John Betlem Heating & Cooling, Inc.

Both times I have called Mapstone this year have been for non-emergency situations, and they have nevertheless provided same-day service. Their workers are polite, fast, and know what they are doing.

It went great, he replaced it quick and professionally. Also replaced needed electric wire to make sure it could handle the load and that it was safe. Great service and a good price too!

They are competent. They're good. They come every 6 months.

.

I realized I my heat suddenly stopped working last night. Called Doug Mapstone Inc right at 7:30 this morning and they had someone to my house at 8:00 am. The technician found the problem right away and explained it to me, told me the cost of the part and had the repair done and the heat on by 8:30. Very friendly!

The cost depends on whether they have to replace any parts but the service charge itself is $89. They're very reasonable. They're A all the way through. I don't have any concerns. I know the people personally; therefore, I trust them and that's the reason I use them. I get reasonably high, exceptional service. The workers are very professional.

I've used a version of this company since the 1980s. It was good. It was like it is now.

Installation went smoothly. Everyone seemed competent and easy to deal with.

Excellent!

unknown

unknown

My experience of getting a high efficiency furnace installed by Doug Mapstone Inc. was very up and down. The process of getting an estimate from them was great. In-person, Debbie was very professional when she came to the house to take the measurements and give an estimate. She priced out multiple options for us, giving us a lot of choice about what we wanted vs. what we could afford. The estimate she sent was in Excel format and included all of the relevant prices, rebates, and information. It was all very straightforward, and made it easy to know exactly what we would be paying for each option. Debbie was also available by phone to clarify the available options and make recommendations. Once I finally decided on what heater I wanted, though, things started to go downhill. (I kept a file on my computer of how things went, so I'll be referring to it in this review.) I confirmed the heater that I wanted, and sent payment out on October 6th, and agreed to have it installed on October 16th. On October 7th, though, they contacted me to say that the 16th wouldn't work and that the 23rd would be better, so I confirmed that date instead. On the morning of the 23rd, half an hour before the installation was supposed to start, I got a call saying they had a last-minute emergency with a business that had no heat and they had to reschedule, and they said they'd contact me about rescheduling. By October 25th I'd heard nothing so I contacted them to ask about rescheduling. On October 29th they replied to me with some possible dates, and I confirmed for an installation on November 6th, which is when the installation actually occurred. (This kind of wait time was pretty common throughout - two to four days between my sending a reply and then hearing back from them. However, sometimes I would hear back from them the same day. It was just a bit inconsistent.) The heater was installed on Nov. 6th and even during the installation I could tell things weren't going well. I was in the house all day and I could hear the technician repeatedly calling someone on his cell phone and relaying information about the job, asking questions, and getting replies. (Also, a second technician showed up at some point during the day, which suggested that he needed help with what he was doing.) At the end of the day when the job was complete I came downstairs to look at the heater and I could tell that things weren't right. The previous furnace setup had been air-tight, but the way this guy installed the new one there were small gaps between the heater and the ducting connecting the heater to the rest of the house and I could feel hot air rushing out from these holes. Also, the technician had pulled some of the other ducting out of alignment, he didn't properly secure the electrical cord to the heater, and he didn't replace some insulation that he had taken down, nor fully sweep up the scraps of metal he left on the floor. So, I contacted the company on Nov. 7th to request that the problems be fixed. On November 9th I got a phone call saying that they would fix the problems. On November 10th I e-mailed them asking them to set a date when they could come back to fix everything. On November 11th I received an e-mail saying they could fix the problem as soon as Nov. 12th or 13th. I heard nothing back from them for several days, though, so I e-mailed on November 18th asking again when they could come fix the problems. Finally, on Nov. 21st they contacted me to say they are the busiest they've ever been and asking to schedule something during Thanksgiving week. I told them we would be away during Thanksgiving and so we scheduled it for Dec. 4th. On Dec. 4th, I was home all day and nobody showed up, so I called them on Dec. 5th to ask what happened. I got an immediate callback saying that there had been a problem the day before and I was supposed to get a call telling me that nobody was coming, but someone had forgotten to call me. However, they said they'd send someone out later that day to fix the problems. So, on December 5th, they sent an installer (Gary) out to look at the problems. He looked it over and asserted that everything was working correctly, and that he would just be making cosmetic fixes so that it would look nicer than it did now. When asked about the air rushing out of the holes, he said, "oh yeah, we need to fix that." He then explained that the person who had installed my furnace initially was someone who typically does only heater maintenance and not installations. Anyway, he went about fixing the heater and when he was done it did look much better than before, and - despite the assertion that the fixes were just cosmetic - the house felt warmer at the same thermostat setting than it had before the fixes. As he was leaving, Gary said something about how the exhaust and intake pipes they installed at the back of the house needed to be in a particular configuration, with one pointing up and one pointing to the side. I figured he would check them before he left, but he simply left, so I went out to check them myself. I then went online and compared the current pipe configuration to government recommendations for these kinds of heaters and found that they looked different from what they were supposed to. So, I e-mailed the company on December 6th to ask if the pipes needed to be fixed, but didn't hear back from them. Then, on December 16th I went down into my basement to get out the Christmas decorations and I found that one of the pipes installed inside the house had a slow drip. So I called the company to ask for a repair and they made an appointment to come on December 17th. Gary was the installer who showed up on Dec. 17th and he discovered that the person who installed the system the first time hadn't properly glued the pipes together, which allowed them to leak condensation. So he glued the pipes together and then said he would also fix the configuration of the outside pipes while he was at the house. So, he did these things and showed me the work he'd done, and it all seemed to have been done correctly. As we were walking back to the front of the house, he told me that this job was atypical because they usually only have to install the heater and then never have to do followup appointments to fix anything because the job is normally done right the first time. Then he said that his boss was upset that he keeps having to come all the way out to Cicero to fix this system. (My feelings on this were: A) if my house was too far away, then the company shouldn't have accepted the job in the first place, and B) the company wouldn't have to keep coming out if they had sent the right person to install the system in the first place!) Currently the heater seems to be working well, but it hasn't been long enough yet to tell if there has been a reduction in the cost of operating the furnace. So, it seems like they CAN do quality work, it's just that they sent the wrong person the first time and had to do a bunch of followup visits to fix this person's mistakes. Also, it was sometimes frustrating to try to get in touch with them and have 1-4+ day gaps between when I would e-mail/call them and when they would reply. I certainly understand that they were busy, and it's not their fault when emergency situations arise, but having such long stretches without contact from them stretched the whole process out much longer than if they had replied quickly. (For example: it took a month from my payment to the installation, and then a month from letting them know that there were problems in order for them to come fix those problems.) Long story short, there probably isn't any systematic problem with the quality of their work, but I don't see myself going with them in the future for my heating/cooling needs (unless it was another issue with the installation that I had to call them back to fix).

