I am very hesitant to give review to them, because I am satisfied by the work they completed, but I spent a lot more than I expected.
I was in need to do tune up on my hvac system, and yes, it was laziness in my part as since we moved to our home, we have never done any maintenance for our hvac system. And our Hvac system are old, but *knock on wood* I have never had any problems with our hvac since we moved in 10 years ago.
I always contacted at least 3 contractors to compare quotes whenever I have a need to have things done at home. Comparing with the other 2 big companies, Absolute airflow quoted me the most cost effective and looking their rating at yelp, I decided to have them to do my AC tune up.
So the technician came in, did through inspection on my AC unit, as well as went to the attic to inspect our air duct. After the inspection, he recommended a few things for our hvac system (fan motor control, secondary motor control, compressor saver kit) the membership and replacing air duct since it has asbestos and in some area, it is already exposed.
So those recommendation cost us about 15 times more than what I was planning to spend on AC tune up ($60 vs $900) The air duct replacement is extra and he need to put together the quote, but would not do it, unless we would go with them for the project.
Thinking that we have not done anything to our hvac system for the last 10 years, we decided to go ahead do the component replacement and subscribe to their membership, especially since he said that this cost ($900) will be credited if we decided to replace our hvac system with them in the future. In addition we decided to subscribe to their membership, since it is pretty good deal with discount and free tune up etc as well as the cost also be credited to the cost of replacement of hvac system, if we go with them.
But then for the air duct replacement, he said that he needed to grab lunch pretty quick and then would sit down with us to explain the quote and the cost. He said it would range about $3k to 5k, but he could take no interest monthly payment for about $50 per month for 5 years (quick math, it is $3k).
While he was taking lunch, I did some research and call a couple of other contractors. They said it is about $2k to $3k, but need somebody to come to our house to inspect.
So then, I called the technician and told him what other companies quoted. He said that it is impossible to do it that cheap (even after he said it is about 50 bucks per month for 5 year? ) I told him, I am going to have the other 2 companies to provide me quotes and I will let him what they came up with and like for absolute airflow to provide me quote as well. (which is pretty fair, i think?)
After receiving quotes from 2 other companies (which around $3000), I texted absolute airflow's technician and told him the cost and asked him to provide me quote. He said he needed to re-visit and do some inspection and like to provide their quote in person (which is fair). But he also mentioned that those quotes from other companies are way too low and would not include some things that absolute airflow would include (such as permit, replacing the openings, doing some kind of test and others - which not sure I need, since our house is old and not planning to stay here for long term).
Long story short, I decided to go with the other company to do the air duct replacement as based on the response, absolute airflow wont be able provide competitive pricing for the work i need.
Honestly. I feels like the technician was pretty upset when i told him i decided to go with other, but i am hoping he/ they treat me as well as they treat other people when we call them to do service as part of their membership benefit (heater tune-up is coming up soon).