Summit Mechanical Service Inc

Terrible service and not willing to take responsibility for the mess.

Upon moving to Duluth in 2015, Summit has done about $20,000 of work for me. They do excellent work and all of their team are courteous, expert craftsmen. I was grateful to have such a reliable resource like Summit to call whenever I needed plumbing services. But then something changed. They over-billed me on the last job so I contested it. I have called several times to discuss the error, and though the office staff are good listeners, they cannot help me beyond saying they will have Warren or Jamon call me to discuss the invoice. After several calls, over several months, no one has yet returned my calls. I am concerned that this unpaid bill could affect my credit score, but I believe a $500 error is worth disputing. I regret to have to register this bad review because all of Summit's work has been excellent. I hope they will help me settle this dispute so I can give them the A rating that they deserve.

These people do excellent work and at a reasonable cost.

I called Summit due to their rating on Angie's List (AL). It was my first time using AL, and my first time using Summit. If you need a home boiler inspection and seasonal cleaning on an older (out of warranty) boiler, I would not recommend Summit. Instead I would recommend calling Comfort Systems (city of Duluth services). If you are looking for a new boiler, Summit might be just fine - or at least as good as any. But in my experience, what should have been a simple cleaning and tune-up with Summit, quickly turned into a high pressure sales pitch to purchase a new boiler. Here's what happened: - The Summit tech missed the first two scheduled appointments. (He called 90 mins late the first time, and I had to reschedule. No show on the 2nd appt, and after I called the office, the tech showed up about 2 hrs late. Schedules change - that's not a big deal. But a prompt call would have been good in either case.) It was the Friday of Labor Day Weekend, so I am sure they were busy. Everyone I spoke with at Summit was pleasant however, and they clearly run a professional business. - I was gone when the tech arrived, but my wife was home. I received a dramatic call from the tech guy, saying he had to call in his field manager, as the Carbon Monoxide levels from the boiler were off the charts: 1300/ppm; 1400ppm; 2300ppm - the numbers were all over the map. Legal limit is 400ppm, so clearly there was something really wrong. Meanwhile, my wife told me later, the tech said he had a headache, and had told her she ought to vacate the home. She described him as overly dramatic. (Background - I have been in the boiler room a million times, never had a headache. Also I have 2 (TWO) CO detectors in the immediate area, and neither one has ever shown presence of anything.) The boiler is about 20+ years old; a Weil Mclain model. - I got home to two guys in the boiler room. The tech had the front panel of the boiler open and was trying to get a CO reading inside the boiler. For some reason, his CO reading unit suddenly didn't work, and he couldn't get the same readings as he did before I arrived. But they were still elevated. And the guy had a headache, so it must be bad. The field manager tells me the numbers are not good, and that they will have to call the city and red tag the unit (standard procedure for these sort of numbers) - which would shut down our hot water as well (we use a boiler mate). OR I could just pay them to install a new boiler, which over a holiday weekend would cost me more, but they were willing to do it for me. I said no. Call the City. - 2 guys from the City (Comfort Systems) arrive. City guy #1 immediately says he will not red tag the boiler until it's properly cleaned, and the chimney is checked for blockage. Summit Tech still can't get the numbers on his machine; the city guy tells him to check the numbers in the chimney pipe access point, and to open up the pipe to look up the chimney to see if there is some blockage. And that the bonnet (top of unit) should be pulled to check the seal at top. - No blockage in chimney, but numbers are still elevated in the chimney pipe. City guy #2 pulls me aside and tells me to make sure they do a deep cleaning on the unit, and that it's a solid cast iron boiler that should go for decades unless there is something strange with it - perhaps it has rusted out? - City guys say to call them after it's cleaned if the numbers are still above 400ppm, and then leave. - Once city is gone, Summit field manager says they don't do the deep cleaning which the city has specified. It doesn't pay for them to spend a couple hours on an older boiler, which according to Summit, was clearly at end of life. I asked them what type of cleaning they actually do? He didn't have a real solid answer. They wrote a quote on a new boiler, packed up their tools, and split. No charge - which was great. - I find out later, they never call the city to tell them they didn't clean it, or finish the job. At this point, nobody knows what the real CO numbers are on the boiler. We assume that all the CO is going up the chimney - but the tech said he had a bad headache. The heat isn't on, and we try to use the hot water sparingly. - Tuesday morning after the holiday a guy from the city calls back to check on the boiler. I tell him it still needs to be cleaned. We schedule Comfort Systems to come out for the deep clean. - Wednesday the city tech arrives, spends 2+ hrs cleaning and rebuilding the seal at the top of the boiler under the bonnet. He said everything looked great, and there were no issues whatsoever with my boiler. Final CO reading: 40ppm. Forty. That's ten percent of the legal limit. And the reading, he stated, should always be taken at the access point in the chimney pipe above the boiler. Not inside the boiler itself. - Take away: Summit is in the business of selling and installing boilers. Not cleaning and maintaining older boilers. Which is fine. But it appears that my boiler unit is fine, and until it's not, I'd rather not spend $6,000 to replace it. It looks to me like they saw an older boiler, saw elevated CO numbers, and immediately jumped on an opportunity to make a boiler sale - without actually looking into WHY the numbers were elevated. They didn't even check the chimney until the City guys told them to. The Summit guys were dramatic, and clearly tried to leverage the pressure of the situation to force my hand into the purchase of a new Slant Fin boiler. - Summit might be great at installing new boilers. But for general maintenance and upkeep, I don't see how you can beat the Comfort Systems policy run by the city of Duluth. They are in the business of maintaining systems - not selling you new ones. - Lastly - this not only reflects poorly on Summit, but also on Angie's List itself. Frankly, I don't trust the ratings. Instead, I will go back to asking friends who they have used, and neighbors on the Nextdoor App.

