BO ENTERPRISES

Someone came around saying that PG&E was sponsoring heating & A/C duct leak testing/repair as well as A/C efficiency testing. PG&E would be paying for the work via a $200 rebate. At first, I thought it might be a scam, but it wasn't. I scheduled a time for them to come and test the ducts. The guy sealed off all of my registers and put a fan on the intake and some instruments for measuring pressure loss. He ended up sealing quite a bit of the ducting that came right out of the furnace and he also sealed some in the attic as well. Interestingly, I have two sections of attic, and he only went into one section. My guess is that once he got enough leaks sealed so that he was within the specs that PG&E required of them, his job was considered done. He didn't show me the numbers from before he started so I'm not actually sure how much it was leaking. He probably spent 60-90 minutes at the house. He said someone would call to schedule the A/C testing later in the year once the weather turned hot. In the meantime, PG&E sent me a $200 check. The company eventually called to set up the A/C testing, and when the guy came out, he said he didn't have the right adapter because one of the valves was too close to something else. He left after 5 or 10 minutes. A few weeks later, they called to schedule another appointment. A different guy came and when I told him about the 1st guy, he said the other guy didn't know what he was doing and proceeded to remove a cap that was in the way and was able to get it to work just fine. This testing lasted about 45-60 minutes, during which he took measurements of the air temperature entering the compressor, temps of the gas and liquid coming and going from the compressor, temp & humidity going in the intake in my house, and temps and humidity coming out of my registers. After plugging all that into a program on his palm pilot, it all checked out as operating within specs and he didn't have to make any adjustments. A week or 2 later, I got a call from the office again asking me to sign over and send them the PG&E check, which I had already deposited, so I just mailed them a check for $200. So in the end, this work/testing cost me nothing.