Black Lion Heating & Air Conditioning

It was a Saturday. I called them to come out and look at my furnace. The furnace was pretty much dead. They told me what a new furnace would cost. But, they wouldn't allow me to use the coupon for their initial visit. So, it cost me an overtime charge and then, I'm not going to get back my $59 according to them. So, I'm not dealing with them anymore. The technicians were polite and on time. I wouldn't tell family or friends about them.

Black Lion's office responded promptly to schedule an appointment, and the technician arrived within the scheduled service window. The technician was courteous, and he answered the questions I had about my furnace and furniture-maintenance generally. He also pointed out two minor issues that I might want to address in the next year or two. I appreciated the information but decided to wait. Black Lion does seem to try to sell its annual maintenance plans, but the technician was not pushy and accepted my decision to decline a plan for now. Overall, I'm happy and feel like the package offered on Angie's List was a good deal.

Arrived on time. Serviced furnace. All was good. Left everything clean.

I had used this company before, through a deal on AL, to inspect my heat pump and air handling system. I was impressed with the service and gave them all "A's" in my review, I even taped their business card to my system for future service needs. So here is what happened... On 11/5, late in the afternoon, I noticed a slight odor of propane in my garage. Without hesitation I called Black Lion to come out, they sent a tech over right away. I only use propane for three appliances, the water heater, the fireplace and the stove top. Since the water heater is in the garage, it was pretty easy to start there. The tech sprayed the fuel lines with soapy water to test for leaks, there were none. He then checked the draft in the vent pipe, it appeared fine. The last thing he checked was the pilot light, it was on, so he increased the temperature, the burner came on. "All good" he declared, he said it was probably a gust of wind that caused the odor and that he did not smell any propane anymore. He then wrote up the service call and charged me $102.00. I was a bit shocked by the bill, because he literally spent more time on the paperwork, then the time inspecting the water heater. The next morning my wife called me and said the odor of propane was "very strong" in the garage. I was at work and could not come home as I was on duty for 48 hours. I told her to call them back out, she had already done so. A different tech arrives and determines that the valve is bad on the water heater, I'm not sure how this was missed the previous day, He tells my wife that they "might" be able to get a replacement valve sometime in the next week and that the water heater is out of warranty. Funny, our house was built in 2013 and the warranty was for six years??? He then says that they can do an "emergency install" of a new water heater that day for $1900-2000, which included a new expansion tank because my existing tank was "full". Uh, no! This was a blatant rip off attempt! Especially when I receive a "Big Deal" email the next morning from Angie's List offering a water heater install from Black Lion for $1099!!! They had a customer for life, now I will never use them again! Be cautious and do your research before using this company! By the way, when I came home from work, I replaced the water heater with a much nicer one for under $700. and my "full" expansion tank was fine. MY REPLY TO THE PROVIDORS RESPONSE: As a repeat customer, Ben Ward easily could have contacted me. Instead he responds in writing and invites me to contact him. Hey Ben, not Customer Service 101. I guess I wasn't clear enough regarding the service charge. If your technician had found the issue the first time, it was Thursday afternoon, the repairs could have been scheduled with you or another company on Friday. As it turned out, you were back here on Friday morning, so there was never an "after hours emergency installation"! As for my water heater being LPG and the Big Deal pricing, I get it. But a $900. difference for the "emergency, after hours installation" and the Big Deal? I did some research when I purchased the new water heater I installed. There is not a significant difference in the price of a LPG water heater versus a natural gas or electric water heater! $900. sure seems like price gouging to me! If you have any further questions or comments, feel free to contact me.

The furnace in our house had come to the end of it's life so we did our research and determined that a full Heat pump system would be the best way to go. After the proposals were in, we chose to go with Black Lion. From the first visit by Kevin, through the installation by Kyle, Phillip and Patrick with the electrical work done by Matt to the support in the office from Lynai the experience was timely, professional and very courteous.

