Complaints

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• Initial Complaint

  Date:02/15/2025

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Furnace, air conditioner system and water heater was purchased on 08/07/2024. Furnace air conditioner has not been working properly. The thermostat and furnace are not communicating properly. In the attached photo, the thermostat in the upper left hand corner is hooked up to the furnace. It is a wireless thermostat. The two thermostats on the bottom are not hooked up to the furnace and are only reading the room temperature. There is a thermometer in the upper right hand corner that is reading the air temperature, the thermostat that is running the furnace always reads a higher room temperature than the the other devices that are reading the room temperature, this causes the house to get to cold before the furnace turns on. Hometown has been to my house around 8 times to try to fix this issue plus other installation issues that I had. Hometown has been able to resolve the other issues but this one remains. Hometown was at my house on 01/08/2025 to try to resolve this issue again. I was told that they did not know what was wrong with it and would contact ******* Corp, the manufacturer of the furnace. I called Hometown on 02/07/2025 because they had not called me to tell me what was going on with the unit. The woman I talked with asked if I had heat. I said yes. She then said if I had heat then my furnace was working. She said that they cannot keep sending people to my house if I have heat. I asked her if she was refusing to repair the furnace. She said again that if I had heat then it was working. It does work, but not properly. I asked her to have the technician, Eric, that I have been talking to to call me. She said ok, then hung up on me. I have not heard from them since. I am looking for Hometown to repair the unit, or pay for someone else to repair it, or to replace the unit. Please let me know if you need any else. Thank you.

  Business Response

  Date: 03/25/2025

  RE: Response to Complaint ID#******** 
  1. We installed the furnace, air conditioning, and hot water heater on 8/7/2024 for ****** 
  *******. 
  2. 8/12/2024-Customer called and was not happy with the quality of work with the fresh air 
  intake and concerned leaking air around indoor coil. Technician repaired issues to customer satisfaction. No charge to customer. 
  3. 8/26/2024-Customer called stating system was not working properly. Technician diagnosed 
  and found entire system working properly. No charge to customer. 
  4. 
  9/12/2024-Customer called stating furnace had error code. Technician found code that was unrelated to the system he has, performed troubleshooting, and left with unit operating properly. Customer had several devices on table all reading different air temperatures. Only one thermostat is connected to furnace. The other three devices the customer purchased and are not connecting to the system. Customer was adamant there is something wrong with the furnace. To appease customer, technician offered to install a new wireless thermostat at no charge to customer to address the different readings. No charge to 
  customer. 
  5. 9/20-2024-To satisfy the customer, we purchased a $175 ******* wireless universal 
  thermostat MODEL *******. This was not part of the original contract and was above and beyond what the customer originally contracted for. This was purchased and installed at no charge to the customer. 
  6. 1/8/2025-Customer called for service as his four devices were all reading different 
  temperatures. Technician found one thermostat reading 62, another at 59, another at 60, and another at 63. Three of the devices the customer had purchased to set on the table and are not connected to the system. Found customer keeping his home at an abnormally low temperature of 60 degrees for our area in the winter. Customer refused to raise connected thermostat temperature. Technician did find system working properly with the thermostat that was installed for free on 9/20/24 and connected to the system. No charge to customer. 7. 1/16/2025-Customer was not happy with exhaust pipe installed with furnace. Technician 
  repaired issues to customer satisfaction. No charge to customer. 
  8. 2/10/2024-Customer again called stating the four devices are not reading the same 
  temperature. Jennifer in office stated on phone most customers do not have four devices. Most customers only have one connected thermostat to operate the furnace and only rely on the one that is installed to their system and do not have others not connected for 
  "We care about your comfort" 
  comparison readings. Jennifer offered to have a technician install one of his other devices he had if he felt that would solve his issue. Customer said no, he feels the furnace will continue to do the same thing. Jennifer asked if the customer has heat and the customer stated yes. Jennifer stated if you have heat, then there is no reason to come out, if you want us to install one of your other thermostats, then yes we will come out. We can't keep coming out because you don't like that the other devices are reading different temperatures than the one actually connected to your furnace. Customer told Jennifer he bought the other three thermostats because he is convinced there is something wrong with the 
  furnace. 
  RESPONSE: We are not disputing most of what the customer has stated. In almost 25 years in business, we have never had a customer taking readings on different devices to confirm his one connected thermostat is working proper. The customer has created his own issue. We encouraged the customer on several visits to disregard the other three device readings and take them away. They are not connected to the furnace and make no impact on the proper operation of his furnace. All that matters is the thermostat connected. Our technician called ******* tech support regarding the differences of the several devices and ******* will only entertain the thermostat connected to the furnace. There are too many variables to rely on the air temperature readings of the other 
  devices. 
  The customer has created his own unscientific experiment. The air temperature comparisons are not apples to apples. An apples to apples experiment would be four of the SAME device in the SAME exact location. The comparisons are apples to oranges to pears to bananas. Different devices in different locations, even if they are next to each other, are going to get different air temperature readings. The thermostat we installed for free has a factory set default differential of one degree which means that the thermostat will turn on when the temperature is one degree higher than the set temperature and will turn off when it reaches the set temperature. Thermostats can be programmed by a technician to change the default factory differential up to three degrees. Every customer has the ability to change these differentials to their own preference. We would have to go into all of the customers other devices and troubleshoot all those differentials. We are then getting into a scope of work the customer never contracted with us as he did not purchase the other 
  devices from us. 
  Moving forward we will continue to service the customer and honor our contract. If the customer calls and states his furnace or air conditioning is not working, and the reason is other than the temperatures are not matching on his devices, we will certainly come out. Where we draw the line is coming out to evaluate his unscientific experiment with the thermostat. For that we will not 
  come out. 

