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We have rated area heating and air-conditioning firms on our Ratings Tables . At the time of our last full, published article, eight of these
firms were rated “superior” for “overall performance” by 90 percent or
more of the customers who rated them on our customer survey. But 10 scored
much lower, receiving such favorable ratings from only 50 percent or fewer
of their surveyed customers.
We also found big price differences. For example, for one specific job,
prices ranged from $375 to $850, and for another, prices ranged from $135
to $331. Although most consumers surprisingly don’t get competitive bids
even for costly jobs, getting more than one bid will save many homeowners
hundreds of dollars.
Heating and air-conditioning firms are likely to encourage you to have
annual professional maintenance visits and many will suggest that you enter
a maintenance contract. It is not clear that such frequent professional
service is needed so long as you are diligent about the most important
maintenance task: replacing air filters whenever they get dirty. The case
for frequent professional maintenance is strongest if your system is old,
it is used heavily, there is much dust and pollen in the area, you have
frequent breakdowns, or you have a large house, where the energy savings
that might result from frequent maintenance will pay for the cost of the
maintenance. Before entering a maintenance contract, get price quotes from
several firms and check exactly what each contract covers. For basic maintenance,
not including costs of any parts or costs of labor for needed repairs,
we found prices ranging from less than $100 to more than $200.
If you will need new equipment installed, get several firms to give you
written proposals. Compare their proposed designs. How well your system
is designed might affect how quickly and uniformly your house is heated
or cooled, how much noise and vibration you will experience, how troubled
you will be by drafts, how much closet or attic space the system will consume,
how easy the system will be to maintain, and other important aspects of
performance.
For an installation contract, ask for performance guarantees promising
how warm your house can be kept—or how cool in the case of air-conditioning
equipment—and how uniform the temperature within the house will be when
the outside temperature reaches a specified level. Also, be sure that your
contract is clear about the firm’s responsibilities on such matters as
providing an electrical supply and hooking up your equipment to the electrical
panel; providing drainage for condensate; enclosing ductwork and painting
and patching holes; and other matters.
It’s pretty remarkable when you think about it: the temperature outdoors
can fluctuate 90 degrees or more between the hottest days of summer and
the frigid days of winter. Despite this, we’re able to keep the temperature
in our homes at a comfortable level year-round—assuming nothing goes wrong.
To ensure that your home’s climate continues to defy nature, it makes sense
to care for your current equipment properly, get good repairs when required,
and get the best possible deal on new equipment if needed. This article
will help you do those things.
You’ll find ratings of area heating and air-conditioning firms on our Ratings Tables . As you can see, there are many firms in the Twin Cities area
that consistently provide high-quality work. Unfortunately, those same
ratings—and comments we receive from consumers—reveal that many heating
and air-conditioning customers get burned by shoddy service—
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“[The firm] sold me a heat pump unit that is incompatible with my air handler.
They do not return calls. It takes at least four or five scheduled appointments
for them actually to show up, and even then they might have missed their
four-hour window by several hours.”
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“Charged me $90 for service visit, told me I needed a new furnace. Another
company cleaned the burners, problem disappeared.”
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“Didn’t start job on time, failed to reconnect ductwork properly (substantial
leakage in attic), left worksite a mess.”
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“Informed [me] that air-conditioning system needed replacement. Called
second firm who informed me that by replacing a fuse, the system ran properly.”
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“Took far too long to complete the job... Sharpened pocket knife, cleaned
his truck, did much phone calling on unrelated matters, just to run up
the clock to the maximum.”
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“I had my system installed over the winter. It still is not working. I
have been given the runaround about fixing a $12,000 system that has never
worked and still can’t get them to even come look at it.”
The customer survey ratings on our Ratings Tables show how CHECKBOOK
and Consumer Reports subscribers rated their firms for “doing work properly
on the first try,” “starting and completing work promptly,” “letting you
know cost early,” “advice on service options and costs,” and “overall performance.”
