Best Water Heater Installation in Austin TX

Bad experience with A/C service.  I paid about twice as much as my neighbor paid for similar repairs and had to deal with a service tech who misrepresented what needed to be replaced.  I will not call this company again.

Rapalo and Jose were top-notch when it comes to their communication with me, their responsiveness and overall knowledgeable. They didn't try to overcharge me and were very upfront. A+++ work, job well done. Much appreciated!

Efficient Air was my fourth estimate for a new A/C/Heating system, and Darwin really nailed it. He's a fun, patient, highly intelligent, super helpful guy, who has a passion for designing air conditioning systems. By the end of his pitch, I could see how amateurish and untrustworthy the other sales reps/companies that had given me their estimates were. He really seems to care about your satisfaction from beginning to end. He'd always pick up or get back to me soon with any phone calls, and ended one call saying he would be right over with an expert to do an inspection of my air ducts and address a last-minute concern I had. In the end, to allay my concern over mold in the air ducts, he said he'd install some new flex air ducts for what another a/c company said was at cost of material or below cost (when I was having mold removed from house, contractor brought in a/c guy to give estimate on flex ducts). I needed to have mold removed from my A/C closet, and Darwin even agreed to disassemble and take away my old A/C and then come back to install the new one right after the mold remediation was completed, and before I signed a formal agreement.

And Tony and another man whose name escapes me took away my old A/C and installed the new A/C and were both outstanding as well. Tony was very patient answering all my questions and left me feeling very confident they did a top-notch installation (inspector just came today and when I was in another room, I heard him say under his breath, Very nice job.). I went with a higher-end system than I received any other estimates for, but the pricing on the other mid-range system Darwin gave me was the same as other estimates I got on lower-quality brands. Dustin was another employee I interacted with regarding paperwork and duct work, and another consummate professional.

I'm new to Austin and a first-time homebuyer who has had a lot of work done on my house, and I've quickly learned how difficult it is to find service providers you can trust. Whoever owns this company knows how to hire, keep his employees happy/engaged, and the importance of a good client experience from end to end.

I noticed there are five other reviews that are not showing per yelp... weird. Yelp, these guys ARE that good.

I have been trying to find a great handyman for a long time now. I have hired several people already. All who had hundreds of amazing reviews on yelp. Unfortunately after the jobs were complete everything always had to be redone. One handyman even installed a swing improperly which led to a very serious injury for a 1 year old. But that was certainly not the case with Dan. He was punctual, thorough, kind and went so far above and beyond. He has amazing instincts as a handyman and I was so impressed with his ability to problem solve with some of the more challenging projects. It can be hard when reading through reviews to know who to hire but please take my word for it he is definitely the best handyman I have every worked with and I can promise you won't be disappointed!!

These folks are the best. Always courteous and always willing to follow up if needed. I ran my own service company for thirty years so I recognize excellent skills and customer service for what they are...rare

While they were super friendly and efficient in coming out and giving an estimate for a water heater installation, their quote was just astronomical compared to the other companies we spoke to.

I've used Salt twice and each time, I've been happy with their service. The last job was to rewire my AC condenser, because one of the legs was losing power. Daniel came out and quickly knew what was up. I let him know that I wanted to get another AC guy out before doing any work for a second opinion, so I did. AC guy tells me it's for sure an electrical issue, so the work will need to be done by an electrician. We got everything setup and Daniel and Cody were able to come out again and get the issue resolved. The work they did on the house looks great and I'm extremely thrilled with what they did.

I see there are a lot of reviews discussing the price of this service. While I understand concerns of pricing, my thoughts are - this type of work is not my expertise. When you're dealing with something that could burn your house down, you pay professionals. Professionals sometimes aren't cheap. This is part of the cost of home ownership. I know I can sleep at night and not worry about the electrical work in my house. They were thorough and very professional.

Side note: They came to my home while COVID-19 was happening. The extra precautions and care they took showed me how serious they were and how they respected my home. I thought this was great.

I would definitely recommend Salt to others.

John Wayne has a nice website and they were easy to schedule.  However, we were very disappointed in their high pressure tactics when they actually arrived to fix our issue.  Here was our experience:

I was out of the country on business when my wife noticed a water leak in the garage.  Since I didn't have an international cell phone plan I used the John Wayne website to schedule service.  Within minutes I had an appointment with them to come repair the leak.

In the day between scheduling the service and a John Wayne repairman showing up my father-in-law was able to find the leak, which was coming from our hot water recirculation pump, which was its own separate system from the hot water heater.

When a John Wayne representative arrived the next day my wife spoke with him about the issue. Not sure if this is their standard tactic, but he immediately began pressuring her to purchase a tankless water heater system for about $8,000 (really?!).  He explained the pump needed to be replaced (for $1300) but that he recommended replacing the entire water heater system versus just the pump.  He also said a water heater our size (75 gallon) isn't manufactured anymore that would fit in the same spot and that a tankless water heater was the best way to fix the problem.  And, of course, it was the last day of a special promotion.  However, she knew better and politely asked him just to fix the problem with the recirculation pump, and that there was nothing wrong with the hot water heater.  After several calls to management the repairman was finally given permission to simply fix the issue with the leaking pump, which he did by removing the pump and splicing the line together with tubing.  However, he told my wife you'll be calling me back for a new hot water heater.  Sure enough, our water was taking noticeably longer to get warm (which we anticipated since the recirculating pump was gone) but the water was just not as hot and in some showers/sinks just barely warm, so we began to think there was an issue with the hot water heater.

However, later in the week we had a plumber from a different company at our home completing some plumbing work on a kitchen remodel and he needed to re-light the pilot light on the hot water heater.  I asked him about the pump replacement and he asked to see the pump the John Wayne repairman took out.  Guess what?  I couldn't find it anywhere so it was taken without our permission.  I also asked if there was a water heater on the market suitable to replace our existing heater.  He said yes, there was.  Finally, I mentioned to him about our water taking so long to heat up and some showers not getting very hot at all.  He found the problem: the hot water valve was left partially closed, reducing the hot water flow.  He turned it to the proper position afterward we actually had to turn our hot water heater setting down because the water was so hot coming out of all our faucets.

Shame on you John Wayne for trying to take advantage of our situation and 1. Attempt to high pressure sell someone an overpriced tankless system that was not even the problem, 2. Taking my working pump which probably could have been repaired and reinstalled (it had a hairline crack in the case) without permission and 3. Leaving the water coming from the hot water tank to be colder than it should have been...intentionally or not, it was left incorrectly positioned.  I would never recommend this company!