CAPUTO PLUMBING & SVC

They're very good. They're reasonable. They're not the cheapest but they're reasonable.

Overcharged me for by $200. Very shady practices. I would never use them again.

On June 13, 2011, a tech, Robin, from Caputo Mechanical Services, Inc., responded to a service call I placed. He arrived around 2:30 p.m. My complaint was that while cold air was blowing out of my vents, it was not enough to cool the upstairs to a temperature below 80 during the day. The high outside temperature on June 13 was 89 degrees. Robin arrived and upon inspection of the unit, he declared that the coils on the unit needed cleaning. He used my waterhose to spray the coils visible on the outside of the unit. He did not clean anything on the inside of the unit. I was outside with him the entire time and saw this was the only cleaning he did. He told me I could use the waterhose from time to time to clean the unit myself. Once he finished hosing off the unit, he hooked equipment up to my unit that appeared to have two gauges. He told me he was checking the levels of Freon in my unit. He advised that the unit was low of Freon and went to his truck to obtain a container of Freon. He hooked the container up to my unit, even going back to his truck to obtain a second container because he said my unit sucked the Freon remaining in the first one dry. Robin finished within an hour and advised me that it would take a few hours to cool down my house but it would for sure be cool by the next morning. He charged me the $49 service call, $85.00 for labor and $220 for Freon ($55 per lb x 4 lbs.) for a total of $354.00. The next morning I woke up around 4:30 a.m. before my alarm clock went off because it was 78 degrees upstairs and I could not sleep longer due to the heat (it was 67degrees outside so it was cooler outside than inside my house). I called Caputo at 8:00 a.m. and reported that it was still 78 degrees upstairs when I left for work and asked if that was normal given it had been serviced the day before. The lady answering the phone said it sounded like something else might be wrong and said that she would have the technician meet me at my house that day to reassess. Mid-morning I received a call that Robin was on his way so I left work and met him at my townhome. At that time, the temperature had gone down to what I had the thermostat set on. However, the outside temperature that day only reached 83 degrees so I?m certain that?s why the temperature inside had dropped. Robin was going to charge me for another service call (even though he?s the one who told me my house should be cool by morning) but he told me ?boss man says we won?t charge you for this one?. I shouldn?t have been charged since I was following Robin?s guidance. Once the next heat wave arrived, the temperature in my house rose again and by July 10, I was sleeping in my living room downstairs because the temperature upstairs would be 82-85 even at midnight. By morning, it would cool down to around 78 which was the coolest it would get all day, even though the thermostat was continually set on 70. I left the a/c running all the time and never changed the ?set? temperature on my thermostat. So, basically, the problem was never fixed and adding Freon and hosing off my unit did not make a difference once the outside temperature rose again. On July 21, a Service Experts technician came to my home as a result of a service call I placed to their company. I refused to contact Caputo again because I had left at least two messages for Mr. Caputo to call me regarding the service I received but I never received a response from him. This Service Experts technician advised me he could not even check the Freon levels until the coils were cleaned and asked me when the last time was I had them cleaned. I told him Caputo had just cleaned them a month ago. He said the coils appeared to have never been cleaned and were so filthy he would have to clean them before he could assess the problem. I gave him permission to clean them. He used brushes and cleaner and cleaned the coils on the inside and outside. Then he hooked the gauges up to my unit and said the unit was completely full of Freon. I advised him that Caputo had added 4 lbs of Freon on June 13. He said first of all, my unit does not even hold 4 lbs of Freon and showed me the tag on the unit that indicates my unit only holds 3.7 lbs of Freon. Then, he told me that if my unit had been completely empty on June 13, it would have been completely empty again the next day because there would?ve had to have been a leak. He did a leak search on my system and did not find any leaks. So, it is not possible that Robin had to add 4 lbs of Freon. If there is not a leak in my unit, then there is no way all of the Freon was missing. Plus, my unit has always blown cold air, even before I called Caputo. I certainly would have noticed a difference in my cooling if there had indeed been 4 lbs of Freon added! Because Mr. Caputo would not return my calls, I sent a letter to him on 7/25/11, and attached a copy of my invoice from Caputo dated 6/13/11 and the invoice from Service Experts dated 7/21/11 showing that I did not have any leaks in my system. The description on Caputo's invoice showed that Robin cleaned the coils on my unit, which he did not, and charged labor for doing it. It also shows that he added 4 lbs of Freon which is impossible since a) my unit only holds 3.7 lbs and b) there are no leaks in my unit. I requested a refund of $305. I agreed to pay for the $49 service call but I did not think I should have to pay for labor and Freon for services that were not performed and/or needed. I had to pay Service Experts for cleaning the coils because they were so filthy since Robin did not clean them. Aside from cleaning the coils, there was nothing else wrong with my unit. I never received a response from Mr. Caputo and am still out $354 for unnecessary services. I will never, never, never use this company again for anything. And I am very vocal to anyone I hear looking for a HVAC service. Hire them at your own risk!