  Customer Answer

  Date: 03/28/2025

  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and have determined that this does not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.Please see attachments
  March 28,
  2025Response to
  complaint ID# ********Furnace, air
  conditioner and hot water heater was installed on 08/07/2024. I was looking at
  the furnace unit in the basement after the installers had left when the air
  conditioning turned on. Air was leaking from where the duct sits on the coil
  (photo 1). These areas were not taped and air was leaking from all four sides
  in this area. This is an energy efficient unit and it should not be leaking any
  air. An HVAC company that has been in business for 25 years should know this,
  yet this area was not sealed to prevent hot and cold air loss in the basement.   The fresh air intake did not terminate
  outside. It did not exist (photo 2). The installation manual states that
  “Combustion-air inlet pipe and vent pipe must terminate outside structure”
  (photo 3).08/26/2024.
  AC not working properly. Unit would run for 20 minutes, shut off for 20 minutes
  and repeat, Technician came over and raised the blower speed. This stopped the
  unit from cycling on and off.  Turning up
  the blower speed is reducing the efficiency of the unit.9/12/24,
  System had error code 52. I was told that it was a phantom code and it does not
  effect the unit. Why would this code appear if it has nothing to do with the unit?
  Why would this error code appear at all? Technician did not do anything. Code
  went away on its own.9/20/24,
  Hometown installed a Thermostat at their cost. AC was not coming on as often so
  I will not know if this resolved anything until it gets warmer.01/08/25,
  house temperature is noticeably cold. House temperature is set at 63 degrees at
  night and when no one is home. It is set at 66 when we are home. At no time has
  our home temperature been set at 60. I was never asked to raise the
  temperature. These are acceptable temperatures to set a thermostat at.    I placed the wireless thermostat that
  Hometown installed on our dining room table along with three other devices that
  measure air temperature in a room. One is a thermometer, another is the
  thermostat that was connected to the old HVAC system and the third was another
  thermostat that I purchased and installed after the new system was installed
  because I did not think that the new system was working properly. There are 4
  different devices reading air temperature within a square foot of each other.
  The thermostat that is connected to the system will say one temperature, a
  higher temperature, and the other three will say the exact same lower
  temperature. Which one should I believe? The three devices that are saying the
  same thing, or the thermostat that is connected to the HVAC unit that is saying
  something different.   This system is not operating properly. I have
  had three different thermostats connected to the new HVAC system. It does not
  matter which thermostat is connected, they all show a higher air temperature
  than the actual air temperature in the room. This is causing the house to get
  cold because the thermostat that is connected to the furnace is reading a
  higher room temperature than the actual room temperature and will not turn the
  furnace on.   I was told on 01/08/25 that Eric would call
  ******* Corp and see if they could help. Eric agreed that there was something
  wrong with my HVAC system, but was not sure how to fix it. I never received a
  call back about Eric’s conversation with *******.2/10/2025,
  called Hometown and asked what was going on with my HVAC system. I was told
  that if I had heat then my furnace was working and they would no longer come
  out for this issue because they had made to many visits to my house to fix it.
  I asked if they were refusing to fix it, and was told again that if I had heat
  then the furnace was working.  I also called *******. I was told they will
  only talk about a thermostat if it is a ******* Brand Thermostat.  This system is still not operating properly.
  [To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, we would like to know your view on the matter.]
  Regards,
  
  ****** *******