One Hour Heating & Air Conditioning - Houston

**Update** 09/21/2011 I received a call from Red Binford on Monday, August 29th. He apologized and said that the refridgerant pricing was incorrect. It should have been priced on a sliding scale. He said that it was a a series of bad communications, from the person who handled my phone inquiry in the Houston office to the technician who came out to service the unit. He refunded $251.32, which brought my total down to a reasonable charge for a weekend, emergency call. Red did note that all involved will be retrained to make sure they are up to date on company policies.

I have an AHS warranty. My a/c unit downstairs was not cooling properly. They sent out a tech who so called fixed the unit. After two trips my a/c still wasn't cooling. After 8 days of nothing, we called Hallmark to come out and inspect our unit for repairs. Ivan was very professional. He inspected our unit and advised us that the capacitor the previous techn put on was too big for our unit which blew out the motor fan. He even called AHS and explained the issues to my warranty company. He explained everything in detail and showed us the problem we had. He even checked the upstairs unit as well. Ivan changed our capacitor, the motor fan for the downstairs unit and a starter kits for both units. He cleaned both our units and explained everything he did. He also made some suggestions for a drip pan and uv light for the units. He gave me his business card to call back in later to schedule appointments for service for the heater and another service on the a/c before August of 2012 which is already included in the price for the repairs he proformed. Ivan went above and beyond to get the repairs done. I will definatly refer Hallmark to all my friends and family.

Hallmark was prompt in returning my initial request for a quote and coming out to give me the quote. They were not able to make the original start day for the work to be done due to some emergency calls they had to take care of but offered me an apology and a significant discount. Being in the service industry myself I understand that those things happen and was very pleased with the discount. The actual work was completed a couple of days later as I requested. I was very happy with the quality of the work that was done and will be using this company again to run ductwork when I add another room on to my home..

He went up to check the air conditioner to see how it was functioning. He made the repair that was needed to make it work for another summer. They also had a service to come out and do energy audit on my house. I think I paid $250 for that. I paid a couple of hundred dollars, I forgot how much I paid. They came out and set it up to do energy audit on my house and that turned out to be a disaster. They did somethings that were helpful. They also did somethings that caused me to have repairs made, that costed more than what they did. Therefore, their energy audit thing was aweful. My overall experience with them was lousy. In terms of responsiveness, the energy audit people kept making appointments and changing them. In terms of professionalism, as far the air conditioning guys were concerned they were fine. They went up the attic, they did their job, they came back downstairs, told me what I needed, what it would cost and they did it. The energy audit guys; I stayed in my kitchen when they were here. There were three young men; one boss, one worker and a helper. Before the day was over, those young men, all came in my kitchen and started telling me all about their personal lives. I knew all about their wives, their child and their day care. They interjected their personal lives. I guess I sounded Iike somebody’s grandmom and they just came into the kitchen and started dumping all these stuff on me. It was very unprofessional. I would not use their services again in the future. I just had somebody else come in and replace both my air conditioners and furnaces for $15000, so that’s a lost opportunity for Hallmark.

They are very dependable and know what they are doing. You can really trust them. They won't sell you anything you don't need.

Their service was great and they were very helpful. They checked things repeatedly and cleaned the place themselves after the job. I liked them and will use the same in future.

I called Hallmark after reading the comments which were overall positive, but did note the one negative. On the phone I was told I would be called 30 minutes prior to arrival and had a time of 4 to 7 for someone to arrive. First no phone call 30 minutes before arriving, but did come around 5. Steve was very pleasant and personable. He asked me to come outside with him to see the unit. He placed his gauge on and then went on about how old the unit was and he would never recommend putting more coolant in, so what did I want him to do? I stood there thinking is this all he's going to do to check the unit. He also had me touch the unit and explained it shouldn't be hot to touch which it was. I told him I had looked into buying a new unit last Spring, but thought $10000 wasn't worth the investment at that time. Steve said yes that's what they cost. That bothered me a bit due to when I had someone give me a quote it was on the heating and AC combined. So I told Steve that was on both and he said yes. He also told me I should have asked for an estimate and it wouldn't have the cost me anything. I told him I wasn't really certain I wanted to invest that much money right now. He told me I could get one year of no finincal and they were the only place offering it. He did offer again, that if I wanted he could put coolant in, but reminded me of the price and no guareentee. Then when we went back into the house, he said lets take a look at your attic. He went half way up the attic stairs told me there was a lot of rust and then came back down. I told him I had to think about it, but I already knew I didn't trust him to do anything else even to add any coolent. If I felt he had really taken the time to exam the entire unit and then make some recommendations I would have felt better. But I felt he decided once he knew the age of the unit and that I hadn't had regular maintenance that I needed an entire new unit. So now I'm back to square one which is just to wait and see. But how could I ever trust a company to put in a new unit when the service call is only a ploy to get a new unit. I do want to add Steve was pleasant and did honor the coupon, even though I misunderstood and really didn't have a coupon for a service call. I hate this giving a bad grade and I hate dealing with service people who are nice, but don't provide a complete service.

Technician was courteous and knowledgeable. Arrived on time and got the job done. Even asked for a broom to clean up afterwards.

They did a good job. I would use them again in the future.

We were pretty pleased with their service. They seemed knowledgeable and efficient. They cleaned up and didn't leave a lot of dirt anywhere. The workers were polite and explained things. In the last service call, they spent pretty much the entire day here to make sure that everything was ok. I would recommend them to others.

good job. done right the first time.

