B.M.C./Clower Heating & Air

This place came highly recommended and the consistent five star reviews are impressive. Maybe they do the best work at the best price. I doubt I will ever know because they won’t schedule me, return my phone calls, respond to the email they asked me to send or otherwise engage. This has been going on for nearly a month. My home is less than two miles from their location so this is not a service area issue. They’re simply not being responsive and that’s a huge disappointment.

I had a 5 zone mini-split system installed by BMC/Clower in July 2020. It worked perfectly through the end of last summer. When I turned it on for the first time this spring, it was not blowing cold air. I called them for service. The technician said that the refrigerant had all leaked out. He refilled it, then said that I needed to wait a month before the leak can be located. (I now know that this isn’t true.) I asked if the next appointment would be automatically scheduled for me or did I need to call their office again? And he said “you need to call us.”

A month later, I called and as soon as I said my name, the person said “oh sorry we haven’t scheduled your next appointment yet!” (doesn’t match what the technician said) “We’ve been so busy! But we expect to do your job Thursday or Friday of this week.” When I called again on that Friday, ”we’re still so busy! It won’t be this week.” I called again 1.5 weeks later, and was told “one of our techs has been out this week. We’ll get to your job next week!” I called again two weeks later, a different person answered the phone and said “the person you need to speak to can’t come to the phone right now. Can she call you back?” She didn’t, and that was a week ago. I’m using a lot of exclamation points because these people are very oily.

I decided that if their reasons were legitimate, they wouldn’t be handling it like this. I asked a second HVAC contractor for a consultation. I explained the whole situation, and he said that finding a leak in a 5 zone system could potentially be a very labor intensive job. His company would send a two-person crew ($250/hour) and it could take an entire day. About $2000. He speculated that BMC/Clower is trying to avoid having to do this job for free, as I am still under a 1 year warranty for their labor.

In hindsight, before the installation, the owner said it would be done in two days. In reality it took three entire days. The crew worked diligently the whole time. The extra day didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, but now I wonder if the owner has a habit of scheduling unrealistic turnarounds. Which would mean the crews are always behind schedule, and working under time pressure. This would explain why they did a less than thorough job, and can’t find time for the all the problems they need to go back and fix.

Right now, the AC still works. The leak is small enough that it will probably be next spring before I need it fixed. I’m going to budget $2000 so I can hire the other contractor to repair the leak. I wouldn’t trust BMC/Clower to do the repair now, even if they wanted to do it for free.

This is one first class company. I had a new heat pump installed and couldn't be more pleased with the service provided. I contacted several companies only to be greeted with sales people trying to pry the most money out of me. Not B.M.C. Clower. My first person to person interaction with the company was the owner. He went over the entire project with me and provided me with a price that obviously did not include all the sales staff markups that I was encountering with every other company. The install techs couldn't of been more professional and treated my house as if it were their own. If you are in the market for anything heating and air stop right here.