Absolute Heating & Air, Inc.

We’ve used them several times in the past and it’s been positive. Looks like ownership changed in 2022. I’d probably disregard the reviews before then.

Brief story: AC broke in the peak of August heat, they came to fix, replaced a fuse, “problem solved”, charged us $350, went on their way.

We were out of town the next week, our basement tenant said it stopped working again. No problem, I’ll just call Absolute Air.

“Hey, your fix didn’t work, can we try something else?”
“Sure, pay the $350, we’ll schedule it and you can pay us again”

I have 3 problems with that.

Problem 1: Why was the initial fix so expensive?

They bill $100/hr (normal), the part was $20, after the tech replaced the fuse, do we get to pay for his 2.5 hr nap in the back of the van? It’s pretty clear he didn’t do anything else. They don’t quote price in advance so we just have to trust they’ll send someone competent and be prudent/efficient with the billable time. In hindsight, I wouldn’t.

Problem 2: The fix didn’t work.

In fact, it likely put undue stress on the AC and shortened its life. We go out of town and it starts icing up. Eventually that’ll kill the compressor. We assumed it was actually fixed (shouldn’t have) and ended up nearly having to replace the whole unit (and probably still will have to next year). negligent.

Problem 3: They don’t stand by their work.

Apparently they get unlimited tries to fix it, you pay for all of them, and maybe they work maybe they don’t. They literally told me “No we fixed the problem, this must be a new problem”. Alright. Seems real ideal for Absolute Air. Not for us. Our incentives are literally opposite to each other.

The outcome: We fixed it through a different company.

I said “no thanks. You can come back and try again, I’ll pay for additional parts and labor but I shouldn’t need to pay for the initial failure.”

They declined, I went somewhere else. And I’m glad we did. It was a difficult fix, and we needed someone competent and good at communicating. Paid them $1000. Upsized the lineset, added a Deicing sensor. Almost paid $4000 because our AC died completely. Absolute Air should’ve seen the underlying cause (certainly had plenty of time to) and because they didn’t it was nearly a catastrophe.

Afterwards I call Absolute and say someone else fixed it, I probably shouldn’t pay you at all, but I’ll pay for your fuse and 1hr of labor. Nope: pay in full or go to collections. Nice. Real classy. They’d rather split the payment with a collections agency than with me. And so,

Problem 4: too rigid in policy, you won’t ever talk to a real decision maker.

I’d recommend going with a smaller company you can actually work with. And ideally someone who gives you a quote upfront, fixes it right the first time, and stands by their work.

In short: go somewhere else.

(Edit: it’s possible we used a different company in the past but that just makes me regret calling even more. Went from 2/3 to 0/1. “Wishing you the best” 🙄)

Disappointed.

Awesome, just Awesome