Customers rated their firms “inferior,” “adequate,” or “superior,” and
our Ratings Tables show what percent of each firm’s surveyed customers
rated it “superior” on each question. We also show the percent who rated
each firm either “adequate” or “superior” (as opposed to “inferior”) for
“overall performance.” (For more information on our customer survey and
other research methods, click here.)
Most customers can’t spot all differences in quality. You probably won’t
know, for example, if the reason your energy bills are a little higher
than necessary, or your system doesn’t last as long as it should, is that
a contractor failed to correct a problem or used the wrong parts. But customers
can be expected to spot major problems—if energy bills are substantially
higher than they should be, the furnace doesn’t warm the house, the air
conditioner doesn’t cool, or the system simply doesn’t run.
For firms that were evaluated in our last full, published article, our
Ratings Tables also report the number of complaints on file with the
Better Business Bureau Serving North Dakota and Minnesota for a recent
three-year period. The complaint counts include all complaints filed against
a firm, not just complaints related to heating and air-conditioning work;
so these complaints may be related to disputes that arose from other types
of business the firms conduct.
Where we were able to, we have also reported on our Ratings Tables
a complaint rate, calculated by dividing the number of complaints by our
measure of the number of full-time-equivalent technicians who perform residential
heating, air-conditioning, or plumbing work for the firms. The complaint
rate is intended as a rough way to take into account volume of work and
the fact that firms that do more work are exposed to a greater risk of
incurring complaints.
When using the complaint information, keep in mind that complaints are
not always justified; sometimes the customer is unreasonable. Also, be
aware that some firms may be at greater risk than others of incurring complaints
because of the specific types of business they do. And remember that the
measure of business volume we use in calculating complaint rates (the number
of full-time-equivalent technicians who perform residential work) is at
best a very rough indicator.
You can check current BBB complaint information on any firm by contacting
the BBB at 651-699-1111 or by visiting www.mnd.bbb.org. On our Ratings Tables , in the details under each firm's listing, click a link to the
local BBB to go directly to the BBB's most up-to-date report on the firm.
The data on our Ratings Tables will help you identify high-quality
firms, but to get good work at a reasonable cost you’ll also need to think
carefully about what work you need done, and you’ll need to deal carefully
with the firm, or firms, you choose. Heating and air-conditioning contractors
provide three basic services: maintenance, repair, and installation or
replacement.
The most important maintenance task for both heating and cooling systems
is something you can do yourself—replacing the air filter. With a new system
or one in a home you’ve just moved into, it’s a good idea to check your
filter monthly until you see how quickly it gets dirty at different times
of the year. It will probably need replacement two or three times during
the cooling season and about equally often during the heating season. When
there is a matting of dirt—when you can’t easily see through the filter
as you hold it up to a light—it’s time for a replacement. If you aren’t
sure how to judge when a filter is too far gone, ask your technician to
show you what to look for the next time you have a service visit.
A dirty filter makes your system work harder than it should, reducing performance
and energy efficiency. A dirty filter also results in having dirt spread
by your system throughout your house. An extremely dirty filter can be
especially bad for air-conditioning systems, since it can cause evaporator
coils to freeze up and, possibly, result in compressor failure.
Air Conditioner/Heat Pump
A task you can do yourself for either an air conditioner or a heat pump
is clearing debris away from the outdoor unit. You need to keep the grills
of the unit free of grass clippings, leaves, and other debris, which can
inhibit airflow. Through the winter months, clear away snow that builds
up around the outdoor unit of a heat pump. If snow consistently drifts
in banks around your unit, check your owner’s manual to see if your unit
has been installed to manufacturer’s specifications. Typically, outdoor
units should be on a concrete platform two to six inches or more above
ground level. You may need to have a contractor raise your unit. An obstructed
outdoor unit overworks the compressor and can cause a costly premature
failure.
There are also other maintenance tasks that are usually done only by professionals.
The condenser coils need to be checked for surface dirt and dust, and cleaned
if necessary. Contractors often use a special chemical bath for the cleaning.
