Its Duct Time

We purchased a Living Social Deal from It's Duct Time for air duct & dryer vent cleaning. I called and scheduled the service for 7/1/13 from 9am - 11am. No one called or showed up so I called and when I was finally able to get ahold of someone, they said their technician had a family emergency and they would have to reschedule. I rescheduled for 7/15/13 from 9am -11am. Again, no one showed up or called at the appointment time. At 1:30, someone from Air Carolinas, which I had never heard of showed up. Unbeknownst to me, It's Duct Time had sold my appointment to Air Carolinas and didn't bother to tell me. I told him that it was not a good time. He said he would come back on 7/25/13 from 7am - 8am. On 7/25, the technician called at 10am and said he would be here in 20 minutes. He finally showed up at 11am. He hooked the machine up to one of my vents and turned the machine on. He then went upstairs to check our ac unit. He then tried to upsell us other products and services including a whole new ac unit for $7500 for over two hours. He then unhooked the machine from the one vent and took it out to his truck. He obviously didn't know we had our vents cleaned before and knew that the machine had to be hooked up to each vent in the home to do the job properly. After having only hooked the machine up to only one of my vents, he told me my ducts were clean, which I knew they were not. The whole situation was a shady, horribly uncomfortable situation. It was like one of those high pressure timeshare sales but it was in my house and I could not get up and walk out. I did not get what I paid for and I would advise everyone else not to purchase a Living Social "deal" for It's Duct Time.

They showed up on time and got to work. I purchased a living social deal that said "Whole House Air Duct Cleaning" but the fine print said it only covered one unit. I think the deal is pretty misleading, but I guess I should have read the fine print. They did the air duct cleaning with a big vacuum and also did the dryer vent cleaning. They also tried to sell me on a bunch of other services, claiming I had black mold in my AC unit. There is certainly something up there, but I have no idea if it's mold and want to have a professional test it before I get it cleaned. I've read a good air duct cleaning service will take up to 4 hours and the vacuum will vent to the outdoors. Theirs took about 30 minutes and the vacuum didn't vent anywhere. Before they started I asked if I would be able to see all the stuff that the vacuum gets out of my ducts, and they said "no". I guess I just have to trust that the vacuum did anything. My main issue is with the dryer vent cleaning. First, when moving the dryer to get to the vent they scratched up my newly installed bamboo floors. There was one scratch already (which I made), but today there are many more. Secondly, when they put the dryer back they didn't connect the dryer to the dryer vent, so the next time I used it the dryer was venting inside my house. All that hot, wet air condensed under my dryer and may have condensed under my new floors as well, which could ruin them. Luckily I noticed it after only about 20 minutes and the damage is probably minimal. So they came, cleaned my air ducts (although I was not given the opportunity to see what -- if anything -- actually came out of the ducts), cleaned my vent, scratched my floor, and didn't reconnect the dryer to the dryer vent. They also gave me a quote for over $800 to do more work, like clean what they say is black mold (which I will get independently tested). I always comparison shop and take the opportunity to inspect someone's work before I hire them to do more. After seeing the quality they gave on the Living Social deal, I would never use this company again.

They never called back or showed up to perform work purchased.

After one failed attempt to get an appointment -- they lost my appointment and obviously didn't show. I was talked into rescheduling with the promise of receiving a free electrostatic filter. Since I appreciated the consolation and still needed my vents cleaned, I made another appointment. I waited ANOTHER 3 weeks to get another appointment. The crew showed up and got to work. The voucher I had only covered cleaning of the air ducts. I thought that would includes the air returns, but it didn't. They were $50+ more per return and we have 3. But that was my fault for assuming and not reading the fine print. The lead person then showed me that my HVAC unit was gunked up with dust and grime. That was another $300 for that to be done. Knowing that the previous owner of our house didn't even change the filter for 7 years, I knew it needed to be done. And was also part of the maintenance of the unit -- much cheaper than replacing it. They also tried to upsell me on sanitizing the vents which was another $100+ and an upsell on a UV light on the HVAC Unit which ran $600+. I repeatedly stated that I was not interested in the vent sanitizing and the UV light as the sales pressure definitely went up and that point. They also informed me that they did carpet cleaning and proceeded to point out spots on my carpet that need attention. I found that to be rude and uncalled for. I also had to run to Walmart to buy a replacement filter. After all these up charges, you would think they could have provided that for me. So I started out with $50 worth of duct cleaning and ended up spending $500+ more, plus the cost of the filter.