Nice Heating & Air

Good job, fair price

Everything went Very Well

Not very well.

Great serviceman and great work!!!

very happy with the service

They were very good.

I'd definitely use them again.

Very well, no problems

Very well.

Very professional.

Great as always.

Went well.

unknown

It turned out not be significant. They came and were really good. I have no problems. They were very friendly and willing to share what was wrong. They gave other tips to keep for the air conditioner.

Their service was very good. They were very professional and very nice. The service was quick and they were very thorough.

They are very good. They are very thorough and friendly. It is aggravating when service people want the money right then. The last time they were out, I had left my purse at my office. There was no problem; he just let me contact them when I had it. They were very cordial.

Their service was very good. I would recommend them.

HORRIBLY. National Indoor Climate Experts (NICE) was brought in by my home warranty company (Cross Country Home Service) to evaluate my failed A/C system. The "service" performed by technician Skye Pollard ranks amongst the worst I have experienced in my 22 years as a homeowner. The problems began with an exceedingly late arrival by the technician from. I was given a window of 12-3pm for the service call, and informed the scheduler (Tanisha) that I was supposed to leave for the airport at 3:30. Flights out of the airport on the 24th were delayed and/or cancelled due to weather, and as a result, I was able to stay at the house longer to await the technician. When no one had arrived at 3:15, I contacted Tanisha again, who called the tech (who said he had been delayed, but was en route). I called her again at 4:45, and her follow up received the SAME response. At 5:25 the tech FINALLY arrived. At no point, did the he attempt to contact me to let me know he would be late at all, much less over two hours so. He began by looking at the issue with the outside unit, and determining the compressor had failed. He then went inside to check the coils for the replacement / repair call. This is where things went awry. He came up from the basement, and asked whether the maintenance contractor had ever put in refrigerant. I answered I thought possibly, at some time in the past, but would have to check. He then said that loading refrigerant on dirty coils would overload the system. This is the first mention he made of dirty coils, but he did NOT explain himself (I suspect he lacked the experience to do so). He then went to call in the maintenance situation, and he began by discussing the compressor failure and diagnostics, but he repeated twice that there had been refrigerant loaded, despite the fact that I never affirmed this had been done (and HAD said if at all, it wasn?t recently). [Following all of this, I verified with my normal service contractor United Air Temp that no refrigerant had been added inappropriately] . At this point, had I known where he was headed, I would have asked to join in the call, because in retrospect it is clear his intent was to find a justification for denial. The repeated assertion concerning refrigerant and cleaning provides proof of my suspicion. To lend further evidence to my belief, I was in the room when the authorization call began, but had to go to other parts of the house to prepare for my rescheduled flight departure. He made mention of the dirt only after I was out of earshot. With all of this considered, I cannot help but to question the integrity of the technician. I left the room to check on the house, and when I came back he was off the phone, and said ?They shot you down?. He claimed that based upon his "investigation" of the coil that the dirt was the cause of the compressor failure. I told him I had documentation that our maintenance contractor had cleaned the unit, which he said I should provide to the authorizer, who would be calling shortly. He then packed up his gear and left ? leaving the unit without re-attaching the cabling inside or properly closing it off. He said he would e-mail me a photo of the dirty coils and that they ?hadn?t been cleaned in years? but left without doing so, and I have yet to receive the e-mail, despite receiving the invoice for the visit one hour after his departure, indicating he has the correct e-mail address. I had to call the contractor?s emergency number to have the tech cycle back and put the unit together again after I discovered he did not do so after receiving the repair denial directly resulting from his inaccurate summary. Now, to the factual matters at hand ? I have significant issues with the technician?s professionalism, judgment, integrity and assessment on several counts. (1) He was over two hours late behind a three hour window, but called NO ONE (me or the company) to give them/me warning, and offered no apology for the inconvenience. (2) His assertion that the unit was in ?poor condition? clearly is in contradiction to the facts of the maintenance record. United Air Temp has serviced our A/C system yearly since we took home ownership in 2005, and serviced the unit for the previous owner before that. The fact is that the unit is old, and the likelihood is that the aging compressor was overworked due to high outside heat. NOTE: Documentation provided in Attachment 2 indicates that this is an AGE matter, not a care matter. The stated policy in the Total Protect Warranty is that age is not a denial factor, as long as routine maintenance was accomplished in accordance with Section 4 of the General Exclusions item #15. The cause of loss was NOT dirt on the compressor coils. The last servicing of the unit was in May, just before the outside heat started for the year, and the determination from the servicing technician was that the interior unit was in good condition. He serviced the outside coils and checked voltages/regulators/etc. His only recommendation during the call was for a product unrelated to the air conditioning system. Subsequently Summer temperatures rose into the high 90?s and low 100?s, and seasonal storms caused power surges and outages that would have stressed the compressor at its age. It is far more likely that these activities, the last of which preceded the system failure by less than a day are at fault. The fraudulent assessment is the only reason for the initial denial of my warranty coverage. (3) The clear indication from the meter analysis outside was that the compressor failed short. Not only was there free current flow when the technician placed his impedance meter over/under/around the wiring down at the base, but the external wire (black) which connected to the base was physically burnt up right next to the entry point to the compressor base heat sink. Ascribing this to dirt on the coils inside is evasive, both since I have records to show proper maintenance AND since with a fail short the coils would have needed a flush / change anyway as part of the repair. I understand from the tech that the flush itself is an uncovered item, which would have cost me $200-300. THIS is reasonable ? denying the claim is not. In addition, if the interior coil had been so dirty as to cause a failure, the unit would have given indications of this earlier (freeze up, leaking, etc) ? no such indicators have ever been present with this unit, and as the photographic evidence in Attachment 3 illustrates, the dirt is fictional to begin with. (4) Leaving the unit without re-installing tested components is a failure of normal HVAC maintenance policy. Had I not been able to reach the evening Emergency Dispatcher on my way to the airport, the unit would remain unassembled even now. He also provided me no report of his findings whatsoever. To make matters worse, I have a son at the house with special medical needs, and we are without air conditioning during days with temperatures in the high 90?s. We are on a clock for health reasons. This situation has been highly stressful for both my son and me ? both the time pressure resulting from the tech?s delayed arrival and the continued lack of air are taking a toll on our well being, which the warranty is specifically designed to ameliorate. Subsequent to the complete failure of Mr Pollard to do his job, I requested and received a second opinion from a vendor selected by CCHS, along with a validating call from United Air Temp. The result of this has been the approval of my claim, proving the incompetence of Pollard.

