Verne & Ellsworth Hann

The price was way way too much.  The people working in my house were rude, and disrespectful, but at the end of the day my heat works so i guess the did a pretty good job

The AC at our office quit working.  It had done this last year, and we had another company come.  They serviced the unit (it is quite old), replaced the belt, and it worked fine all summer.  This year we thought it would be nice to use a local company, since we are also located in Cleveland Heights.  It was fairly hot, so it took a couple days for them to get a technician to our office, where it was in the mid-80s inside.

The tech arrived on May 13th, climbed up on the roof, came back down a short time later to tell us the coil was frozen, and they would have to come back to diagnose it once it thawed.  For this less than 30 minute service, they charged us a $250 diagnostic fee.  

The scheduled to come back on the 15th, but something happened and they could not get back until the 19th (still mid-80s in our office).  This time, I think there were 2 techs.  They spent an hour on the roof, came down, and told us the coil leaked and the unit was low on coolant.  Estimate for repair was between $8,000 and $20,000 (no, I'm not kidding).  For this trip they billed us an additional $315.00 (apparently the diagnostic fee paid on the first trip didn't pay for the actual diagnosis on this trip).  

Something didn't feel right about this, so we called another company out for a 2nd opinion.  They spent 3 hours up there, did a complete cleaning of the coil unit, pressure checked it, and checked the coolant.  Total service cost $880, and the unit has worked perfectly ever since.  

We are VERY disappointed in the service our $565 bought us, and VERY disappointed that we were treated this way by a local business.  I can't believe, for $565, they didn't even bother to clean the coils on the unit.  

Needless to say, we cannot recommend this company.

Bill and his crew were professional and thorough. He was responsive and had the new boiler installed and the heat on within 36 hours of my initial call in mid December!  When he arrived he was courteous and walked with me though the house to assess our heating situation and needs. He then recomended the appropriate size boiler and itemized the estimate clearly for me so I knew exactly what to the job entailed. Additionally he showed me similar work completed recently for comparison of the price.  His crew will also be checking back in the next months to ensure a smooth start. Additionally he includes a one year maintenance plan in the price. I highly recommend Verne & Ellsworth Hann Inc.

Josh Bourdrez

Shaker Heights

December 2017

I definitely would not recommend them. We asked them to repair our thermostat and a week later our radiator was leaking through the ceiling, and our heat stopped working in the dead of winter. They came back and charged $210 for a temporary fix, and quoted us $700 more to repair broken part. I was suspicious so I tried a different company, and the repair man showed me where the supposedly broken part had its wires pulled out. He plugged them back in and our heat has been working just fine. On top of that, I called Verne & Ellsworth right after their technician left because he had been very rude and miscalculated the time he was at the house, and the owner was very dismissive and rude as well.

The workers were.... disrespectful to say the least.  But now, 3 months after my new install, my AC doesn't work and they won't even call me back for service.   I would recommend NOT CALLING this company.  Unless you want to call another company in the future to fix their mistakes.   I'm so mad at them it's not even funny.   Don't listen to the fat dude that lives himself that gives you a quote.  I bought into it, but I should've seen through it

Called and got through to the office right away. Our thermostat had stopped working. They didn't think they'd be able to come out the same day but made an appointment for the next day. They actually called back a couple of hours later and said they could come the same day!
I wanted to get routine furnace cleaning done too, since I was having someone come out, but understood that this might not be able to get done the same day. but when he came out he took care of everything, and I didn't have to schedule a second appointment!
Couldn't have asked for better service!

I had a furnace installed last year, and recently reached out to Chris Hann regarding follow up services that I thought were included with the purchase. He confirmed via email that I was correct, but when I tried to schedule the service, I was told it was not included. I mentioned that Chris had clearly confirmed it via email, and then got a voicemail back from him talking to me like I was an idiot for expecting him to follow through on what he agreed to via email. Apparently he misread my email, but instead of simply saying that he misread it and gave me incorrect info, he got a VERY nasty attitude and told me to go elsewhere for services - so that is what I will be doing, and suggest others do as well.

I recently bought a condo in Shaker Heights and needed to get the ductless air conditioning system tuned up. According to the service tag attached to the unit, Verne and Ellsworth Hann had last serviced it in 2018. This was now 2021.  There was no rush as this was a tune-up, but I was able to get an appointment rather quickly--within 3 days of my call. Not bad.

The company kept me updated via text, reminding me of the date and time of my service call. On the day of the appointment, I received a text stating the technician was on his way and sure enough, he arrived within 20 minutes.

Joe was my service technician. He was knowledgeable, professional and personable. Part of the unit was on the roof of a 90 year old 5-story building. Joe climbed up through the narrow opening and on to the roof to check out the unit. It turned out that it needed some coolant. He told me what the process involved and, because the coolant was the more expensive kind, (I have an older system that contained the old coolant which is costly), he told me what the minimum and maximum cost would be based on how much coolant I might need. He trekked back down to his vehicle, climbed the ladder back to the roof of the 5 -story building with the cylinder of coolant, added it to the unit, finished testing on both the roof and inside unit and completed the service call in about an hour. I am very pleased with the technician, and the company. No drama, no upcharges, no muss, no fuss. It's nice to get an experienced technician who knows what they're doing. Job well done.