Electrical connections and contacts need to be checked visually and capacitors
should be tested. Controls designed to protect the compressor from high
pressure or low pressure should also be tested. Finally, the refrigerant
level should be checked, with refrigerant added as necessary.
Under no conditions should you try to add or release refrigerant yourself.
As part of the regulations written by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to comply with the international ban on ozone-depleting substances,
all heating and air-conditioning contractors that handle refrigerant must
be trained and certified, and they must possess equipment that will capture
the refrigerant and not allow it to escape to the atmosphere.
Proper maintenance will enhance the performance, energy efficiency, and
durability of your equipment. If you do the tasks you can do yourself,
however, it’s not clear how much benefit comes from professional maintenance
service.
Most contractors argue that an air conditioner maintenance visit is worthwhile
before the cooling season each spring and a heat pump visit each fall.
But heating and air-conditioning contractors have an obvious bias; the
more professional maintenance visits you have, the more money they make,
and the better their equipment runs. Best of all from the contractor’s
standpoint, maintenance visits take place before peak heating and cooling
seasons, providing a welcome flow of revenue and a way to keep technicians
occupied.
Equipment manufacturers have less reason for bias than contractors. Although
regular maintenance may help manufacturers look good by helping equipment
achieve maximum life span, performance, and efficiency, a manufacturer
could also look good by claiming that expensive maintenance is unnecessary.
Nonetheless, most manufacturers recommend annual professional maintenance
of air-conditioning and heat pump systems.
Yet there appears to be little hard data supporting anyone’s recommendations—showing
that reductions in energy requirements or increases in equipment life are
sufficient to offset the cost of professional maintenance. Clearly some
systems run well despite going years without professional maintenance.
And the choice of a one-year maintenance interval for air-conditioning
equipment, for example, seems rather arbitrary. Why not twice a year or
once every two or three years? Why not more or less often depending on
conditions? It is clear, for example, that the need for maintenance is
greater if your system is old, you use it heavily, there is much dust and
pollen in the area around the equipment, you have aluminum wiring, or you
have frequent breakdowns. Also, maintenance is more justified in a large
house where a small percentage improvement in energy efficiency can save
a substantial amount of money.
In the end, your decision on professional maintenance will be much like
your decision about how often to change the oil in your car or how often
to have your teeth cleaned: there is no absolute answer. As with those
decisions, it’s a good idea to ask the professional with whom you deal
to explain why a particular maintenance interval is right for you, given
your individual circumstances.
If you don’t plan to have professional air-conditioner or heat pump service
each year, test your system before the usage season begins. If you turned
off the electricity to your air-conditioning unit during the winter, be
sure to reconnect the power for 24 hours; this allows the crank case heater
to get the liquid out of the compressor. Then when you turn the system
on and set the thermostat low enough to activate the cooling function,
note whether the lights in your house grow dim for more than an instant
(they shouldn’t) and whether the air coming from a vent inside your house
seems cool. If there are problems, you can order a service visit before
the peak-season rush.
Similarly, you can check the functioning of a heat pump by setting the
thermostat high enough to activate the heating function and checking that
the air from a vent inside your house is warm. You should also turn on
supplementary resistance heaters to see if they are operating.
Gas and Electric Furnaces
Gas and electric furnaces usually need less professional maintenance than
other types of equipment. But there may be value in having a professional
come in every year or so to clean and adjust your equipment for the sake
of efficiency, and to check for any existing or potential leaks of fuel
or combustion products.
Oil Furnaces
An oil-burning furnace is the piece of equipment most in need of regular
preventive maintenance. Replacement of nozzles and oil filters, adjustment
of excess air levels, and cleaning of soot from the firebox can increase
heating efficiency by 10 to 12 percent—even more in a system that has been
badly maintained. An expert who has the equipment and know-how to measure
carbon dioxide, flue gas temperature in the stack, the “smoke number,”
and the stack draft should do this maintenance. The expert should also
check for dangerous smoke leaks and improper safety shutdown.