Some history: On Friday, it was 105 outside. Having difficulty breathing in the house, I looked at the thermostat. Our house was over 90 degrees on the main level, while the thermostat was set to 74 degrees. So we started looking around for the problem and found a huge ice ball outside on the coolant line. But the AC fan was still blowing. We then went inside and determined the furnace blower was also not working. So we turned everything off. The furnace was new and under it's own warranty from John Nugent and Sons (JNS). So we made two calls to fix the issues. The first call was to Old Republic to fix the AC unit and the second call was to John Nugent and Sons to fix the furnace blower. The first AC repair company from Old Republic, ADS, was unprofessional (see their separate evaluation) but got the furnace blower working and fixed the AC leak, which cooled off the house immediately, but the furnace failed after he left and a huge water mess ensued from melting ice on the furnace coils. John Nugent and Sons (JNS) came out the next day (Tuesday) to inspect the furnace, coils, and AC unit. The JNS tech determined the coil drain was completely clogged, which is why the water overflowed onto the furnace below. He unclogged it but JNS will have to replace the furnace. Together, we couldn't imagine why the coil drain wasn't checked for a clog during yesterday's AC repair check nor during original installation of the new furnace. After some difficulty JNS got the furnace to run. They also determined a difference in the cooling of AC by 30 degrees and advised a possible kink in the AC line and made recommendations on how to evaluate if further. At the end of JNS's call, I was suspicious of ADS's performance with the AC unit. Our visit with NICE: So we called Old Republic, argued with the rep. for 20 minutes to get a 2nd opinion, and got approval for a 2nd visit from another company. Here is where National Indoor Climate Experts (NICE) came into the picture. They repeated the assessment of JNS and agreed with JNS's determination there was a 30 degree difference in temps with the AC unit. During NICE's visit, our neighbor notified the NICE tech, Skye, that the AC was making loud noises like a bang sound, which NICE explained was the condenser trying to bypass the excess freon. Skye also determined the cause was from ADS overfilling the AC until with 2 extra pounds of freon and notified us overfilling an AC condenser can cause an AC condenser until to fail immediately or die sooner. So Skye emptied 2 pounds of freon from the AC unit and got the temperatures to equal out. What a waste of freon and a huge waste of our time! And now we are wondering if our AC will die sooner and are not sure we're done with this issue. For future HVAC calls, our warranty company should stick with NICE.

