Our upstairs air conditioner stopped working at the end of July. Being 8 months pregnant living in Georgia with no air conditioner is not fun. We referred to Home Reports to find E Smith. E Smith was able to come out immediately where others could not. The technician Chris R. said that the problem was with the valves inside the compressor. His diagnosis was that the ""scroll compressor not pumping properly causing pressures to fluctuate badly. Compressor making slight grinding noice intermittently."" To resolve this he recommended replacing entire unit & evaporator coil. They gave us an estimate the next day of $2600. Even though I really wanted our air fixed ASAP, I was not willing to shell out that money without a second opinion. As soon as we could we got another company out (Central Heating & Air). When this company came out we did not tell them we already had someone else diagnose. Instead they did their work and fixed our air for $212.00. Much better than the over Two-thousand dollar estimate that E Smith gave us. Central first found that AC was frozen & that it was low on refrigerant. He also found a leak on valve on outside which he was able to simply fix. (E Smith said that our refrigerant was not low and had a moderate level). It has been two weeks now since Central fixed our issue and our air has been working better than ever. I am SO GLAD we did not spend $2600 on a new unit as E Smith recommended. I'm not sure if they had bad intentions and were taking advantage of a 8 month along pregnant female, or they really just misdiagnosed the situation. Central did say we'll likely have to replace our unit in a couple of years, and will need it maintained for the next couple of years. But I am much happier with paying maintenance for the next couple of years and save up for the new unit in that time.\r
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Through this experience I have definitely learned to get a second opinion first. Please do the same!
Pros: They came out quickly.
Cons: Not Honest! Tried to sell us new $2600 unit, when other company fixed for 200 bucks!
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