If you have an oil furnace in a large house, where a few percent improvement
in efficiency would save you the cost of a service visit, it’s a good idea
to arrange for a professional to come to your house annually. But if your
house is small, you may want to skip a year or two between visits.
Getting a Good Price
It’s not difficult to compare prices for maintenance-only service visits.
Call firms that rate high for quality on our Ratings Tables and explain
that you want the price for a maintenance-only service visit assuming no
repairs will be needed. Ask exactly what is included in maintenance service.
(Will they clean condenser coils, for instance?) You can generally expect
to pay between $70 and $100 per visit. Keep your eyes open for off-season
discounts and promotional offers for this type of service. Bear in mind
that maintenance visits sometimes reveal the need for repairs, so it is
important to use a high-quality firm that has reasonable repair prices
(see below).
Regardless of how carefully you maintain your system, you are likely eventually
to have a breakdown. Our ratings of firms on our Ratings Tables will
help you find a good firm to turn to for help.
Call one or more firms and describe the symptoms—what the system is doing
and not doing. Firms may be able to tell you over the phone what’s likely
to be wrong and give you a price. If so, try to get quotes from several
firms.
If your system just doesn’t work and you can’t determine exactly what has
to be done, you will have to arrange for a service call and you won’t be
able to get a price for the job in advance. Your best bet is to select
a firm that our Ratings Tables show has relatively high ratings on
our measures of service quality, has a relatively low price index score,
and has a relatively low minimum charge for a service visit.
For firms that were evaluated in our last full, published article, the
price index scores on our Ratings Tables show how each firm compared
to other firms on at least two, and in most cases three or four, small
jobs we had them bid on. The average price index score is $100. A price
index score of $110 tells you that a firm’s quotes were 10 percent higher
than the average of all the firms that bid on the same jobs; a score of
$95 means that its bids were five percent lower than the average. These
price index scores are a useful predictor of the relative price levels
you might encounter at different firms, but firms’ relative price levels,
unfortunately, are not always consistent; a firm with relatively low prices
on some jobs might turn out to have relatively high prices on other jobs.
Since you probably won’t be able to get a price quote in advance of a service
call, shopping around will be difficult. You can have one firm come to
your home, diagnose the problem, and give you a written estimate detailing
the work that needs to be done. With the estimate in hand, you can call
other firms and ask what they would charge for the repairs, assuming that
the diagnosis is correct.
But other firms may be reluctant to give quotes based on the first firm’s
diagnosis. Also, if you use another firm, you will have to pay the first
firm’s minimum service call charge, which it might be willing to apply
to the repair bill if you were to go ahead and have it do the repair. In
addition, getting other quotes will be less convenient than having the
repairperson in your home proceed with the work.
If the repair estimate is not more than a few hundred dollars, you will
probably decide to have the firm in your home go ahead immediately. If
you have chosen a firm with a low price index score, there’s a good chance
that the price you will pay will at least be reasonable.
If the estimate is more than $500 or so, it will likely pay to get more
quotes. We found, for example, that for one repair job we shopped with
an average price of about $600, getting three quotes would have cut the
repair cost by, on average, about $105 compared to going with the first
quote. Depending on which firm we happened to get a price from first, subsequent
quotes might have saved us nothing (if the first quote was very low) or
might have saved us several hundred dollars (if the first quote happened
to be relatively high). You won’t know how low or high the first quote
is until you get additional quotes.
If the firm that comes to your home to give you your diagnosis has a relatively
high minimum service call charge and will apply that charge to the price
of the repair, then it will be difficult for you to save much by going
with another firm. You give yourself maximum flexibility by choosing for
the initial service call a firm that has a relatively low minimum service
charge. Our Ratings Tables show that there are some firms with minimum
charges of $75 or less, though others have minimums of $125 or more.
However you go about shopping for a repair job, there are other steps you
can take to help you get good repairs at a reasonable cost.
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Describe symptoms in as much detail as possible before the technician comes
out.
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Ask the firm to explain how it calculates service charges (so they know
that you know what to expect).