quick prompt service at a very fair price. nice friendly people to work with.

Honest about what needed to be done and what didn't

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Due to age of existing unit, we were convinced to purchase new instead of repair existing. Total cost for a new unit was over $2,000. High end unit might be approx. $900-$1000. This means approx. $1000 labor for a couple hours work. Also, initial service fee for diagnosis is separate and not credited towards repair. Because we had no hot water, felt pressured to agree to proposed repair. In hind sight, for the same price, I wonder if I could have had a tankless system installed - something I've long wanted. Work was professional and courteous. I just wish I had more options. Also, wife felt overly pressured after the initial service call. This may have been professional courtesy, but was perceived as "pushy" and leading to mistrust. They did return the following day (or two) later to fix a very strange ancillary problem (at no additional charge) that arose after the water heater replacement. Overall, mixed feelings for friendly, professional service that I believe was more expensive than expected and customer service skills that did not respect the fears of the customer. Two main reasons for selecting Summit is because of my prior bad experience with "other" main competitor in town and because Summit had a good reputation on Angie's List.

Everything went very well. Very professional. Was always on time. Explained things very well. Was very impressed by this company

They were prompt, I saw them on a weekend or a Friday, and he moved some things around so they could be there Monday and actually fix it. They went out of their way to arrange their guys so that they could get there. They weren?t here till 10 minutes late, but that is close enough.

We had our AC start leaking water through the ceiling and Summit was the first company who actually was able to get us in right away, everyone else was booked. Also, they had more reasonable prices than another company we had tried. The other company would have charged $1500-2500 for the AC ductwork repairs but Summit only charged $750. They were punctual about showing up within a couple days which is really good for it being July. Most other places said they couldn't come out for a couple weeks. The quality of work was excellent, they took care of the problem and got the AC working the best it's been in years! We also had them come do a tune-up on our furnace a couple months ago. They were very helpful at pointing out things to look out for and how to bleed the lines for the radiators. They charged about $100 to do the tune-up and replace a small part that was worn out.

