Fremont Plumbing & Heating

[A default letter is provided here which indicates your acceptance of the business's response.  If you wish, you may update it before sending it.]
Revdex.com:
I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. 
Regards,
[redacted]

We have over 50 years of service to our customers and our service tech has over 20 years of experience.  It is extremely rare for us to have a customer as disenchanted with our services as this customer is.  We feel at this time, we have no choice but to credit the entire amount of the invoice to the customer's account as the customer has expressed that this is the only outcome that will be acceptable to him.  The account will be credited immediately.

Review: We recently purchase a home and as part of the contract, we had requested the furnace and A/C to be serviced and cleaned to ensure that they were in working condition and to fix anything that was identified as not working. The sellers had Fremont Plumbing and Heating complete the task. Upon our move in date several weeks later we found out that the A/C was not working. We called Fremont Plumbing and Heating as they had serviced it for the sellers, per our contract. An employee came out to look at it, and the unit was frozen on the inside. He checked the refrigeration levels and said that it should not be as low as it was considering he charged it just a few weeks prior, and that we probably had a leak. He also noted that the unit had not been opened in a long time, if ever, as he was not able to easily access the inside of the unit in the basement. This concerned us, as the unit was to be cleaned and serviced per our contract. He injected dye into the unit and said he would return the following day. Upon returning the next day, he was here for approximately 4 hours. During that entire time, he was not able to tell us what was wrong with the unit nor did he provide any solutions as to what we should do next to ensure we have working A/C. He did change a few O-rings and replace a plastic tube that runs to the pump, but he did not have the correct size of O-rings on hand and had to run back to his office to get them during the 4 hours. Before leaving he charged the refrigeration (in a unit that obviously was not holding refrigeration), told us to run the unit and see what happens, but he still had not determined what was wrong or proposed any solutions. Two days later, the A/C was not working again. I called him to tell him that I did not expect to receive a bill in the mail for the visits to our house, as this should have been taken care of before we even obtained ownership of the home, and obviously nothing was done to fix the air conditioning in his subsequent visits. He told me he had tried everything in his book and had no other solutions. Additionally, he told me he was put in a tough place, as he had never serviced the unit prior to these 3 visits (one with the previous home owners per our contract and the two while we had ownership of the home). I believe that as a professional in the industry, he should be able to service an air conditioner and provide potential solutions without having serviced it through out the life of the unit. I still stated that I expected not to receive a bill and I did not believe there was anything that I should pay for, as nothing was fixed, I had no idea of what needed to be done to fix it, I was left calling a different company to come service our air conditioner, and we were without A/C on some of the hottest days of the summer. We did receive a bill shortly later in the mail for $388.63, which I do not believe is reasonable. He even indicated on the bill that he deducted 1 hour of labor and the cost of the dye injection (from the first day's visit), but to charge someone still such a high price for nothing, seems to me unethical as a business. Especially considering the 4 hours he was here the next day (which he charged us for) included the time that he left to go get the O-rings since he did not have them on hand, as stated above. I called again to state that I felt the bill he sent me was unreasonable and tried to discuss with him that as a consumer I was not ok with paying him such a large dollar amount to still be left without working equipment and still no course of action for correction except to call another company. He stated he expected us to pay the billed amount, which brings me to filing this complaint.Desired Settlement: Truly, we don't want to pay any amount to Fremont Plumbing and Heating as this should have been addressed per our home purchase contract and we feel the bill is unreasonable as nothing was corrected or a course of action proposed during his visits. However, we also would like to be reasonable people, and if the Revdex.com determines that Fremont Plumbing and Heating should get paid for at least some of time they were at our house (even though nothing was corrected), we believe at a minimum, the bill should be cut in half.

Thank you for your consideration.