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Be sure to get a written description of needed work and a price estimate
before work begins.
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Ask to have replaced parts left with you.
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Be around but not in the way as work proceeds.
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Get a detailed invoice, including:
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A description of the symptoms that precipitated the repair call.
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A list of all parts replaced.
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An itemization of all labor charges and description of the labor required.
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A notation of the temperature at the plenum of air-handling equipment and
the return before and after the repair.
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If repairs are to an air conditioner, a notation of the pressure of the
refrigerant in the air-conditioning lines and a notation of the running
amperage reading of the system before and after the repair.
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The warranty on the work done.
If despite your best efforts at maintenance and repair, your equipment
breaks down beyond recovery, you’ll want to get the best possible price
and quality of replacement. If your home doesn’t have central air conditioning
and you want to add it, or if you want to extend a heating or cooling system,
making the right decisions is even more important.
A new system’s performance and cost will depend heavily on how carefully
you think through the design. Some of the same issues also arise if you
are just replacing a major component such as a condenser unit.
Invite several firms to your home to give you written proposals. Ask each
to explain whether it’s desirable to have more than one separate heating
or cooling system and more than one thermostat, how ducts will be run,
where and how a condenser unit and the blower will be mounted, how you’ll
get access to the equipment for maintenance and filter replacement, and
other design questions. Good solutions to these questions will affect how
much noise and vibration you experience, how quickly and uniformly your
home will be cooled or heated, how troubled you’ll be by drafts, how much
energy your system will consume, how disruptive the installation process
itself will be, how much closet or attic space the system will require,
how disfiguring the ducts and air supply registers will be to the appearance
of your home, and how difficult the system will be to maintain.
The Equipment to Be Used
Ask each firm which makes and models of equipment it will use. Ask about
the capacity, energy efficiency, and sound ratings of the equipment. Most
firms can offer equipment at several different quality levels. Ask each
to explain the pros and cons of the equipment alternatives and invite each
to comment on the equipment being offered by its competitors.
There are several key measures used in rating heating and air-conditioning
equipment.
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Capacity is measured in British Thermal Units (BTUs). This indicates the
amount of heat a unit can generate (or remove, for cooling units) in an
hour. A common size for an average-sized house is 36,000 BTUs, or three
tons (one ton equals 12,000 BTUs). Bigger is definitely not always better.
An oversized unit will cost more, and cycle on and off constantly, thus
boosting your utility bill, making more noise, requiring more frequent
maintenance, and dying sooner.
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Efficiency is measured in a number of different ways, depending on the
type of equipment and/or the function to which it applies.
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Furnaces (both gas and oil) are rated by their Annual Fuel Utilization
Efficiency (AFUE). For current models, AFUE ratings range from 78 to the
high 90s, higher being more efficient. Anything above 92 is a “condensing”
furnace. Condensing furnaces are very energy efficient but should be used
only with masonry chimney flues that are protected from the acid combustion
gases.
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The efficiency of both air conditioners and heat pumps in cooling mode
is measured by the Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER). The SEER can
range in current air conditioners from 12 to about 19, higher again being
better. For heat pumps, the range is 12 to about 17.
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The efficiency of heat pumps in heating mode is measured by the Heating
Season Performance Factor (HSPF). The current range is from a little less
than seven to about 10. Another way to measure a heat pump’s heating efficiency
is its Coefficient of Performance (CoP). This number measures how much
more efficient than electrical resistance heat (which is not very efficient)
the heat pump is. The current range in CoP is from about 2.7 to about 4.0,
measured with an outside temperature of 47°F. So a heat pump at the low
end of the efficiency range is 2.7 times as efficient as electrical resistance
heating. CoP falls as the outside temperature falls, until the heat pump’s
energy efficiency is so low that the unit’s backup electrical resistance
heater kicks in. This is one of the drawbacks to heat pumps: at very low
outdoor temperatures, you are heating your house with what is in effect
a very large electric space heater, and your electricity bill could skyrocket.