I had set up an appointment with a DIFFERENT local Mechanical company and they cancelled within hours of the appointment. So, I checked Angie's List for an alternative and gave Summit a call. I immediately got through to Georgio - he entered me into their system and asked some general questions about the job to be done. I explained the problem I had, and gave him my best guess as to what I needed. He said he had a guy available as we spoke(Friday around lunchtime), and that if I left work right then we'd get to my house at the same time. I said "SIGN ME UP" and took off! Casey, the service tech, arrived at my house just before me. He was quick moving, very friendly, and had the gas detector tool ready to go. I showed him the Propane fireplace where the leak was prevalent, and he quickly identified a medium leak where the compression fitting met the ball valve I had replaced a month earlier. After finding that leak, he said it very well could have been the source to the entire problem I was experiencing. I - being stubborn and wanting to investigate thoroughly, asked if Casey would be willing to walk around in my attic and check for leaks in the line up there. Casey agreed without hesitation! I had a feeling he didn't believe me that there was more to the leak than the one at the ball valve - but you wouldn't know it based on his willingness to dive head first into my fiberglass insulation. We were unable to detect anything in the attic; we searched around for about 30 minutes. We were stumped in trying to figure out where my propane actually came into the house. I had previously thought it came in through an exterior wall. I then asked Casey if we could check in the wall of my fireplace mantle and see if the large leak was originating from there. His sniffer tool immediately read OFL, which was the device's equivalent of "off the charts". Casey then used his snake camera and saw that the main gas line came in up through the floor and tee'd off inside the wall of my mantle. I ran and grabbed my screwdriver and jab saw. We pulled off the oak liner and cut into the wall, revealing a custom welded fitting that had been hemorrhaging gas for 22 years in my wall. Casey said that he didn't have the parts on hand to replace the defect. That was okay with me since I'm fairly handy myself. I ran to menards, picked up a tee, hose, and compression heads. I had pressurized and tested the system within 30 minutes. Problem solved; I couldn't be happier with how things turned out. No more embarrassing/scary gas leak in the living room!

Great! I have worked with Jay before and he has done a wonderful job. He is always on time, came out and gave an estimate. When I accepted it we kept in touch to make sure he knew when my demo would be done. We set an appointment to get the rough plumbing done and did a walk through first, so we were on the same page. He gave me a receipt for the money I put down. We will set another appointment to set the fixtures when the remodel is complete. Very good at communicating,and no unexpected charges. A little pricey but worth it.

It went very well. Matt was the initial contact. I also spoke with Jay who was very knowledgeable about the equipment and very informative while answering all our questions. They kept in contact with me throughout the entire process and responded in a timely manner (this was critical since water was entering our washroom). I was informed about special offers that could save me money which is always appreciated. I will definitely call Summit Mechanical Service Inc. for my next plumbing need, they are professional, courteous, and very neat, cleaning everything up before departing. A real pleasure to work with. I highly recommend them.

Perfect: quick response and repair. Informative tech.

I called for an estimate on Thursday. They came on Friday. Emailed me with price on Monday. When I called to have them do the work, they were there in a week. Took one day for boiler and couple hours for shower. Everyone was very nice!! Great expierence!!!

The experience was not the best. Now I don't have a back faucet to turn off and on. I don't know what happened to it or where it went and I can't turn the side faucet off and on either. It just is always on. So, winter I don't know. Maybe I should cover it. There were two levers in there to turn them off and on. Now one is gone, but they can't tell me where it went because they did the work, right? When they first put it in I could not get any hot water at all and they said, well, it was working. I got really disgusted, but then they finally figured out whoever they assigned the work to put something in wrong. I think it is strange that people run off with things and don't tell you. I did not like the fact that one guy would keep marching into my bathroom and turn the water on a and a off forever and ever. I wondered why he was doing that. He did that repeatedly when they came to figure something out. Then I was told by someone else who does a service here for water and stuff. He said he would have just had to do one little thing instead of replacing the whole works. I won't use them again in the future unless they can respond with a responsiveness to take care of something that they did. They don't want to acknowledge or fix it to get it right. My back faucet fell off last winter.

