Chillie Willie Heating & Air Conditioning LLC

Everything went exactly as promised. The install was clean, on-time, and flawless. The price was significantly less than the competition, with the added bonus that William is an elite Fujitsu installer and knows what he's doing. In a landscape where most hvac companies are charging outrageous prices for mini-split installs (sometimes $6,000 per mini-split), Chillie Willie is one of the only companies that offers excellent workmanship at a reasonable price (their pricing is not "cheap" but it is fair considering the work that they do). William himself was also very professional throughout the entire process - he sent me several revised estimates when I changed my mind about equipment a few times; he never tried to upsell me on anything; and he never tried to oversize any of the units (which is very important for heat pump efficiency). I'm really glad I went with him and not one of the larger companies. I'm definitely going to call him for any maintenance work needed over the life of the system.

Upon accepting and online agreement with Chillie Willie Heating & Air Conditioning LLC , we paid the requested 60% deposit on March 24 in the amount of $9,900.00 (nine thousand nine hundred dollars). The check was expeditiously cashed on March 25. The owner, Mr. Gonzalez indicated that such high deposit was required in order for him to purchase the A/C equipment that he was being contracted to install. Mr. Gonzalez was very prompt to collect payment, coming over to our house immediately to pick up the check and spending time revealing personal details about his life to my wife. However, from this moment on, he became increasingly difficult to reach by phone, not returning phone calls and voice messages. After repeated attempts to reach him by phone and text messages, Mr. Gonzalez performed three hours of work on May 2nd and an additional five hours on May 6th. He proceeded to abandon the job by telling us that he wanted to quit the job. He sent this via a text message. He indicated in this message that he would refund us our deposit minus materials and labor consumed so far. Later he sent us an invoice with labor, materials and he was charging us expected profit that he was expecting to make on our job. So far he has not returned any of our money and we are out $9,900.00. According to our estimates, Chillie Willie performed approximately $1,000.00 (one thousand dollars) worth of work which ended up costing us $9,900.00. The majority of the work was done incorrectly, as verified by the second contractor that we eventually hired to complete the project. For us this contractor turned out to be a fraud that did bad work, was unprofessional, delayed our project and stole our money. My strong advice is to go elsewhere for services. Below is a full description of the events: The scope of work was to install two outdoor HVAC mini-split units that would feed four indoor units as well as to re-route some traditional duct work that was to be fed off of a pre-existing HVAC system. Our house was undergoing a renovation of some of the existing structure and we were placing an addition to the back of the house. Living Room Issue: The plan for the living room was for Mr. Gonzalez to install a mini-split indoor unit exactly centered in between two windows on the south facing interior wall. Our specifications were very clear after numerous discussions about the placement and location of this indoor unit. In order to have the indoor unit centered between the windows he would have to install a copper line-set to the right of center as the line-set is designed to connect to the right side of the indoor unit. This would allow the indoor unit to be centered on the wall. It was clearly understood that this indoor unit was to be centered in between the windows. What Mr. Gonzalez ended up doing was installing the line-set at the center of the space between the windows which meant that when the indoor unit was mounted on the wall it would need to be installed off center. When I pointed out that he made a mistake with the location of the line-set he blamed me on confusing him. He said that I caused him to make this mistake. Mr. Gonzalez stormed off and left the house leaving us hanging as to a solution or what the next step was to get it fixed. Having this unit installed in the wrong position was not acceptable for us. Routing the Line-Set and Drain Piping in the Basement: Prior to the signing of the contract, Mr. Gonzalez had agreed on the exact location and path of the line-set and condensate drain pipe. These were to be routed inside the walls and across the basement ceiling and outside the house in the south west corner of the old part of the house. After the contract was signed and he received the deposit, Mr. Gonzalez changed his willingness to route the line-sets where we had agreed. He argued that they couldn’t be bent that way and that it would cause him to do more work. He wanted to simply drill a hole on the side of the house and drop the pipes on the outside of the house which was certainly the quickest and easiest thing possible, but not what had been discussed and agreed upon, and not aesthetically acceptable to us. After we insisted on routing the line sets in the location that we had agreed to prior to signing the contract, he was again difficult to reach. Attempts were made to reach him via phone calls, text messages and emails. There were days in between responses if any responses at all. His delays in getting back to us had a cascade effect on our whole project as the work on other aspects of the project could not be completed until he completed his work. This caused us major delays and discomfort as we were living with two small kids without a kitchen and in a partially finished house. Due to Mr. Gonzalez’s delay and non-communication with regards to when he would come and do any