Sales/initial visit: Experience was excellent, Sandip is very experienced and knowledgeable with 25 years in the industry and it shows. After an assessment of needs, he took the time to explain how both central air conditioner and furnace worked together and what optimal system would be. Issues for me were cooling of third floor and kitchen despite many windows and that there not be significant drop off as you went up each floor. I had not been intending to purchase a furnace, it was the fact that the blower on my furnace would not adequately support new A/C. It like the A/C was also 15 years old on its last legs and purchasing both furnace and A/C would result in significant savings rather than purchasing separately.
All employees are bonded. He had a binder of letters of satisfaction from customers – spoke volumes as you often don’t see this for job well done. Again, impressive and left me with very positive impression.
Home Depot/Financing – Having Furnace King as their authorized contractor/installer spoke volumes as Home Depot does its due diligence in selecting a local installer and the service, i.e. they are very selective. They want to ensure you as a customer are completely satisfied and this is reflected in the installer they choose. Professionalism and experience of Furnace King backed this up.
Deciding factors
1. 36 equal payments, 0% interest over 36 months on Home Depot card– Made financing easy
2. Professionalism, knowledge and expertise of Furnace King
3. Signed written Guarantee and warranty of 10 years on parts and labour (not often you see the latter)
4. Potential hydro (electricity) savings with purchase of high efficiency furnace and air conditioner. Again, very well explained.
Installation: Professional installation of air conditioner and furnace. Clean, placed drop cloths down in house and left it cleaner when they started. I did ask them to adjust blower fan so that third floor would be cool. Overall, very happy.
Initial experience: very unhappy as air conditioner did not work properly and failed to cool below 24 C. The following day, did not cool at all, house warm. Key factor I found in experience with a company is not how the company does when things go well, but rather how they respond when things go wrong. In this respect, Furnace King was excellent. Called Furnace King that the air conditioner was not cooling and they were there within 2 hours. I asked him a lot of questions on why the system wasn’t working and Mike was excellent. He quickly diagnosed that the condenser coil had frosted over and that this was a result of either low coolant and/or decreased air flow, although he suspected former. I found it hard to believe that a brand new system would not function. I assumed that once plugged in, it would automatically work. It turns out, not entirely true as it is dependent upon amount of coolant in the compressor, air flow and other settings. Yes system is brand new and compressor comes pre charged with coolant but that you need to adjust according to size and configuration of house. So yes indeed unfortunate, he did say this sometimes, although rarely, happens, as each house is different. Once condenser coil was dethawed, he added more coolant to the system as well as increase air flow of the furnace. He also helped balance system by adjusting more airflow to higher floors. As a result negligible difference between main floor and 2nd and 3rd floors. Needless to say, very happy that system is working properly.
Follow up: Superb. Sandip followed up quickly regarding questions, after install and after service call to modify/correct system. He really cares that the system is working to your satisfaction. Well done.
Overall, despite having initial difficulties with the central air conditioner, I believe it was a blessing in disguise as it allowed them to fine tune the system optimally. I would whole heartedly recommend Sandip and Furnace King as I discovered first hand they stand behind their product and work and work hard to ensure you are happy. Experienced and trained professionals who know what they are doing. My overall experience is excellent with a rating of 9/10. It would have easily been 10+ if the system had worked right out of the box. Customer Service and follow up were 10+