From start to finish, our experience with Verne & Ellsworth Hann has been five star worthy. We were in need of both an AC and furnace replacement, and after receiving estimates from multiple businesses, we knew we wanted to trust Verne & Ellsworth. Tim was wonderful to work with during the  proposal stage of the process. He took the time to answer all of our questions, and he was extremely knowledgeable about the installation process and equipment. We appreciated that his expertise went beyond just sales! Tony, the project manager, was wonderful enough to contact me as soon as an opening was available so that we could get the equipment installed sooner than initially scheduled. I was most impressed with the installers, Greg and Sean, who went above and beyond! They worked tirelessly for 2 days, and they were professional, kind, and explained everything to me once the installation was completed. The best part is that there was no mess after they finished! I couldn't believe how clean and organized their work area was even after day 1/2 of the project. I just assume that I'll always have a mess to clean up after having any kind of work done in the house, and it meant a lot to me that they took extra care to respect our home. We absolutely recommended Verne & Ellsworth, you won't regret it!

Recently I had to replace the steam / boiler type furnace in my house. For such a big investment, I decided to get three quotes.  The third company that came to inspect the furnace was Verne & Ellsworth Hann Inc. They are in my neighborhood, and I like to support locally owned and operated companies. I was initially very impressed that one of the co-owners, Bill Hann, showed up to inspect my furnace and quote the job. My first impression changed pretty dramatically soon after. He was not friendly at all, and certainly didn't have the demeanor you'd expect from someone trying to sell you a very expensive product and service. When I told him I was getting other quotes things went from bad to worse. He proceeded to get very aggressive and downright rude with his attitude and questions. He insisted that his was the only company in the area that could do this type of job properly. He asked how much I had been quoted, and when I mentioned one of the quotes I had received, he scoffed and said there was no way the job would be done properly for that amount. He then proceeded to ask aggressive questions about what they would or wouldn't be doing as part of the job. I am not a timid person, and I felt like I was involved in an argument simply to get a quote. I felt like I was being attacked, and like my intelligence was being insulted. At one point I nearly asked him to leave my house he was being so rude, but by that point I wanted to at least see what price they would quote, since according to him hiring any other company would be a disaster! When he left he promised to get me a quote right away. I'm still waiting for that quote, which apparently he decided not to submit. I hired another company to do the job, and have been very happy with my new furnace. I certainly never expected to be treated so poorly by a 4th generation family owned business. Apparently the previous generations knew a lot more about customer service than the current one!

I called Verne & Ellsworth for routine maintenance. After their visit, our steam heat radiator just stopped working. I called the following day and they sent someone out almost immediately. I was a little taken aback by how rude the technician was, but ultimately the reason we didn't move forward withthem is because they quoted a very high price for a repair. We called another company and were able to fix the problem (unplugged wires) for a fraction of the price.

Questionable and seemingly dishonest and vindictive billing/estimate practices. They fixed one item on our furnace which they said was responsible for an offensive grinding noise causing some concern, only to discover that it was something else: price tag--over $650. No rebate for the misdiagnosis.

Then they estimate over $250 to fix the second thing. Then they said they couldn't find the parts so they had to replace the whole module for over $750. We had enough, particularly after we got excoriated on the phone by Chris Verne (Ellsworth?) when we dared to question Verne's billing and service practices. Whatever you do, don't question them, and definitely don't accept their representations and fees without consulting another HVAC vendor.

That it what we did and found out that all of Verne's representations were apparently lies. We were told by our second vendor that the parts needed were standard. They fixed the problem for $95, not $750, including labor and some very inexpensive parts.

Our subjective opinion, stay away from Verne Ellsworth--that is, if you want anything left in your wallet when they finally get done with your HVAC repair. (Or you have a highly developed bull crap detector).

I recently moved into an older Shaker home and discovered that several of the radiators were not functioning properly.

Bill, the owner, identified the issues after running  a few tests- which is not easy with a 100+ year home with an original system.

He developed a plan, walked me through it, and scheduled his team to make the repairs within a week.

These guys know what they're doing and when we eventually replace our boiler, they will be doing the installation.

I've used Verne & Ellsworth for both AC and our heating the last year. The staff have all been kind, the company is easy to reach on the phone, and they are always quick to respond. They go above and beyond to ensure the job is done the correct way (previous owner of the house did a lot of things wrong). I highly recommend them and have always been pleased with their work and professionalism.

I tried their plumbing service after being so satisfied with the air conditioning work and level of personalized service we received and was not remotely disappointed. Russ the plumber was terrific and super helpful, thoughtfully and polite. Love the Hann's!

I will never use them again!!  I called for an emergency on Saturday - the igniter wasn't working on our furnace.  The guy on duty was great.  He explained the fee structure and said if we could deal with it until Monday, it would be much cheaper then than on an emergency call on Saturday or Sunday.  So we waited.  The service man showed up this morning, guessed at the problem, changed the $9.95 igniter, did NOT clean the furnace and charged us $300!!  Never again!

We had a plumbing master technician named Les do the work required to replace existing galvanized pipe and fittings at the location where water service came into our 105 year old house! It looked ugly and complicated  with valves and a lot of old pipe...Les turned all of that into a gleaming work of art with shiny new copper and a streamlined simplified installation..he also replaced and fixed two non-working hose bibs outside..he was obviously very competent and an interesting delightful person to talk with...VandEHann has provided us with excellent reasonably priced service in the past and this last one with Les exceeded all expectations!
So nice to be able to get this kind of service and know it was all done properly and with great skill!!

Widely considered one of the best in the business in CH. We called them after another company did a substandard job servicing our boiler. Sean covered just about everything and was thoroughly versed in the mechanics of the system. Knew exactly what to do, cleaned and flushed the system, skimmed the system, and coached on how to blow to service. Was very thorough. Arrived at 11:30 and left at 12:30 but charged an hour and a half so I was a little taken aback by that move. I'll let it slide this time. I guess we can consider that the Christmas gratuity? Call a month and a half in advance for service because they get busy.