Beware of Northern Comfort Systems! My heat went out on a cold Sunday evening earlier this year. The technician on duty promptly responded. His diagnosis was a failing low pressure switch and a blower run capacitor that needed to be replaced. He quoted $626 for the pressure switch and $424 for the run capacitor replacement. 10% discount if I did both at the same time. I questioned the dollar amounts because the parts he pointed to did not look expensive. I told him I have had a bad experience in the past with a furnace tech taking advantage by super inflating the part cost. He said his company prices were not the highest, nor the lowest, and in line with what other furnace vendors charge.
I didn't completely trust his answer because of the amount quoted. I contacted LCS Heating and Cooling the next day and they said they would charge $205 parts and labor for the pressure switch, and $105 parts and labor for the run capacitor, and an $89 diagnostic charge. Job cost $310 compared to $1052.
Also, the LCS quote was $70 for the parts. The Northern quote was $785 for the parts!
As it turned out, the parts were under warranty and Northern revised the quote to $269 for labor only. The bill from Sunday was $229 so it was $498 total. I reluctantly gave Northern the job because it would have been $60 higher with LCS since they had to re-diagnose the problem.
I will be doing business with LCS in the future.
more