Carleton Refrigeration Heating & Air Conditioning Ltd

In my opinion there are 3 main things you should look for when purchasing a new A/C or Furnace; 1 - Price, 2 - Customer service and 3 - Reputation.

My furnace was over 20 years old and was not working properly since it was near end of life. I needed a new one and badly. My A/C was only 5 years old so no big problem there.
After inviting quite a few vendors out to my place for quotes, I settled on Carleton because they seemed to have a wonderful reputation and great customer satisfaction even though the price was a bit higher than other vendors. The time-frame for installation was short (like 7 days) before a team came out to install the new unit. The installation team was polite, quick and efficient. They cleaned up after themselves and explained what questions I had as the installation proceeded. By the end of the day, I had my new furnace installed, my home was heating up and Carleton Refrigeration had another satisfied customer.

Now all that being said, the true test of any company is how they stand behind their product, so fast forward 6 months when it started getting warm and I flipped the air conditioner on and much to my surprise nothing happened. I could hear the compressor churn on, but no movement on the fan motor. I called Carleton, spoke with Tracy (she was very nice and polite) and she told me that since the A/C was not purchased from them that it would be a 135$ "diagnostic" charge if the fault was not theirs. Keep in mind this 135$ is not to fix the problem, only to tell me what the problem was and whose fault it is. The cost of repairs would have to be incurred after the diagnosis. I thought this was somewhat ridiculous as my A/C worked fine before the new furnace was installed. I decided to try and fix the problem myself and set out to learn as much about HVAC systems as I could - Google was very helpful with this - After about 6 hours of DIY diagnosis I finally found an unplugged power cable that is supposed to be plugged into the furnace control board. This cable supplies power to the A/C contactor switch that tells it to turn on. I called Carleton back and told them what I had found and asked them to come install the cable properly, which they did. I felt cold air coming out of the register so I was happy. I should have done a full test at this point, but since we were having a cooler than average Spring it Ottawa, it didn't seem necessary.

By about the 3rd week of June it started to reach about 30, so it was time to give the A/C another go. When I turned it on, it came on no problem, but it seemed as if the fan wasn't pushing out the cold air very much. I could only feel cold air about 4-6 inches above the register. I left the A/C, but the temp only lowered 1 degree in 2 hours of continuous use. I called Carleton again and was giving the same info about cost based on determining fault. So I went at diagnosing the problem myself... again.... I checked the evaporator coils (no frost or ice), the condensate drain (wasn't clogged), the condensor coils (were clear). Both refrigerant lines were the proper temp, one was warm and one was cool. It just seemed like the house wasn't getting any cooler.

It was about this time that my wife told me that the tech that came by last time had raised the fan speed of the blower, which seemed odd because before we got the new furnace we could always hear the fan kick up, we just thought the the new fan was quieter since it was new. I took it upon myself to move the jumper on the CFM and cool pins, which were in the low and 'B' position and moved them to medium and 'C'... VOILA! The cold air is coming through!

The point of my entire story is this... why would I trust a Carleton tech to come out to my place and diagnose a problem (potentially at a cost of 135$) when they weren't able to fix the problem the first time? If the tech comes out and figures it wasn't their fault, then i'm out 135+$ unless I can figure it out myself, which I did.

The true test of a company is not only in their product, but how they stand behind it. Carleton is 0 for 2 so far. I will update this review as necessary based on my interactions with Carleton in the future.

If anyone has any questions or comments for me, feel free to drop me a line on my Homestars account and i'll be glad to talk.

Cheers Jeff