Great overall experance and will put them on the list for my quote this fall for a new AC unit.

We did have our AC/heating inspected and serviced for a reasonable price. However, we were misled by the service technician into thinking there were serious problems with our system that required immediate replacement at a totally unreasonable cost for the new unit.

We use Hallmark for all our A/C, Heater and Plumbing needs.Always a good experience.

I requested a service call because the overflow on my a/c system was dripping, signifying a problem. Rather than just dealing with the leak, they did a "complete system check". The technician wet-vacuumed the water from the overflow tray and attempted to clear the primary drain line. He said my system was 11 years old and I would need a new one soon. He said the coil was dirty and should be replaced. His recommendation was that we get a plumber to snake the drain line where the a/c primary hose drained. Within a few hours of his departure, the overflow was dripping again. The next morning, my compressor stopped working. I called my old a/c man who had retired. He called a trusted friend who came to find that a wire to the capacitor (that starts the compressor) was burned. He said the only thing that would cause that is if it had been loosened. Further, the reason for the overflow dripping was that the coil was completely rusted through. It had been in my attic since 1988. The compressor worked great after replacement of the burned wire and capacitor. The friend of my trusted a/c guy said the compressor was 10 years old and had many years of good service left. NOBODY needs an air conditioning technician that can't diagnose the problem and causes another problem either on purpose or by inadvertently knocking a wire loose while "checking the system."

Hallmark has a policy of calling the day before service as a reminder and thirty minutes before arrival. The tech arrived on time and proceeded with the inspection. When he found the the inside evaporator coils had not been cleaned in some time he made a recommendation for a more extensive service. There was no high pressure sales or scare tactics used. I accepted his recommendation and the full service was preformed in a timely fashion. I will use them again in the future and recommend them.

Saturday evening of Memorial Day weekend I arrived home from work to find my air conditioner was not cooling. I waited until Sunday to find a company to send someone to fix it. Not knowing who to go to, I checked Angiie's list for my options. I chose Hallmark because they are open 07 days a week. When I called them they were not able to come out on Sunday but were able to send a technician out on Monday, Memorial day. The appointment was set for Monday afternoon but they called me Monday morning and said they had a technician who was available to come in the morning and I went for it. The technician arrived about 45 minutes later. He was professional, courteous and asked me to explain the problem. He went straight to work and explained to me what he was doing as he went. Fortunately for me it was a problem easily solved without costing alot. I was very pleased with their service and price.

They are very thorough and professional in their service. They do a good job and will tell us what is going on and will keep us informed about anything that needs to be fixed or adjusted.

Was timely, professional & quick.

Overall, great service and quality! They answered my call promptly and then showed up on time to do the "Inspection and Tune Up" for $59. The technician completed all of the work and then told me what the problem was - a leak in the coil. He suggested that we replace it. I agreed so then the next step was to schedule an appointment with a "Comfort Specialist" - a salesman by any other name. He came out a few days later and confirmed what the tech had told us, and then went into sales mode but stopped after learning that we don't plan on being in the house much longer. The next day the install guys came out and replaced the coil, etc. They did a great job. The only thing that bugged me was the unnecessary intermediate step of having a Comfort Specialist come out. That left us in a hot house a day longer than necessary.

A week after the initial system inspection, the downstairs compressor unit stopped working. They promptly sent a technician who made a quick "continuity check" and declared that the compressor was grounded. Being an engineer, though unfamiliar with a/c systems, I was surprised that he could make that assessment without some more detailed checks. I asked him a couple of times if he was absolutely sure and he answered yes and set up an appointment for their "Home Comfort Adviser" to come next day to give me a quote. Over the next couple of days I wasted about 8 to 10 hours of my time getting recommendations and quotes, including from One Hour. However, because of my discomfort with the technician's cursory check, I asked an a/c expert that I had dealt with before to come give me a second opinion. Also, the technician from a second company that came to give me a quote for a new system did a check and told me that the compressor was not grounded but the winding had deteriorated! When my a/c expert checked, he found that there was nothing wrong with the compressor but that the fan motor had tripped because some one had installed an incorrect blade. The problem was solved by installing a new, higher power motor which cost me $400 instead of the $17,721 quoted by One Hour. My expert has also assured me that the unit will perform at least through this summer and that he will do any further repairs without additional cost to me. I feel that One Hour was mostly interested in selling a new unit and I will not use them again. Needless to say, I cancelled my membership. Although the Service Manager offered a one-year free membership as compensation, I had lost all faith in their integrity and did not take up the offer.

They came out twice with two separate people. The bid they gave me was $4849.00 to replace the pipe in my attic with CPBC piping. The quote they gave me first, which was the day before, they had given me a bid that was $6000.00. The manager called and asked if they could give me a second bid, which they did, at $4849.00.

I purchased a maintenance agreement with them. It went very well. The service was very thorough and comlete.

They came promptly, and they fixed it. There were no problems with the work. They were here on time, and they cleaned up after themselves. I thought the price was okay. He is very professional and nice.

They come out a couple of times in a year. We have a contract with them. Our experience with them has been good. We have used them for probably about 18 years. We have been satisfied with them. There haven't been any problems or issues in a long time. They put in a larger heating system than we were supposed to have had and then they did correct that without any cost to us.