Kalka Plumbing Air Conditioning and Heating

Robert created a proposal for replacing my old heating system with a combination heating and air conditioning system. He explained everything clearly which enabled me to firm up on the specifics of the system I want installed. I am now waiting for two other companies to submit proposals before I make a decision. So far the only thing I can base a review of Kalka on is my experience with Robert which is clearly 5 stars.

Expensive but bad warranty service. Spend $349 to change AC capacitor on a 3 years old Carrier AC. Promised their capacitor will last 10 years at least but broken again in 4 years. They donn't honor the warranty at all. Could just spend $120 on some other HVAC service.

DO NOT give this company your money. They are dishonest cons. I haven't had an HVAC prior to moving into my current house, so am ignorant to the maintenance and I played pretty dumb when they came out, just to see what they would say. Fortunately for me and my bank account, I'm not as dumb as I can pretend to be.

First, they were scheduled to arrive between 2-5pm. They called to say they'd be late and come after 5pm. I cancelled my evening plans to wait for them. Then at 5:40 they cancelled and rescheduled for the next day. Again, scheduled for 2-5pm. First they called me at 1pm to say they'd be there in 40 minutes. Then about 20min later I got a call saying they'd be there at 3:30. At 5:45 when no one had arrived I called them. They said the tech was on his way. He arrived at about 6:30. But that's not even the worst part.

Cameron, a supervisor, completely tries to play the nice, helpful, "let me take care of all your needs" serviceman. He asked me for $1200 to check for a leak on my HVAC because it was not getting cold. Then he told me I needed a new compressor. But, he said it would be illegal for him to replace my compressor for EPA violations because my HVAC is original (1970s). So, he quoted me $9-13k for a new unit.

While he was on the roof looking at my unit, made some calls and I got two other opinions, both said that it is NOT $1200 to check for a leak. It's incredibly simple. They also both said that It is not illegal to replace my compressor.

I had someone else come out to look at my unit. He told me it's actually from 1996, not the 70s as Kalka's guys said. He had it running cold in 30 minutes with super cold air. He replaced 1 part and added a pound of refrigerant. These units are not supposed to leak and mine in fact does not have a leak. So, there is a reason to wonder if Cameron from Kalka intentionally leaked out refrigerant when he was here.

This company is ridiculous and had the audacity to offer me $500 off their insanely inflated quote for a new HVAC, that I didn't need, if I agreed to buy one that day. Then, before leaving my home he gave me a $50 gift certificate. What a slap in the face!

It's a shame that people like Kalka's supervisors try to take advantage of customers. Don't let them fool you and rob you for something you don't even need. You're better off calling small businesses who base their work off referrals and are honest.

Side note: It's apparent that many of these reviews are written by the company themselves.

We used this company because they were the only ones that would come on a holiday weekend. Although I appreciated that, my enthusiasm was replaced by horror when the final costs were tallied. We had similar work done 6 months ago for one-fifth the cost. Along with the high costs of replacing a couple parts, the service man charged an insane amount to simply hook up our own thermostat on a wall that was already wired. It took him fifteen minutes, and he charged $189. Worse yet, the unit isn't even level, so we will have to redo it ourselves.
I do appreciate that they came out when no one else would. But unless NO ONE else is available--or money is of no concern to you--I would stay far, far away.

Zach was great — knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. Lots of good suggestions.

Sara and Geovanni were very professional and thorough. Explained every part of the installation to me. Plan to use Kalka plumbing again

Andrew came by to do an AC tune up and do duct cleaning. He was very patient and good at explaining what he was doing and what the impact of that was. I appreciated his honesty and effort in identifying what the problems were and explaining them to me.

During the cold snap around Thanksgiving my 91 mother-in-law's heating failed, and when service came, Mr. Jose Castro diagnosed the problem as a non working thermostat and also suggested that igniter needed replacing.

On a hunch, my wife earlier went to home depot where she priced the standard thermostat at $79.00. Mr. Castro replaced the old one with a New focus pro digital Tstat, cost $367.00.

The Hot Surface igniter was $364.00. Amazon would send me this part for $75.00.

When I called Mr. Juny Campos, office manager,to complain about these prices, he was the master of obfuscation: "We gave you a commercial grade thermostat, and a two year warranty."

When I cited the difference in cost between the two igniter parts, he said: That price is only available to businesses like ours. You cannot purchase the part yourself." I did not know that Amazon had such restrictions.

Another odd thing about the bill is that there is no listing of service charges. Mr. Campos said that the installation charge was included in the cost of the part. "We charge the customer the same price if the service is one hour or seven hours."

I watched Mr. Castro replace the thermostat in about seven minutes.

The drive from Laguna Hills to Newport Beach is probably one hour, and Mr. Castro was in the house and outside talking to the office for a total of one hour. Say, two hours for his work at $100.00 per hour, plus the parts, marked to, say, $100.00 apiece, makes a total of $400.00, far below the $693.00 paid.

Mr. Castro told us that he was the foreman for about twenty other techs, so you know this was no honest mistake. Instead, it reflects the overall business model of BenFranklin/Kalka Heating and Air.

Do not allow Mr. Castro or any other representative of this company on your property. They will gouge you and defend their practices with half-truths, lies, and obfuscations.

We have used Kalka for years. We had a leak, Sarah and Josh came out and were so professional and courteous. Thank you to the Kalka team!!!

They went out of their way--in the middle of the overbooked, HOT summer--to come out and build us an entirely new HVAC system when ours stopped working because they found out we had a newborn in the house. They worked on overtime and even the owner came out to help.