Delta Heating and Cooling, Inc

Review: Delta installed my system 4yrs ago through a program the PUD had where they got paid by them and by me.I agreed on a price with the owner[redacted],that was not an estimate. The price we agreed on was all I could pay so it had to be set in stone.His employees installed it,and THEN he tried to raise the price by thousands to get more $ from meWe found one unit was wired backwards. All he said was, "That's not on me. That's the electricians." But those are the electricians HE chose to do the job. Recently, our unit started to leak water. Delta has 1 employee, [redacted], who knows how to work on this kind. He was here 4 times, trying everything under the sun to fix itAfter each of those visits he assured us the problem was over. He had finally fixed it. We would wait a couple of hours and no H2O came out so we believed him and hung our artwork up.While we were asleep the unit would stream water. It ruined our artwork,sheetrock,floors etc...and created mold. Meanwhile we called [redacted] 12 times. He wouldnt call back. We needed him to fix our unit.He later said he was dodging our calls because he thought we were calling him to reimburse us for the damage!He tried one transparent lie after another,to make it OUR fault,hoping we wouldnt know.Finally he admitted neither he nor [redacted] knew how to work on LG models.But he would come back tomorrow and take the whole thing off the wall, take it apart and clean each part, reassemble and rehang it.That scared us because we called LG tech help line and they said do not take it off the wall. They said get another company to look at it. So that's what we did.We paid nearly $100 because [redacted] installs products that he can't service or maintain. The guy from the other company came in, had the problem diagnosed in less than 2 minutes, worked on it for 20 minutes and TESTED IT TO MAKE SURE IT DIDN'T LEAK before he left. All in less than an hr.and we had been dealing with Delta for months,making endless calls and having our wall and floor ruined.Desired Settlement: Even though I had to take the time to go through the Revdex.com, I'm not asking any more than I was the day Glen came to my house. I want $500.00 compensation, which is splitting the cost, not asking Delta to pay all of it. So please know I'm not bargaining or going back and forth about it. I was extremely fair at first and haven't changed what I'm asking for.$81.23 for the other company to fix it$220 Delta's share of ruined artwork$200 sheetrock,paint,baseboard,floorround it off to =$500

Business

Response:

*egarding: *. [redacted] ID: [redacted]

We would like to address the comments from *. [redacted]. She stated that she was not given an estimate but the PUD requires an estimate be given to the homeowner outlining the equipment we are installing. She was given a proposal with 2 options of equipment to install with prices. To the best of our estimators recollection, the monetary issue was that she did not want to pay the tax, which our proposal stated the bid amount + tax (not including tax). The estimator did work with her and gave her $300.00 off the bid. Which we did honor and is noted on our invoice.

As for the equipment being wired backwards we would like to have taken care of that BUT the Department of L&I will not allow us to work on high voltage wiring so that correction had to be given to the electrical contractor to be done. So she is correct in saying that that was not us but the electrician as we are not high voltage electricians. The electrician was scheduled and did get out there to do the correction.

As to the water dripping, we were called out in July due to water dripping out the back of the unit. Our service technician did look it over. He blew out the drain and tested the drain. He also performed a complimentary cleaning, where he removed the front cover, cleaned the coil and sprayed it down, showing Mr. Bennett, who was home at the time, how to do it in the future and recommended that he rinse the filter more frequently to avoid future issues. The damage was due to a dirty unit, not faulty installation or equipment. The manufacture and PUD plainly state that warranty should not be considered to cover equipment failure caused by failure to perform normal maintenance, abuse, or external causes beyond the control of the installing Participating Installer.

We as a company are concerned for all our customers getting the most of their new equipment, and seeing that the ductless minisplit systems are new equipment, different than central HVAC systems to our customers, wanted them to be aware of the necessary maintenance. In March 2013 we developed a maintenance program for our ductless customers. All minisplit customers were mailed out one of these letters offering the program. Unfortunately *. [redacted] indicated she did not remember receiving a letter.

Also this did occur during the summer months and our estimator is not in the office but out in the field on jobs all day & in the evening out doing estimates. He did return calls when he stepped back in the office but would get no answer or voice mail so left messages, when he could, that he was returning their call. It was a case of “phone tag” not avoidance.

If you should require any further information feel free to contact us.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted] and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

The 2nd sentence of his reply says I stated I was not given an estimate. That is not what my complaint said. My complaint said, I agreed on a price with [redacted]that was not an estimate. Meaning it was a firm price that he later tried to raise.

Obviously the "estimators recollection" is not very good since the invoice clearly shows the tax amount of $452.35, which was factored in and paid in full. Tax of 8.3% would not have been $752.35 so [redacted]did not take $300.00 off because I had a problem paying tax. By saying "to the best of our estimators recollection" [redacted]thinks that is an acceptable way to lie. The statement is 100% false.

