I ended up calling CoreTemp Heating and Air after being less than satisfied with two other highly rated HomeStar contractors. On the Labour Day weekend, our 15 year old air conditioner started icing over at the furnace coil and at the outside unit and would not cool our house. I shut the system down and called our regular heating and air conditioning contractor (highly rated) who had replaced our furnace unit approximately 8 years prior. To their credit, a technician was dispatched within a few hours. However, the technician barely looked at the outside unit before pronouncing the system unfit. He advised that as it was a 15 years old unit, it would not be worth repairing since the total cost for a diagnosis and likely repair would be over $1,000. I asked him if he could explain exactly what was wrong. He stated that the Freon was low, so there must be a leak in the system somewhere. However, he avoided answering my specific questions about how low the Freon levels were and where the system was leaking from, etc... Instead he proceeded to tell me that it would be silly for me to consider spending money on a 15 year old unit. He then suggested that he could have a sales advisor come over within a half hour. I agreed to meet with the advisor. While the sales advisor was very polite, he essentially recommended only one particular replacement unit which seemed to be quite expensive. At that point, I advised that would like to shop around. The next day, I contacted a second highly rated company which proceeded to send a sales rep over that evening. He also did a very quick look at our current system and said 15 years was a fair length of time for an air conditioner to last. He proceeded to recommend 5 different units covering a wide price range. He suggested that we make a decision in the next few days as he could not guarantee the prices he had quoted beyond a couple of days. I also advised him that we would still like to shop around. I ended up calling CoreTemp the very next morning and spoke directly with the owner - Richard. Richard spent approximately 20 minutes with me on the telephone. I could tell within the first few minutes that he was passionate about his profession and that he was listening to what I was saying. He explained that he had many, many years of experience with the Lennox brand of air conditioners and knew pretty much where the leak could be (the service valves) and he was quite confident that it would was a quick fix and if not, he would explain all of my options. I then asked him when could he come over and to my surprise he said he could come by later that day. True enough, Richard found the leak that he suspected and explained to me in detail why these units developed these types of leaks. He tightened the valves and added the missing Freon. Richard then tested the system again - no more leaks! He suggested that since the unit was in overall good condition, I could possibly get several more years of cooling from it. He also explained that he is not interested in pushing new unit sales when they are not needed, even though there is more money to be made in the installation of a new system. Richard is definitely the person I will call again for all of our air conditioning and heating needs.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $300.00
