Carolina Air Services of Raleigh

Description of Work: I can't tell you how happy I was with this company but I try to detail it here. Read on. We called another company to check our HVAC (Goodman, 9 yrs old) in August and during examination found the heat exchanger was cracked. Our unit was under warranty (10 yrs) so we had to pay labor only. Planned Sept/Oct installation. The labor only estimate in August was $600. When I called back, the estimate was now $800. I called three additional places and got varying estimates. I also called Goodman and the labor should be 1.5-3 hours. The estimates including the first one were; First: $600, then $800, said it would take 3-4 hours Second: $1150, said it would take 5 hours Third: $951, said it would take 4 hours Carolina: $400, said it would take 2-3 hours NOTE: Words of wisdom - Don't assume your unit is not under warranty - depending on the manufacturer and the issue it could be up to 20 years. The warranty is not based on the unit or house sale date, it is based on when power was turned on to the unit for the first time, during building. Your power company can give you the original date based on your account or the original owner - if they can't, when you buy a house ask the owner to provide it to you - it will show the date power was established to it during the build or during any HVAC replacement. I noticed they are also a Goodman deal and handle the older units that were replaced by Amana during that merger, which ours was just before, so we have the older Goodman unit. Called Carolina Air. SUPER nice - the office service manager/estimator Tracey is a really nice man. He scheduled it for the morning of 28th. We also discussed that there are many dealers finding cracks in exchangers that are not cracks - cracks in an exchanger is NO joke so if you have one, get it fixed - it will leak CO2 into your house and it can be deadly depending on the volume over time. Not only did Carolina have great response, good pricing and scheduling, they also guaranteed their labor estimate sight unseen, since I already knew the issue. We agreed that they would do a second opinion and if the unit was cracked, replace it under warranty for the labor of $400 but if for some reason it was NOT cracked and didn't need replacing, they would simply charge me for the $89.96 service call for the second opinion. Folks, you cannot get better than that. I didn't hear anything at all from them all that week; with most contractors and service people this means you are screwed. I called Tracey at 8am Friday the 28th, got voice mail. Within 5m he called and was very nice. I said " I just wanted to confirm our service call" and he said "Not a problem, thanks for checking - we scheduled it for today and they actually should be there in a couple of minutes" -- as the truck actually pulled up we laughed. Wow, on time and still pleasant. Two brothers were the service techs, Derek was the lead. Apologies I can't remember the other but he was getting married Saturday so Congratulations. Super nice, down home guys. We confirmed the service call price and scope of work. They knew exactly what things needed to be checked for and done. They checked the unit, showed me the crack and checked everything else. They started taking the covers off about 9:20 and I left them alone. About 10:45 there was a knock on the door. Derek said "Ok, we are all set, but I want you to check everything and test the heat". LOL, he wanted me to see things were working? A service technician? I just grinned - seriously amazing. I love these guys. They still had part of the cover off. They replaced the unit with the new Amana exchanger. They checked everything and he also cleaned the burners. I said how much was that, Derek said "they looked ok but had some icky spots so I just cleaned them, don't worry about it, it's all good". Next, Derek had me turn on the heat and crank it for three reasons, he said. 1: To make sure it was working 2: To show my that the unit outside was ok and not making noises or something 3: That new exchangers sometimes smell and will make your smoke alarms go off with the oils and stuff from manufacturing and they wanted to make sure I was not sitting there with a weird smelling house and 6 detectors going off thinking they had done something to my unit. Again, love these two guys. Turned it on, cranked it, a little burning smell like the first heat of the year with dust and stuff but all was good. Felt warmer than normal even, probably since he cleaned some spots on the burners (gas pack). We mosied out to the truck, they cleaned their stuff up, he wrote me a bill which was exactly as discussed. We chatted a little about the bachelor party and wedding and the drove off into the sunset. There is only one thing that I didn't get, which was a call back from Tracey afterward to check in but there was no issue at all. I would say it was not needed - most call backs I get for customer satisfaction I usually have something to discuss with them lol. I recommend this company completely based on my experience. I think they are a hidden gem.