We have cleaned the air filters, plasma filters and deodorizer filter exactly as our ** owner's manual advises. If, when [redacted] was sent to fix the problem with leaking in July, it was due to dirt and he performed the complimentary cleaning on the coil, why would he return 3 more times? What would be the purpose of those return service calls? If Delta mailed a letter about a necessary maintenance program in March 2013, here's what would have happened. [redacted] would have arrived at the first service call. He would have said, " Wow, this unit is dirty. Have you folks heard about our maintenance program? No? Well, let me sign you up." And the first one would either be "complimentary" or there would be a fee. Either way, I would have got an invoice. As I did with invoice # 018682 on 12/27/12 and #014998 on 08/10/11. Instead, I never got any invoice at all. If the leaking had been fixed with a cleaning in July we would have been thrilled!! We certainly wouldn't have gone on to pay another company or taken the time to file a Revdex.com complaint.

The first time [redacted] came, he said the leak was happening because the unit was not level. And it wasn't. He pulled the top of the unit out away from the wall a little more than an eighth of an inch. He didn't clean anything or suggest anything needed cleaning. He said what they had learned from installing these over the years (we got one of the first several they put in) was that when there was a lot of condensation as was likely to happen on the days that were in the 90s and 100s, the heads had to be tilted just a bit in order to get the water to run out the back instead of overflowing out the front. Nothing was tested or "blown out", I suppose because it was evident there was no longer water running down the wall. We went to bed and when we got up the wall, our artwork, the baseboard and hardwood floors were soaked. This was when we started calling [redacted] We didn't get a return call from him but [redacted] came back to see what he could do. We were angry that we had significant and costly damage and [redacted]wouldn't even return our calls and my husband stated that to [redacted] as soon as he got there. We asked [redacted] if he could relay to [redacted]that we wanted to speak to him and he said he would. [redacted] said he would do his best to help usThis was the second service call. [redacted] sprayed a solution on the coil and remarked that the filters looked clean. I said if it was a matter of the filters or the coil, why wouldn't it have done this in 2010 ,2011 or 2012? [redacted] said he didn't really know and he wasn't very familiar with our brand of system. They didn't install many of them. We asked if anyone else was trained to work on ** brand and he said no. He apologized. He said this should work and we wouldn't have any more problems. It still leaked. More than ever. We continued to call [redacted] We left many messages for him. On the third service call [redacted] tightened a loose fitting, added a pound of refrigerant and suggested that from now on we should also run our upstairs unit continuously. We don't use our upstairs for anything but storage and we got this system because we wanted to save energy rather than waste it, but we were willing to try running it to see if that fixed it. It did nothing to help the problem. The 4th time [redacted] came he said we should try to talk to [redacted]about getting a Mitsubishi system to replace our ** system. He said with as many problems as we have had with ours, he thought there was a good chance that [redacted]would give it to us at cost and [redacted] would be willing to do the labor on his own time for free. Even if it was possible to get it at cost, it would still be very expensive and not something we could afford. There was no telephone tag. [redacted]had our cell numbers and home number and we have voicemail, an answering machine, call waiting and caller ID. He did not call until after we had called him a minimum of a dozen times. We called with the first complaint in July. I believe it was Sept. 12th when [redacted]called and stopped by. I am not certain on the day but I am certain on the month. It was September and it was before the 14th. I don't find it plausible for a business person to never have an opportunity to return a call within a 2 month time period. It doesn't matter what time of year it is or if you're busy, if you're a business you should do better than that. If not, you shouldn't be in business. And the rudest part about it is that once he finally did get to our home to talk about the situation, he stepped out to take a phone call and he also called [redacted] about the mini split ductless systems. He came back with the wonderful wisdom that he said was from [redacted], telling us that it was our fault the system was leaking because we have it installed near the kitchen and grease from cooking had it all clogged up. I have pancreatitis. I can't eat fats. Almost all of my food is raw. Some of it is steamed. I am a vegetarian. There is no grease. Absolutely none. That's when we called him an out and out liar and when he admitted he knew nothing about our system but he would come back with [redacted] and take the unit off the wall, disassemble it and clean the entire thing, piece by piece. Thinking he would most likely do more harm than good, I called the ** manufacturer. They asked several questions and said it sounded like an installation error. They recommended calling another company to check it out. We did that. The other company fixed it in no time. It had nothing to do with cleaning the coil. The other company didn't take it off the wall and disassemble it. It took one call for them to set up an appointment and fix the problem. It was summertime and they managed to answer their phone. To this day, [redacted]still has no idea what was wrong with the unit or what he should have done.

I think it's disgusting for someone like this to be in business because he's not just incompetent and making mistakes. He is purposely lying and deceiving people.

Regards,

Business

Response:

After reading the response, unfortunately, we feel that no matter what we say she will not be satisfied with our response and continue to feel we lied to her. The job was done over 4 years ago so “recollection” is all we have to go on. We have several thousand customers and we do hundreds of installations a year, it makes it difficult to remember every job and every precise conversation. She has already made her feelings clear as to how she feels towards the owner and our company, it is hard to respond to that since she will always have her version and will continue to find fault with us.

We hope that the A+ rating we have with the Revdex.com and the thousands of happy and satisfied customers we have had over the last 20+ years will testify to the integrity of our company.

Consumer

Response:

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID 9732233, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint. For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

Delta hopes the happiness of their other customers makes up for the ones they take advantage of.

It's not a "feeling" I have, that I was lied to and treated horribly, it's a fact. A fact that I'm quite sure will stand up in small claims court.