Arrived on time and completed a multi-point inspection and tuneup including washing the electronic air filters. Jerry, the Black Lion technician was very experienced and knowledgeable and reminded me to clean the air filters more often! He also installed a disposable paper filter in the electronic air cleaner to use while the electronic ones dried. The next day, the furnace blower fan came on and ran much harder and louder than I had ever heard before, so I called Black Lion to inquire as to whether something might be wrong as they had just done the tuneup the day before. They sent one of their most senior technicians out the same day to investigate (at no further charge to me). He reinstalled the now-dry electronic air filters, re-inspected everything, explained how the blower fan works in my particular furnace, speculated that it might be related to how the temporary paper filter moves air and ran a number of tests on the fan blower, concluded that the paper air filter was most likely the cause, and apparently it was, as the furnace has been behaving totally normally ever since. I was very impressed with Black Lion's response to my concern, and even more impressed that they did not charge an additional fee to come back and check it out. I plan to use Black Lion for all my future HVAC service! They really know how to instill customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Black Lion was prompt, efficient, and knowledgeable about extras like Nest vs. Honeywell systems. They also honored their deal of $99 for a furnace inspection for both furnaces.

He spent about 40 minutes (no certain that the filter got replaced) and gave an estimate of $680 to replace the blower.

Very professional and courteous. Would definitely use again.

It went just fine. There was nothing else extra. They were out the next day. The workers were just fine. They seemed to know what they're doing and they got everything taken cared of.

This post is a culmination of 1 year of experience with this provider over multiple visits. Few summary points: 1) They will do the work well but it will take a lot of effort from the homeowner to get them to do it, and become knowledgeable about what type of work they should do. 2) Installation guys are good, just not super experienced so they'll do the work then after inspections will need to come back. They also will always be late, best case is at the end of the 2 hour window they provide (each time over multiple visits over course of the year), they also won't let you know, You will have to call and have someone track them down to call you back when in route. 3) Woman who answers the phone can't be trusted, she's pleasant but has zero follow-up skills, and will not get back to you regardless of question or ask if something needs to get fixed 4) Service contracts, super waste of money, they have no real service part of this, no scheduled maintenance or filter replacements like they say they'll perform. We kept getting the run around for months on getting our air filter, I ended up purchasing 3 myself for ~$80 each and servicing my own filter despite a dozen calls, and finally after 8 months getting the wrong air filter. We have a Bryant electronic Hepa filter which they knew because they installed it with new furnace., so no surprises other than trying to get them to get it right. 5) Their subcontractors, Electrician has an attitude, will take path of least resistance to get work done, you need to be there and supervise the work to get what you want. After Seattle Electrical inspection, he had to come back out and fix connections to meet Seattle code. They did sub with a good air vent cleaning company, they showed up on time, did a great job, and left. 6) Using this company will take extra time (i.e. days) you need to take off work, make dozens of calls to get a response, and tolerance (I've run out after 1 year of being patient and paying for it) 7) When they do come out, they will recommend items to help with air quality, system protection etc. The latest after their inspector recommended we install a UV light over the AC condensing unit to sanitize it (we have notes) as well as a written estimate to install a surge protector on the AC unit to prevent electric surges they saw. We scheduled, they came out and installed all in wrong places. UV light is not installed over condenser but installed near a return intake that now shines UV light throughout the room making it no longer usable for overnight guests, plus is bleaching carpet from UV. They installed the surge protector on the Heater instead of AC unit per their work order, when asked, installer guess he didn't read it. 8) I called and once again spoke with the pleasant woman who answers the phone, placates your situation and yet after one week still hasn't made an effort to rectify the mis-installed components. You guessed it, I'need to make more phone calls, wait more, take yet another day off I could be spending with my family or traveling, but instead need to deal with a day of waiting, a reinstall and hopefully better results. You may ask why we stuck it out this long? We, like most trusting homeowners, that expect a high level of professionalism, have experience dealing with contractors for decades, take time and energy, also paying Angie's list to aid in making our selection choices, kept thinking it was a rare occurrence, its not with this company. I would highly advise using an alternative for your needs, unless you have an abundance of time, energy, and project management skills.

Great service! The service guy showed up and went straight to work. He was super friendly, funny and took care of the tune-up in no time. I was asking a lot of questions out of curiosity about the work being done and he didn't mind at all!

Remove old gas furnace, replace with new furnace. The crew was professional, fast, and efficient. The removal and installation of the new gas furnace went very smoothly and we were back up and running in no time. I would Black Lion again!