The old system was 4 zone arrangement with a complex of tubing, piping fittings and wiring that required removal along with oil boiler and hot water tank. All of this was jammed in a small space with limited work area. The crew started replacement at 9am on Tuesday, finished installation at 2pm next day. The new system took up 60% of the space of the old and makes a very attractive presentation to the observer. All debris and material generated during the installation was cleaned up and removed. Took away old equipment. They were fast,efficent,and thorough with the installation. They also came with a large inventory of first rate tools to get the job done. Overall they performed a very professional job.

unknown

unknown

When replacing the anode rod, they also replaced the hot water hookup with a sharkbite connector for ease of future disconnects. I didn't even have to ask for this, but was very glad that they did it. They did not have the correct Tand P valve in the truck, which even they admitted was embarrassing not to have such a common part. He had to leave and go get one, but did not charge me for the additional time. It has been a few days and still seems like there might be a little bit of air in the lines. This is not a big deal, but I plan to call and get their opinion.

They do excellent work and are very honest. I've used them many times and have always been impressed with their service.

Very pleased with service. Nice people to deal with.

On time, professional and also corrected the connection in the electrical box.

Back in March when the weather was still cold my boiler was not properly heating my home, called Doug Mapstone Inc around 730 am and set up an appointment for 1030 that same day to have their technician Zack come over to diagnose the problem. He arrived promptly at 1030 and soon had the problem figured out and had me up and running in no time.The service was very professional and neat and clean.

