My furnace had been shutting down on-and-off for about 24h leading up to the call. It was a very cold day and my original furnace installer was not immediately available, so I called FurnaceKing. At the time the technician arrived, the furnace had been working properly for a couple of hours and the house was warm. He indicated that since the furnace was working, there was not much for him to do. And that was that... $200, please!
The technician was at my home no longer than 15 minutes. He checked the furnace filter and recommended I change it (I agree, it was too dirty). He also looked at my intake / exhaust piping and said they needed changes (but did not actually confirm that was actually related to my current problem).
In general, he did not run any kind of test to definitively prove the root cause. When he left, I still had no idea what was actually causing the furnace to shutdown, and more importantly, was it going to turn off again and leave me in the cold.
To summarize. For $200, I got:
• 15 minute service call
• a recommendation to replace the filter (but no test to show this actually caused the problem; delta T measurement, etc.)
• a recommendation to change exhaust pipe slope (but no test to show this actually caused the problem; no demonstrated water shorting, etc.)
• a recommendation to move exhaust outlet further from intake inlet (but nothing to show this was actually causing the snow build up or was in any way related to current problems)
The technician was very friendly, so this is nothing personal against him. And customer service did reach out to listen to my concerns and offer me a service credit for future work, so that deserves some acknowledgement too. But overall, I still feel I did not get especially good value for this service call.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $200.00
- Company Response
Hi Roberto. I'm sorry to hear you feel you didn't get a good value for your money. I do understand your frustration, but when our technician arrived your furnace was fully operational and there was no problem for him to diagnose.
The $199 you paid is our service call rate for weekend/holiday service to have a technician drive out to your home to repair your furnace. He did arrive within 2 hours of your call on the Sunday of the Family Day long weekend.
The reason your furnace failed was because snow had blocked your intake/exhaust, but you had cleared it already by the time he arrived. He checked your furnace, but saw no reason to be concerned it would fail again. The other issues he pointed out had nothing to do with why your furnace failed, but were just some things he noticed during his inspection.
If the furnace did fail again, or in the case of an intermittent problem, we would obviously come back out to fix the issue since it was not possible to diagnose on the first visit.
Performing tests such as Delta T measurements are part of having your furnace maintained/tuned up, and are not part of the diagnostic procedure. This is why we offered you a credit towards a furnace maintenance since you seemed to want a detailed analysis on the condition of your furnace. These maintenance and tune up appointments are scheduled ahead of time to allow the technician to take the required time to perform all the tests and tune up procedures.
Weekend and holiday service is reserved for emergency service calls. If your furnace was not operational our technician would have stayed at your home as long as it takes to give you and your family heat.
It simply wouldn't be fair to other customers who are waiting without heat if he remained at your home to perform non emergency maintenance tasks while they are waiting in the cold.
As you said, we did reach out when we heard you were unhappy, and our offer still stands if you'd like to have a complete maintenance and tune up for your furnace as we would like to do our best to make you happy.
If there is anything we can do to make you happy in this matter, please do call us and let us know. We will do all we can, within reason, to make you feel satisfied with our company.
Thank you for choosing Furnace King, and I hope we can find a way to satisfy you. Sincerely, Anthony Damiani.