We were very pleased with the results. In addition to being very profesional and knowledgable, Criag questioned our hot water heater pipes. He asked if we did it ourselves and when we indicated that a professional did it, he let us know it was not up to Virginia code. He was very polite about it in an FYI way.

His diagnosis was that there were problems that he could probably fix, but that he would have to tell the home warranty people that the conditions stemmed from lack of user maintenance and were a pre-existing condition due to the age of the system (13 yrs) and that the home warranty company would not cover any repairs based on his report. So naturally, his only solution was to tell us that we needed to buy a new system for ~$7000. The home warranty trade call fee was $100 and I noted on their website after the visit that I would have received the same level of service for only $79 if I had called the company directly. I contacted my realtor who recommended a home warranty to ask him what use a home warranty was to a purchaser if anything the homeowner had issues with could be declined as a pre-existing condition. I took threatening the home warranty company with cancelling the warranty contract for them to authorize a second opinion by an out of network contractor. This contractor took the time to thoroughly check out the system, recharged the freon, fixed some minor issues with the faulty damper installation and recommended the correct type of air filter for my system. Within a day, and for less than $250, my house was cool and comfortable. I would never use this company, as they acted in bad faith. The technician was very personable and sounded very knowledgeable, but his ulterior motives in taking advantage of the situation to try and sell unnecessary equipment and services are clear after the fact.

He replaced a damaged part and we discussed my option to clean the old unit or replace it. I felt his advice was very helpful and that it was focused on doing the best thing for me rather than just increasing his fee. We came up with a option that makes a lot of sense and I am very pleased with the outcome. I have rarely felt that the warranty service providers were the best in the business. My experience with Craig was very different. I will use his service in the future and recommend him to my clients.

My husband liked the man so much that he signed up for the yearly service plan.

We got them through our home warranty company. The warranty didn’t cover the entire cost. So I was unhappy with them. But the people that provided the replacement furnace and air conditioning system were fine.

I met Craig through a Home Warranty call and he absolutely amazed me with his knowledge and customer service. I walked away from our conversation completely informed of my options and just felt comfortable about obtaining his company to do the install. (I had been using another company for services and had already received a quote). Friday morning I knew I made a good decision to buy a new furnace when they showed me the rust of the inside (likely from improper installation) and my evaporator coil had probably never been cleaned...ever. The level of detail they went through in installing each new piece was amazing. Not only did they use tape to secure the metal transition piece from the coil to the main duct but they used a paste to ensure an air tight system (not done on previous install, nor when my other company did some work). They even used that paste around other existing pieces that were not air tight. They added multiple water safety's to ensure the machine would shut off in case of a water leak (a very common service call in the summer and thus a flooded basement). They even went so far as to remove the old concrete slab my a/c sat on and replaced with a better base. If you're in the market for a new HVAC system, or think you might be, you have to call National Indoor Climate Experts. I can guarantee you won't be disappointed. Installation is just as important as the equipment itself. You want these guys to do your install. Oh, and not only is Craig a NATE certified technician, he was 1 of 5 techs awarded "top tech" in 2010.