Our 10 year old Trane central air conditioning system ceased to function. We called Mapstones to repair it as they had repaired it successfully the year before. It was determined that the cost to repair the system would be comparable to a new system. Since the existing 80% efficient Trane furnace was 14 years old, we asked owner Debbie Mapstone to provide us with quotes to replace the entire HVAC system. Debbie is a trained HVAC specialist. Since we have a family room, that is very difficult to heat and air condition, we asked her what we might do to improve that situation as well. Our home was built in the 1830s and the family room area has a crawl space, not a basement beneath. We had another contractor seal all the cracks in the foundation, lay plastic on the ground in the crawl space as well as blow in insulation under the floor, but the room was still cold in the winter and excessively warm in the summer. We also have a gas stove in the family room that ran all the time in the winter to keep the room comfortable. Debbie and her staff concluded that more heat/AC ducts were needed in the family room, as well a a cold air return. She also concluded that the 80+ year old duct work in the basement was not adequate to deliver the heat the current furnace was putting out, and suggested revising the ductwork. Debbie provided us with 3 quotes for the updated furnace/AC systems - good, better, and best. She also included the discounts that were available through National Grid for updating to a more efficient system. She also indicated that we could get 0% financing for one year through Carrier and if that was our preference, she could set it up. We decided on the highest efficiency furnace and air conditioning system. Debbie and her team began work immediately and got the duct work finished and air coditioning up and running first - as we were in the middle of a stretch of 90+ degree weather - then installed the furnace. Jackie and Gary are the installers she used and we were very pleased and impressed with their knowledge, professionalism, concern to impact our lives as little as possible, and neatness!! The duct work required one of the specialists to crawl into the the 14and quot; crawl space for several hours to facilitate placing new heat/AC runs and the cold air return. All duct work in the crawl space was insulated as well. So far the air conditioning system is working very well and we were able to remove a window air conditioner in the family room and an upstairs bedroom, as well. We are expecting significant savings in energy costs over the next year as well as a much more comfortable home. Debbie and her staff were courteous, friendly, efficient and neat! I can't say enough about what a pleasure it was to have them in our home!! I will log on again after the heating season and give details as to the savings the new system provided.

I called for an estimate and Ms Mapstone came promptly, gave me info on several choices, examined my old equipment(which they have been maintaining for years),and made many suggestions. She dropped off estimates and answered all of my many questions over the next several weeks. After talking to, and getting estimates from 5 other companies, I decided to go with the Doug Mapstone co, because of the quality of the product and their warranty. The crew was friendly, knowledgeable, and cleaned up after themselves.

Doug Mapstone Inc Company has done quite a few things for us within the last 3 years. My experience with the last job was okay. They did overlook quite a few things. We had them out to look at our furnace and our heating system. We needed a valve that circulated the hot water through our radiator but they didn't tell us that we needed that. So it decreased the efficiency of our heat by a 30 %. We just got another provider who was here to look at it and so he fixed it. The heat has been going great ever since. It was broken for a couple of years and we didn't even realize because the technicians from Doug Mapstone Inc. Company overlooked it so we are not too happy with them actually. Overall they are probably fair but I'm not too impressed with them. I will not use them again.

I am very pleased with him. He is very honest, never overcharged me and never does stuff he is not asked to do. He or his technician is very thorough when they take my furnace apart and check the critical safety points. They are very professional and clean up after themselves. I will use him again in the future.

Paul Biviano, salesman, came to our home and provided detailed estimates of cost and options and a proposed contract so that all costs were known up front. Dick and Dan arrived on time (8 AM) on installation day. They worked swiftly and skillfully, completing the installation by 4 PM. Installing the A/C on the roof required a second day to get the A/C unit up to the roof. Dan finished the job after lunch and briefed us on operation of the water heater, humidifier, and setback thermostat. They were thorough in end of day clean up and picking up of tools. Paul came to our home and provided detailed estimates of cost and a proposed contract so that all costs were known up front. Mapstone was punctual in responding to calls, start of job, and daily arrival. They responded to requests virtually immediately. They started the job as he promised and did the work on schedule.