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Sound Rating, when it is reported at all, is measured in Bels. The range
is seven to nine, with lower being better.
More efficient equipment costs more. For many homeowners, concern for the
environment and worries about finite energy sources will be sufficient
motivation to lay out the extra money, but for those who take a more personal
bottom-line approach to the decision, two factors sweeten the pot: lower
power bills and utility rebate programs.
Since energy prices—particularly natural gas and heating oil prices—are
expected to continue to fluctuate unpredictably over the next several years,
it’s difficult to predict accurately future savings from installing more
energy-efficient heating and cooling systems. But even when we calculate
energy savings based on current electricity and natural gas costs, we find
that you can reduce utility bills—especially heating costs—significantly
by installing more energy-efficient equipment.
Using the Energy Star calculator developed by the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy, we calculated rough estimates
of potential savings from upgrading the efficiency of your equipment in
an average size house. You can expect to chop about $100 off your annual
power bill by replacing a SEER-8 air conditioner with a more efficient
SEER-14 unit, about $460 if you upgrade a SEER-8 heat pump with a 6.0 HSPF
rating to a SEER-14 with a 9.0 HSPF rating, and between about $400 to $800
if you replace an AFUE 65 gas furnace with an AFUE 90 unit.
Most utility companies offer financial incentives to encourage you to install
high-efficiency equipment. These programs vary from utility to utility.
In most cases, your paperwork is kept to a minimum; your heating and air-conditioning
contractor will simply deduct the amount of the rebate from the installation
price. In some cases, you must deal with a contractor from a utility’s
“approved contractor” list.
Neither Consumer Reports nor any other organization systematically rates
the reliability and durability of central air-conditioning systems or heat
pumps. But in 2005, Consumer Reports did publish repair rates—derived from
reader surveys—for gas furnaces that had been installed from 1997 to 2004.
Consumer Reports did not evaluate specific models of furnaces, but rather
reported overall results for each of 12 major manufacturers. According
to the survey, American Standard had the best repair record and Goodman
had the worst, about twice American Standard’s frequency of repairs. (For
complete results, visit www.consumerreports.org.) The survey also found
that the vast majority of repairs were due to a problem with the furnace
itself, rather than faulty installation work.
Since there is so little data available comparing the quality of heating
and air-conditioning units, your best bet for getting trouble-free equipment
is to use a contractor with a good reputation for customer satisfaction.
Customers aren’t likely to be satisfied with firms that install equipment
that breaks down often—even if the firms fix it promptly. And firms that
are committed to satisfying their customers by making prompt repairs under
their installation warranties aren’t going to continue installing makes
and models of equipment that require frequent service visits.
Price
Based on what you learn from discussions with several firms, you’ll be
able to specify exactly what you want done. Then you can have each firm
revise its proposal to respond to your exact specifications with a quote
for a fixed-price contract. Getting competitive bids on installation or
replacement jobs is a very easy way to save money. On a $10,000 installation
job, it’s common to save $2,000 or more by getting a second or a third
bid. Even on a $1,500 equipment replacement job, you can often save $300
or more by getting three or four bids. The bigger the job and the more
variation you find among the first bids, the more bids you should seek.
For a replacement job, if you can figure out exactly what you want done—replacement
of a condenser unit with a specific model of new unit, for example—you
can usually get bids quickly by phone.
Table 1 illustrates the importance of the bidding process. It shows, for
four relatively small jobs on which we collected bids, the difference between
the highest and the lowest price quotes we received. As you can see, the
highest price was often more than twice as high as the lowest price.
In our surveys of consumers, we have found that even for jobs that end
up costing more than $2,000, more than 40 percent of consumers get no competitive
bids and only about 25 percent get at least three bids. For jobs that cost
between $1,000 and $2,000 nearly 60 percent get no competitive bids. These
consumers are passing up some very easy money. (Remember that money saved
is better than money earned because you don’t pay taxes on the money you
simply avoid spending.)
The price index scores on our Ratings Tables may give you a little
help in selecting firms where you have a relatively good chance of getting
a reasonable bid. But these price index scores are at best a starting point.