Their service was terrible. I asked them to contact the tenant to schedule the call directly with the tenant, and then call me from the site. They did not - they came and left without contacting me. I then spent almost two months trying to follow up with them to get the results on the diagnosis, and to get them to go back out to the house to service the refrigerant. I must have placed more than 12 calls to them during this period, and each time they said someone would call me right back, and no one ever did. One person said they placed two calls to the tenant, which were both not returned, and the service technician told me he placed one call, and then decided to wait until the tenant called back - several weeks he waited until I finally got a hold of him. The tenant claims he never got a call. They changed their diagnosis on the non-working heating system from needing a thermostat replacement to simply needing batteries. When I asked about this, they said the thermostat should be replaced simply because it is 14 years old. Not true! It just needed new batteries. They never did refill the refrigerant, even after weeks and weeks of me calling them to get updates. And each time I called and asked for information, they acted rudely like their failures were somehow acceptable and normal, and why did I have a problem with it? And here's the thing - this whole episode was a repeat of what happened last year. I told myself that the previous bad experience was so bad, that it just had to be a fluke, given all the high ratings here on this site. But it has now happened again. Two service calls one year apart, and both of them disasters for customer service. I will never use them again. And unless you just love wasting your time, you shouldn't either.

The gentleman who came to my home was nice, quiet and efficient. He performed the service and explained that I would need a new furnace in the near future due to an issue with my blower which isn't uncommon considering the age of my furnace. He gave me a quote and told me I could wait to make a decision as it wouldn't do any harm to have my furnace die on me (aside from being cold). He also gave me a quote on my water heater while he was at my house because I mentioned it too needed to be replaced. I didn't even know they were able to do that so I appreciated the extra effort.

They worked with my schedule needs. Arrived within scheduled window. Courteous technician. Cleaned my furnace and changed my filter. I purchased as a daily deal.

Patrick, the technician, arrived promptly and did the work. Previous furnace companies had tried to up-sell us, telling us we had BIG problems. Patrick told us we were just fine. This was an Angie's List Big Deal which said it included a new filter. After Patrick left and I reviewed the receipt, then checked the unit, it was clear no new filter had been installed. Our furnace has a really large filter that can be vacuumed clean. But because Patrick didn't say anything to explain the discrepancy, I'm saying the service was "Good", not excellent.

Provider was also able to service my gas water heater while he was here including flushing & cleaning burner & pilot light.

Arrived on time. performed semi annual furnace cleaning and inspection. Reported that all items were within specs. Promised an email with numeric data but have not received it yet.

Very friendly serviceman. Answered questions about Thermostats, replaced our broken thermostat. Cleaned our furnace and answered questions we had about the our furnace.

Great experience. Knowledgeable and professional

This was a great experience. First I was called about a half hour before my appointment to let me know the person was on their way. Patrick arrived on time. Asked if there was anything I need looked at while doing the regular maintenance. I told him the only issue I had was that there was one room that was not getting heat. He said he would take a look when he was done. He also documented a couple of things that I should consider being looked at next year with the maintenance. When he checked the vent he thought he smelled a crawl space odor and offered to look there for me. He found the problem where there was a disconnection and repaired it for me. This was above any beyond the service I expected and now my daughters room has heat again. Thank you Patrick and I will be using Black Lion again in the future.

We signed up for the $59 furnace inspection. Setting up the appointment was a piece of cake, signed up for a time convenient to us and they showed up on time. We also took advantage of this visit to include a drain and inspection of our 10 year-old water heater. During the furnace inspection it was noted that the circuit board on our furnace was melting - likely suspect was the thermostat. They quoted a price for the part (surge protector mounted on the furnace) and the service and completed it efficiently. No issues -we're happy. Sure, more than we planned to spend but taking these preventive measures will avoid further damage to the furnace.

Tenant called me to say gas furnace would not come on. I checked Angie List and found Black Lion had a coupon for service for $59 so I called and was told the furnace had to be working for that service, but the repair call would be $87. This sounded reasonable so I scheduled appointment for 10:00-12:00 yesterday. I asked to be called when the serviceman was on his way, so I could be there. I called early in the AM to verify, and was told the app. was still a go, also was told I could pay by phone after the service. At 12:00 I called the office to find out what happened to the serviceman, and was told the service had been completed. ??? I was told by the very pleasant lady in the office that she would have the serviceman call me to tell me what had been done. He never called! This morning my tenant called and told me he paid the serviceman (should not have happened), and he sent me a copy of the bill. To my surprise, the bill was $170.27 because there was a $68 diagnostic charge added. I checked the Angieslist reviews today, and noticed there were several service calls with charges under $100 (which is what I expected) If I had been told of this added charge, I would have searched for a better price. (also I did not get the 5% senior discount, because I was not there)

Steve provided the full review under his email--which was great. Thanks, Susan