My central air unit went out on 8/2/11. I called Caputo in the afternoon on 8/2/11. They said they would be out on 8/3/11. They arrived at 10:30AM. The technician suspected it was a run capacitor problem. He was right. The old one had a hole and was leaking oil. He rummaged through a big box in the back of his truck and could not find an exact match. So he used two different ones (one for the compressor; the other for the fan). He hooked them up and voila, the unit worked fine. I can't say with any certainty that the replacement capacitors were new. My guess was from the volume in the box, they were not. But they did work and I'm cold again. It all took just over an hour. His price was a bit high, but he did have a distance to travel and he got out here in less than 24 hours......so all's well that ends well. We hit 100 degrees today. I would definitely consider using them again.

My problem is that we were charged $275 for this work! We have always been charged fairly by Caputo in the past which is why we didn't bother to get an estimate. Had we known it would be this much we would have gotten our local handyman to do the job or just done it ourselves. This was not a technical repair. As for punctuality. They made an appointment for a Tuesday. I scheduled for this and they canceled. I made a second appointment for the next week and they cancelled again. They did come through on the third try. As such we cannot recommend this company.

My sister and I had already purchased the sink so we called Caputo to complete the installation. The gentleman removed the old vanity and replaced the existing galvanized pipe. Once he began installing the new sink and pedastal is when the problems started. The sink had to be anchored to the tile wall but he could not get a tight fit. Unfortunately he did not mention the fact until I inspected the work and just happened to lean on the sink. I almost fell over but was able to save myself and the sink at the last second. When I asked him to fix the problem, he strugged his shoulders and said that he had already tried as many things as he could and could not make it any more stable. He then recommended we replace our valve behind the commode for a "modest" $75. We called Caputo to complain about the sink and the "owner" showed up. After spending about 5 minutes inspecting the installation and declaring it to be safe and "normal" he took the next 20 minutes to witness to us about his faith and invite us to church (as if!). As soon as he left, my sister and I put our heads together to figure how to stabilize the sink -- it took us about 5 minutes to figure out that we needed to anchor it from the other side of the wall using a 2 by 4. This was more work, certainly, and we had to repair the drywall in the other room, but the sink is now completely stable. The plumber that came to the house, after doing such a lousy job, then told us he would be happy to do work for us on his own time and we would not have to pay as much. With employees like that, who needs competitors? I would never use Caputo again. Some months later we needed to get a leak fixed and called a plumber recommended by our aunt & uncle. When we asked the new plumber about the commode valve (which would not turn), he said that he would not recommend replacing it and he spent about 10 minutes fixing it for us. We continue to use this plumber and have highly recommended them in a different report.

He gave me a bill with no break down of the work performed. I was given a price $69.00 over the phone for a diagnostic fee. I asked for a written break down of the expenses. I called the office again like I did that morning when I requested a service call. I asked a lady there for a written break down of expenses. That afternoon on or about December 23, 2008, Mr. Caputo called me back at 5PM. He attempted to explain the expenses to me. I could not understand him. I could not understand why I didn't get a written break down of the expenses. I asked for a written break down of expenses! I don't understand if the serviceman can find my house why the company can not mail me a written break down of the expenses.

Overall, I am impressed with Caputo's. I actually have an agreement to have them come in the spring and fall to service my air conditioning unit. The owner was also easy to get in touch with, and I would recommend this company to other people.

Three months ago I had this company do some pretty extensive work on this A/C unit, including replacing ductwork which was filled with mold and the leaking evaporator coil, at a cost of $3,550.00. That job took approximately 3 days, during which time the A/C was disconnected. Since that time, the A/C has slowly been cooling less and less. My tenant inspected the unit and noticed that the tape joining the evap. coil to the motor unit had come loose, and practically all the cool air was blowing out into the closet where the A/C unit is located. I was shocked that: (a) they had used tape which was ineffective and (b) that they had not rewrapped the (I think) condensation line when they did the original work -- it was obvious that the rubber was cracked and flaking, and in one area the metal line was exposed and was wet. I have no idea whether they would have replaced the tape with the higher quality mastik tape if I had not known that was the appropriate product to use. (I discovered this from another a/c company which my home warranty company sent out). I felt that I had to tell them what steps to take to solve the problems. They didn't charge me for the new tape, which is expensive, but I was charged another $69 trip fee, I guess because there were other issues besides fixing the one they caused in the first place. I did get a 10% discount because I have a maintenance agreement with them, but I noticed on their Angie's List profile that they give a 10% senior discount, which was not offered and I didn't know about. The company's rep., who did the work, was very nice and trustworthy, and neat. These qualities are very important. Further, I don't blame him for the use of the cheaper tape - I feel he was following company policy.

They came and did a good and efficient job. We do not have to hire much work because we do our own. They did clean up behind themselves. We would recommend them to other people.