As noted above, we have found that in many cases firms that were relatively
high-priced on one job were relatively low-priced on another. So you should
not rule out a firm with a high price index score if it looks good on our
quality measures.
|
| Install a Honeywell VisionPro
Touchscreen 8000 programmable
thermostat for furnace and air conditioner | $175 | $256 | $350 |
| Install new ignitor in gas furnace | $135 | $205 | $331 |
| Replace -horsepower, direct-drive
blower motor and capacitor in gas furnace | $250 | $355 | $550 |
| Install a new Aprilaire
Whole House Media Air Cleaner | $375 | $535 | $850 |
| 1 Some prices were rounded to the nearest whole dollar. For each of these jobs, the firms were given additional, detailed specifications. |
Other Specifics
In addition to the price and a description of the equipment to be used
and the work to be done, each firm’s proposal should include other elements.
All of these are important in your choice of the best firm for your job.
Performance Guarantee—Ask the contractor if you can get a performance guarantee.
For a complete heating and cooling system the contract might say: “when
the outside temperature is 85°F and six persons are inside, the inside
temperature can be maintained at 78°F or cooler; when the outside temperature
is 40°F, the inside temperature can be maintained at 75°F or better.”
You’d also like a guarantee regarding the uniformity of temperature. On
a hot day, you don’t want to have to drop the inside temperature of some
rooms of your house to 65°F in order to get other rooms down to 78°F. If
you are having ductwork installed, firms should be willing to guarantee
that all rooms on the same floor can be maintained within a range of 5°F.
It’s more difficult to make any promises on floor-to-floor temperature
variation unless you’ll be installing a separate system on each floor.
Installer’s Warranty—The installer’s warranty might say: “In case of any
defects in equipment or workmanship or any failure to meet performance
specifications, we will provide without charge all parts and all labor
to exchange, repair, or adjust any components installed by us for a period
of one year from date of startup.” Try to negotiate for more than a one-year
warranty, but getting one will be difficult. Firms point out that most
installation defects show up in the course of one full heating or cooling
season.
Payment Schedule—An important indicator of the quality of work you can
expect from a firm on an installation or replacement job is the payment
schedule it allows. It’s good to get a contract that allows you to hold
most of your payment until the work is complete or, better still, until
after you have had a chance to run your system awhile.
A firm’s willingness to let you hold back a substantial portion of the
price of a job tells you several things. First, it indicates that the firm
is confident that it can satisfy you. Second, it means you will have a
means to prod the firm to make the job right if you are not satisfied.
Third, it suggests that the firm is not living from hand to mouth—that
it at least is financially secure enough that it can extend you a few days’
or weeks’ credit. Finally, your retained portion of the contract price
will partially protect you if the firm goes belly up.
Insurance Coverage—An additional quality indicator is insurance coverage.
Ask any firm you are considering for a certificate of insurance showing
that it has worker’s compensation insurance to cover it if one of its workers
is injured while working on your property (otherwise you could be liable).
Also, get evidence of liability insurance, so you’ll know the firm can
make good if, for instance, it drops an air-conditioning unit through your
ceiling.
Additional Work Specifications—You need also to go over the details of
exactly what work is to be done. We have seen excellent contracts running
eight pages or longer. Be sure each company’s proposal (and the contract
you finally sign) is explicit about these responsibilities:
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Providing needed electrical supply and hooking up your system to your existing
electrical panel;
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Providing drainage for condensate;
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Providing equipment support (concrete base for an outside condensing unit,
for example);
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Securing all required permits;
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Enclosing ductwork, finishing, and painting;
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Patching holes;
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Removing trash and old equipment.
Get a Contract
Once you have settled on all the terms of an installation job, get them
written up in a firm, fixed-price contract. In our surveys of consumers,
we have found that for jobs costing over $2,000, more than 10 percent fail
to get such contracts, and for jobs costing between $1,000 and $2,000 more
than 30 percent fail to document the deal. That is playing with fire.
