Do NOT use this company, Christopher Dean, aka American Climate Technology. They are the single most unreliable, unresponsive and unprofessional company i have ever dealt with. I called in a Service Request on our built in microwave to Sears Home Warranty on 15 February 2018. Tara with Christopher Dean responded on 16 February and within a couple minutes on site said the problem was the "Control Board" which they would have to order and would take one to two weeks; of course i had to pay her the $75 deductible. After the 3rd week with no contact I called Christopher Dean but not only no answer but recording says not to leave voice message as they neither listen nor return calls from a voice message, but it does inform one to text them on the same number. Texted and within a couple days Tara replied with text message that was obviously meant for someone else as it was regarding an air conditioning unit; my reply text to her and the main number was never responded to. Contacted Sears Home Warranty over the next 3 weeks while continuing text messages to Tara and Christopher Dean, from which i never received a phone call or reply text message. Finally spoke to a supervisor at Sears Home Warranty at the end of the 5th week; i explained all the above and suggested Sears Home Warranty drop this company from their list of authorized service companies; she reviewed the notes from numerous calls over the past 5 weeks and gave me the option of waiting for Christopher Dean or request another service company; Obviously I requested they send a professional and reliable Sears technician. The Sears technician arrived today a couple days after my request (6 weeks from the original repair request). Within a few minutes of troubleshooting determined the problem was with a micro switch on the microwave door, half hour after replacing the micro switch and reinstalling our microwave was fully operational again. It was not the "Control Board", the tech had the part with him, and didn't have to order and wait "1 to 2 weeks". I wish I had read these other reviews before as you will see there are a number of 1 star reviews (unfortunately you have to give at least 1) and one in particular that had a similar experience with their microwave in 2017. By the way Christopher Dean replied to that review saying the fault was with the Home Warranty company. I confirmed with Sears that on my repair ticket that CD had the authority and were responsible to order the part and complete the repair, Sears also discovered notes from CD to Sears indicating the part was received and they would be contacting to schedule completion, but those were from the 3rd and 4th week with never a contact to me. Hope you read this before contracting with this company or having them respond from your Sears Home Warranty repair request.

March 29, 2018

Helpful Review 2

Sarah Humphries

Other aliases of this company: ACT, American Climate Technologies, Christopher Dean Refrigeration & Clean Air Systems, Mechanical Shark HVAC

Don't do it.

TL;DR - Abysmal communication skills and shady business practices that prey on customers abound. Danger Will Robinson.

I wish I wasn't writing this review. I wish I was sitting in my nice, cool house thanks to ACT installing my $6,000 new HVAC unit less than a year ago.

Instead, I'm sitting in my 80*F house, less than a year after paying $6k for a new unit, and after paying another $400 last week for a chemical clean and 3 pounds of R410A that just "evaporated" out of our system over the year. That R410A? It costs them about $4 to buy. How much did they charge me? $42 a pound, plus $85 for an hour of labor, even though it only took the tech about 20 minutes. But that's really the least of my worries right now.

So I'm out about $6,400 now and still don't have an AC unit that adequately cools my house. Chris (the proprietor) is next to impossible to get a hold of, his techs don't come when he says they will, and he doesn't admit when anyone in the company may have made a mistake. Let's talk about those mistakes, shall we?

So, before I purchased said new HVAC unit last year, I called ACT to come out and tell me what was wrong with my poor, ancient, original-to-the-house system. Chris himself came out, did some work outside, and then came inside to let me know I needed some refrigerant, but he wouldn't know how much until he filled it up. Poor naive me said "Ok!"

He comes back inside about 30 minutes later to tell me he's just put $1,500 worth of R22 into the unit, but that it's going to take him too long to find the leak and I should just buy a new system. I've been sitting inside a 90*F house for a couple of days now, so I've made my peace about maybe needing a new system, but this $1,500 cost is a bit of a shock. He says that if I buy from him he'll take the R22 back out and put the money toward the cost of the new system. At this point he has to know I'm stuck in his clutches, right? I can't just fork over the $1,500 and then go get a quote from another company that may give me a better system. So here I go, down the hole with ACT.

Chris comes out and installs the new system and all seems fine for a glorious 10 months.

Behold! August in Texas strikes again, and so do my HVAC woes. Now, Chris said they guarantee their work for 1 year, so I'm thinking surely I won't have to pay anything to get this fixed. Out comes technician Jacob to save the day, a whopping 5 days after we call and tell Chris we have an issue. Jacob pulls the cover off the outside unit, points to the dust blanket and tells me my poor maintenance skills are to be blamed and that will be $200 for a chemical clean plus the $70 service fee please, before he can evaluate anything further.

Gulp.

But it's less than a year old? Too bad. Oh and it also needs a pound of R410A for another $42, because the dirty coils made the refrigerant EVAPORATE. That's right, he said it evaporated out of the closed system.

Two days later, the unit is STILL not keeping up. We call again. Jacob tells me Chris has checked the system levels and that we need 2 more pounds of refrigerant (that also magically evaporated because it's impossible for there to be a leak). Also that Chris told Jacob he should have charged an hour of labor (for another $85) last time, so this time it'll be the refrigerant, and labor. Ta da!

And here I am writing this review another 5 days later. We've called several times and texted. We finally got ahold of Chris again, only to be told that he told Jacob our refrigerant end caps were missing from the outside unit. Chris suggested that someone else who serviced the unit must have taken them off, or that they'd been stolen. Some 15 cent end caps, stolen. Yep.

We didn't have anyone else out to service our AC unit. Just Chris.

So Chris left off our refrigerant caps then profited when we needed to buy more refrigerant. How quaint.

Save your time, money, and sanity. Never use this company.