work at all, the plumber ended up going ahead and putting up the plumbing lines in the basement near where the HVAC line sets were originally planned on being installed. When Mr. Gonzalez finally came back to our house, he reluctantly agreed to put the line-sets in the location originally agreed upon. Consequently, we had to have the plumber come back and temporarily remove some plumbing and in some cases re-route plumbing entirely. Before this work could be done, we had to schedule to have the plumber come at the same exact time as Mr. Gonzalez. Scheduling this work was nearly impossible, as Mr. Gonzalez was not responsive. At this point, many aspects of the project had to be put on hold due to his unresponsivenesss. Laundry Room Issue: It had been originally discussed and mutually agreed to by both parties that, as part of the work scope, Chillie Willie would route a duct to provide heating and cooling to the laundry room. The planning for this vent was that it would be situated at the very top of the wall adjacent to the ceiling. The precise spacing was critical as we were planning custom-made cabinetry on the same wall. The cabinetry would need to be designed such that it would allow for the air to flow over the top of the cabinets. In discussions with Mr. Gonzalez, he informed us that he needed six inches of clearance down from the ceiling for a heating vent. Based on this information that he provided to us, we had the cabinet maker design laundry room cabinetry that provided six inches of clearance from the ceiling. When he arrived to do the work for the laundry room vent, he changed the amount of clearance that he needed to eight inches. This seemly small change had big consequences as we had laundry room cabinets designed to fit with only six inches of clearance. This caused us to have to go back to the cabinet makers and have them redesign the cabinets to accommodate the new eight inches of clearance, causing us an additional expense for design fee and again, loss of time. We had discussed our plans for the cabinets in the laundry room with Mr. Gonzalez on more than one occasion and it was clear to Mr. Gonzalez before we started and contracted what our exact plans were for this room. After I confronted him when he was trying to install a duct vent that required 8 inches of clearance, he promptly left the job in anger. After I was unsuccessful in reaching him, after leaving voicemails, emails and texts, I sent a text to Mr. Gonzalez telling him that we would need to find another company to finish the work if he didn’t respond. A number of days later he replied saying that he would stop his work and return the deposit to us. He said in the text that he would deduct the materials and labor incurred up to that point so far and return the balance of the deposit to us. I agreed to his suggestion and proceeded to find a good contractor to do the work. After I had hired a new contractor he changed his mind and came back to us wanting to be paid not just for materials and 8 hours of labor, but for “expected profit”. This was some arbitrary amount that he was planning on making in profit off of us. This expected profit was over $5,000.00! He proceeded to send us an "invoice” claiming that he had completed $1,720.76 (one thousand seven hundred-twenty dollars and seventy-six cents) worth of work consisting of $940.00 (nine hundred and forty dollars) worth of labor and $740.76 (seven hundred forty dollars and seventy-six cents) worth of materials plus the expected profit of $5,063.31. Therefore, he was charging us a total of $6,782.07 for 8 hours of work and approximately $500 in materials. By any accounts, Chillie Willie completed no more than $1,000 (one thousand) worth of work and caused us immeasurable amount of wasted time, anxiety and undue stress, as well as costing us to have to pay additional monies to other trades to accommodate him. While Mr. Gonzalez claimed to be too busy to return phone calls or the refund check, we ran into Mr. Gonzalez leisurely spending a morning on a Friday at West Marine yacht and boating store, where he was buying parts for his boat and getting ready to go boating. We confronted him about our refund money, and he replied that WE owe “HIM” money. We were surprised to see him as he kept affirming that it was his busy season and that he was so overworked that he didn’t have time for our project. Note that this by-chance encounter happened on a weekday morning, a Friday, at approximately 9 AM on a beautiful spring day. A great day for doing work. In decades of experience working with contractors I have never experienced anything like this before. For us this contractor turned out to be a fraud that did terrible work, delayed our project and stole our money. To date we have not received any money back and are out our total $9,900.00. My strong advice is to go elsewhere for services.

it didn't!

Very honest and knowledgeable.

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I have not had a return phone call - work done by another company

All done in one day with good professionalism, cleaned up well and system is running very well. He was straight about all the issues and I felt he really knew his work.

The company is fantastic I would highly recommend him to anyone. He is very professional. It took about a week to complete the work. I feel like he got the work done in a timely manner and the price was very acceptable.

Willie provided a very competetive quote on a 3 room Fujitsu ducless system. He answered many questions during the quote, and did the job in a way that minimized piping on the exterior of the house. He took care of permits and electrical. The work went quickly; he was professional, showed up on time, etc. The units seem to work fine and look to be installed well. He was pleasant to work with and was very responsive. Would use him again / recommend him to friends.