area alone!
When choosing an HVAC company we’d like to suggest the following criteria:

• Make sure they are a real company:
  • Do they have an office that you can visit?
  • Regular store hours?
  • Does a real person answer the phone?
  • Are they properly licensed and insured?
  • Have they been in business for at least 5 years?
  • Buy from your neighbor
• Avoid National Chains and Big Box Stores.
• Get 3 bids from companies that seem to meet the criteria above
  • if they can’t leave you a bid at your first meeting- throw them out of contention… There are 3 reason a company won’t leave you a bid at your first meeting
    1. The estimator isn’t competent to produce a bid.
    2. The estimator is trying to add value by claiming that in order to make a thorough analysis of your home they must go back to the office and put your information into a computer, and run calculations before he could possibly provide a price.  Often this estimator will spend as long as an hour or two at your home measuring your doors, windows, rooms, pets, etc….  Any qualified estimator should be able to complete this part of the process in less than 10 minutes… and should then sit with you at your kitchen table and present you with his recommendation and a good, better, best choice for your.  He should present your options and allow you to choose the one that best fits your situation.
    3. Another strategy is to wait until you have your other bids and then when they are certain that you are done shopping they will come back and put the pressure on to close the deal.
  • A contientious estimator will respect your time and your circumstance and present you with your options within 20 minutes of arriving at your front door.
• If a bid is extremely low or extremely high throw them out.   We all buy the equipment for about the same price and our labor costs should be similar.  If you get an estimate that is significantly different from the other 2 it is probably because they are Guy with Truck or  Overpriced (see below).
• Consider like products and make certain that you are comparing apples for apples…IE: if you are installing a new air conditioner- and there is currently a swamp cooler on the roof… what is their solution?  Are they leaving it for you to deal with?  Or are they offering a complete solution- that won’t leave you with additional work or expense when they are gone?

When shopping for an HVAC Company there are typically 3 types to consider….

1-Reputable Companies that charge a reasonable price: Most of the real companies (that have store hours, and a real person to answer the phone) will fall into this category.  The owner of the company is probably your neighbor and works long hours every day to provide a good service to his customers at a fair price.  We have been in the business for years and years and our reputation is much more important to us than making a quick buck.  Our prices are all pretty similar and don’t fluctuate much over time.

2- Guy with a Truck: Be wary of any one that doesn’t have a brick and mortar office that you can visit.  During the cooling season 100′s of handymen, apprentice installers, or even well qualified technicians decide that they can make a quick buck by offering installations on the side.  Many of these “companies” can perform an adequate job of installing a new system in your home, and some are even properly licensed, but many are not properly insured and most don’t stay in business for more than a season or 2.  The number one cause of a/c compressor failure is from improper installation.  You may be able to save $200 up front but that installation could wind up costing much more in just  couple of years.   Even if the equipment is still under warranty the labor to replace that failed compressor can cost up to $800.

3-Overpriced : There are a handful of companies that make a very professional presentation but as a matter of practice will charge as much as 200% more than other reputable companies.  Sometimes because of their affiliation with a big box store, national chain, franchise, or referral service the company has to charge more to cover the fee for this affiliation.  This fee could be has high as 20% of the total price.  Some companies pay their service technicians purely on commission, which by its nature can lead to a recommendation to replace parts that aren’t broken and at a fee that is 2 or 3 times the appropriate price.  We’ve all seen the Dateline specials showing unscrupulous mechanics, beware when what you thought was a tune up turns in to an expensive replacement.