Universal Appliances Repair

They have good service and everything.

Don't use HMS for anything valuable. It's just not worth it.

This was not a good experience for us. We called HMS to place a claim for repair on our AC unit. Every time our AC unit would kick on, water would begin dripping inside our home from the box located above our furnace. HMS referred us to Universal Heat and Air. I called them and was unable to leave a message. The message indicated that it was the company's verizon voice mail box and kept asking me to enter my mailbox number to log in. Interestingly, I received a call back from the company within 15 minutes to schedule my appointment. The company informed me that they could come out on May 26. My service window was between 12-2 pm. The company did not call to let me know that they would be late. I called at 2:30 and was told that the technician was running behind, and would be there in 30 minutes. Well....at about a quarter to 5 the service provider finally showed up. After being in our basement for about 15 minutes, we were told that the line was leaking because we had a blocked drain line and that removal of the blockage was not covered by our home warranty. The cost was an additional $40 beyond our $100 warranty deductible. While the technician was cleaning the line, another person from the company asked to see our outside AC unit so that he can check it. My husband took him to where the equipment was located and the man mistook one of the pieces from our pool equipment as the AC Unit. When my husband corrected him, he told my husband, "oh, yeah...that's it. Everything looks ok back here" Before the company left, they told us that if it started to leak again, that it may be the Pan, but that they could not find a leak in it at this time. We were told to call them back if there were any problems. Unfortunately, within an hour, our little leak turned into a significantly larger leak and water began pouring from the back of the furnace area. Between emptying buckets and using our wet/dry vac to keep the area dry, we called the company back and they told us that we would need to call HMS because more extensive repairs would be necessary and that they needed approval. I thought this was the company's job, but, I called HMS and was told that they would need to see a copy of the company's report before they could authorize repairs. About 48 hours later, we received a call from the warranty company indicating that they had recalled the company and that the service provider would be contacting us to schedule a time to come back. We received a voicemail message from the company that they would be back at our house after 6:00 pm on the following Wednesday to do the work and that HMS approved their need to cut into our duct work to diagnose the problem. We were unable to be available on Wednesday, so we asked if they could do Thursday after 4 pm. They told us this would be fine, and once again, they did not call to say they were running late. They still had not arrived by 6 pm, so we called the company and was told that the technician was running about 30 minutes late and should be there soon. By 9 pm that evening, we still had not heard from the company so we called the warranty company to update them on the situation. The HMS rep was baffled when she returned to the phone because she was similarly informed that the technician was running behind (about 30 minutes). Oddly, we received a call from the company at 11:00 pm (yes...p.m) indicating that if we called them back within the next 10 minutes they could make it out to the property. At that point, we called HMS back and told them that we did not want to move forward with this company especially after reading the fine print in the HMS warranty document that they aren't responsible for damage caused by their independent contractors. Given our experience so far, we decided it was better to cut our loss and potential risk and go with a more reliable company. I can only imagine how much worse this could have turned out. We ended up calling a highly rated company we found on Angie's List and they were able to accurately determine and resolve our AC issue. The new company's assessment was completely different than Universal. Also, the new company did not need to cut into the duct work to fix the problem. We dodged a big one here.