Rather than paying individually for maintenance visits and repair jobs,
you might consider getting a service contract. Many firms try to persuade
customers to enter into such contracts.
If you are interested in a service contract, you’ll need to compare the
price and coverage of each firm’s contract. (You’ll still want to be aware
of repair prices since most service contracts have many coverage gaps.)
Service contracts fall into three broad categories:
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Contracts covering just the labor cost of planned maintenance visits (usually
either annual or semiannual) to check, clean, and adjust equipment.
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Contracts covering the labor costs for planned maintenance visits and also
for unplanned repairs.
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Contracts covering labor costs for both maintenance and repair visits and
also covering the costs of selected parts.
Within these categories, coverage varies. First, there are contracts for
furnace only, for air-conditioning equipment only, or for the two combined.
Second, some contracts cover work that others exclude. Among maintenance-only
contracts, the most common exclusion is the cost of cleaning air-conditioning
coils. Among contracts covering labor and/or parts for repairs, exclusions
range from such costly items as replacement of a compressor to much less
important items like replacement of capacitors. If you want to consider
firms for service contracts, you will have to request copies of the firms’
contract forms.
The differences in contract prices are striking. For example, at one level
of coverage, we found a range from $100 to $175 among firms we compared.
To compare the value you get from individual firms, it’s easiest to look
at firms that cover roughly the same items. Also, check what firms do on
their maintenance visits—do they clean the air-conditioning coils, for
example? And keep in mind that some firms may offer 24-hour service while
others are hard to reach outside of regular daytime hours.
But there’s a good chance you won’t want a service contract at all. You
might do better just to call a service firm whenever you need it, and foot
the bill each time.
There are three main reasons to get a service contract—
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To take care of your preventive maintenance needs;
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To get priority service in case of equipment breakdowns; and
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To insure yourself against the costs of sizable repairs.
You’ll find some firms that swear by these contracts. They argue that service
contracts make for efficiency because they allow work to be scheduled when
demand is low, thus minimizing a firm’s need to pay overtime labor rates
during peak load periods or to maintain excess personnel just to be ready
for these peaks. Other firms will tell you these contracts are little more
than a device their competitors use to ring up extra profits at your expense.
They argue that a service contract wastes your money and a firm’s time
by encouraging unneeded maintenance visits and emergency calls. There’s
some truth in both of these views. The right answer for you depends on
your circumstances.
If you need professional maintenance visits every year—if, for instance,
you have a large house or you just do not want to do even the simplest
maintenance tasks yourself—you may do all right with a service contract
that covers these visits. But you should not pay more for the contract
than you would pay for the number of visits it includes if you ordered
them individually at regular labor rates.
If you need maintenance visits less often than every year, you may do well
to pay for them on a one-at-a-time basis. If this is your situation, your
only reason for getting a service contract would be to get priority on
unscheduled repair calls or to get insurance for costly repairs. (Unfortunately,
it seems local firms do not offer contracts with these protections unless
you pay for maintenance visits as well.) But these protections may not
be worth the cost of a service contract.
Priority treatment on unscheduled repair visits may be especially important
to you if someone in your home has serious allergies or frail health, if
you have valuable houseplants, or in other special circumstances. But getting
a service contract may not protect you. Furnaces and air conditioners most
often break down when the weather is extreme, and firms simply do not staff
up to meet these occasional peaks. They do put their technicians on overtime
and put supervisors into the field, but sometimes firms just cannot keep
pace—even for their priority customers.
In fact, one of the most common complaints we receive from readers is having
to wait weeks to get an appointment for repairs from companies with which
they have signed service contracts. For quick service, you might do just
as well without a service contract. Whenever you need repairs, simply call
a few firms to see which will come soonest.
If your objective in getting a service contract is to insure against possible
expensive repair bills, the contracts give you some of the protection you
seek. But be sure to shop for a company that sells you this protection
at a reasonable price, and remember that the most costly repairs—replacements
of compressors and heat exchangers—are not covered by most service contracts.
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