They are honest and reliable. The prices quoted was very close to the final bill.

Contacted four contractors to discuss options for a new furnance and a whole house dehumidifer. One never returned my call. Summit wasn't the least expensive but Jeff, the estimator was able to answer all my questions and give me a very good price. Theworkers showed up promptly when they said they would and left the work area clean when they left. Matt M and his crew did a wonderful job installing the furnance and deumidifier. Very professional installational and professional workers. Answered all my calls. Nice to deal with a company. Their warranty is fantastic, they have someone on call 24 hours incase of any issues. The furance and dehumidifer have very high ratings and excellent warranties.

They came out the same day I called and gave me an estimate for a new water heater after giving me several options with benifits and costs. After I decided on the one I wanted they returned and installed it. They gave me a very good price compaired to another outfit I called and they were very responsive and on time. They hauled away the old unit and left the site clean. Everyone I dealt with in the company was very friendly and professional. I will definitely use them again for my plumbing needs.

They were very quick and responsive. I'm very happy with their maintenance service and the furnace they installed.

My husband and I decided that we were going to get a split system air conditioner. We received bids from three of the heating/cooling companies with high ratings here on Angie's List. The bids were similar but Summit seemed like the way to go. We liked that fact that the bid came to us by email,we were able to sign the contract and email it back and Jeff gave us a real level of confidence. Summit said they would arrive at 8:00 in the morning and they did. Jeff called before they arrived and I asked him if he would also give us a bid on some venting we needed done and also a garbage disposal. Summit is really one stop shopping. He came right out and by the way we live in the middle of nowhere. He took a look at the other jobs and orchestrated having them done that very day and gave us a 10% repeat customer discount. I was not expecting the work to be done the same day. I think all and all there were 5 or 6 young men in the house working away. I felt like some one from This Old House or something. Every one who came was pleasant and efficient. The guys had to shovel a path through the yard to get to the back of the house. (The deer think it is great!) When the electrician learned we were going to build a screen porch this summer, he arranged for the wiring on the outdoor portion of the AC unit to have outlets we can of use in the porch. When all the guys left you would never know they had been there. Everything was neat and clean. Jeff called the next day to make sure everything went well.

It's a family business and they take in the young kids and teach them the trade, so we had some young people working on our project. However, the guy who replaced our water heater was really good.

Summitt came to check the status of our flooded furnace and determined that the electronics have been damaged and needed to be replaced. They contacted the company only to find that they no longer sell only the electronics that needed to be replace and that we would need to buy a whole "repair kit" which would replace other items in the furnace as well. In discussion with the guys at Summitt and some thinking it over, we decided to go ahead and replace the whole furnace. The gave us a few options and of various levels in both the furnace and the thermostat upgrade. After comparisons with quotes from another company, we decided to use Summitt. (The customer relations being a HUGE part). It took about three business days for our new furnace to arrive and the Summitt crew installed it and the new thermostat in one day. After instillation, we noticed that there was some water pooling on the floor of the basement (near to the furnace). We called Summitt and they sent a technician out the next day. Apparently one of the pieces (a gasket) in the drip pan was faulty and they ordered a new part and installed it again after a few business days. We have had ZERO problems since. The customer service/relationship at Summitt was top notch and I would not hesitate to use them or recommend them in the future!

We decided on a Mini Split because of our situation. No duct work in the house and we were very familiar with Mini Split AC units having lived in Asia for three years. They are very efficient units. We contacted Summit Mechanical at a Home Show in Duluth and were very impressed with the Fujtsu model they had on display and the reliable quality of the brand. They came out and gave an estimate and we decided to go with Summit. Unfortunately due to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan the units were out of stock. We could have had something else installed but waited for the Fujitsu. Summit was very good about keeping us informed and our unit arrived sooner than expected. We have been very happy with the service and professionalism of Summit and would highly recommend them.