Business

Response:

On July 6th, 2015: Fremont Plumbing and Heating Inc. received acall from a customer stating that he was selling his house and the inspectorhad told him that his air conditioner was not blowing cold enough. Upon arrival to the customer’s residence, hewas asked when the air conditioning system had been serviced last as FremontPlumbing and Heating Inc. had no record of the unit ever being serviced byus. The owner stated that it had alwaysrun good for him and that it had not been serviced since it was new. Upon checking the temperature and pressuresof the system, the system was low. Iproceeded to leak checking the service valves and ports, condenser coil(running), lineset tubing up to evaporator coil, as well as the air streamthrough the evaporator, no leaks were found. It was then explained to the homeowner what was done and found. He was the informed that I was unable topinpoint a cause of the refrigerant loss, but over that many years, it waspossible that he was only losing a minute amount per year. I finished setting the charge of the systemat 15 degrees superheat. The owner wasthen instructed to keep an eye on things and call me if the system does not maintainthe temperature that the thermostat was set at. We received no call until August 11th, 2015 when the newowners of the property called and informed us the air conditioning was frozeup. Upon arrival, it was discovered thatthe coil was frozen and the drain line from the evaporator was not keepingup. It was explained to the owners that thiswas not a unit that we had serviced prior to my initial inspection for theprevious owner and that there was no way to gauge the rate of loss other thanthe amount of pressure drop over a measurable period of time. I suggested to the new owner that the nextstep was to inject the system with dye to see where we could find it comingout. At this time, they were alsoinformed there was no guarantee the leak could be found or repaired andadvising them that this is the point where most customers start to weigh thecost against the cost of a new unit. Iwas given verbal approval by the new owner to go ahead with the dye test. After returning the next day, I went throughthe system attempting to find where the leak may be. I could not identify dye leaking out theevaporator coil, lineset, drain or condenser coil. At this point, I pumped the refrigerant intothe compressor and proceeded to pull a vacuum on the lineset evaporatorcoil. I was able to evacuate it downinto a deep vacuum of 490 microns. Thedeep vacuum held for 15 minutes but upon attempting to release the refrigerantback into the system, the service valve on the suction side of the condenserwould not operate freely. Upon furtherinvestigation, it was found that the O rings in the valve itself weredeteriorated and missing. As these arenot ordinary service parts, I did not have any suitable replacements on thetruck. Our shop is only 3 miles down theroad, so I ran back and grabbed the rings needed. Additional O rings were added to the serviceport caps to ensure that no leakage could occur.During the progression of the above work, all procedureswere discussed with the homeowner and his wife step by step. Before the homeowner went to work that day,he asked what the next step was if this did not work and was informed that hewas likely looking at a new unit. As itwas determined that the coil and lineset were good, they could just install anew condenser and be up and running. Hesaid to let his wife know what they owed and she would pay before I left. Upon completion, his wife asked how much theyowed and was told how much in labor but the materials would have to be figuredin so we would need to send them a bill.Fremont Plumbing & Heating Inc. has gone above andbeyond just trying to help this customer. The customer had left us with the impression that he was going torequest that the previous owner of the house be responsible for thecharges. If we could have been of anyassistance in that process, we would have cooperated fully. When we were informed that the unit did againfreeze up, we were sympathetic to the new owner’s circumstances and did notcharge him for the initial service visit or the dye test, reducing his bill byapproximately $125 without a request to do so. When the customer called us to ask that his bill be further reduced, wehad a hard time finding where it was justifiable to do so. There was discussion about the initialinspection. He was informed of what wasrequested of us for this inspection and he said that the findings of theinspection had not been disclosed to him until after the closing where westated that the unit had not been serviced in its entire lifetime. This was not our responsibility to make surethat the report was shown to him prior to his closing. (This bill and report is beingattached). Fremont Plumbing and Heatingwas only authorized to do service to make the unit’s air colder and to reportthe findings and that is exactly what was done on July 6th. It was not until 35 days later that we weremade aware of any issues with the unit and that is a long period of time forany other issues to surface with the unit. We only perform work that is authorized by the homeowner. This goes for both the buyer and the sellerof the home. We performed the workrequested both before and after the sale. If we were not authorized to test or repair a unit, we would not doit. We believe that we have been more thanfair with the customer and not understanding why he believes that he should nothave to pay for time and materials that were used when this is the route thathe chose in regards to the issues that he was having with the unit. Fremont Plumbing and Heating, unfortunatelyhas been caught in the middle of a buyer/seller dispute and should not beshouldering the blame for the lack of maintenance and disclosure on a propertysale. This would be something that wouldbe between the buyer, seller and realtor to resolve.

Consumer

Response: