Stick with the Experts for This Essential Part of Your Home
Many homeowners can go a few days without a working dishwasher, laundry, or other nonessential appliances in the home. When you’re out of luck, there’s always an alternative solution for most of your appliance-based needs. However, when it comes to HVAC, heating and cooling are near-essential for homeowners, and when this part of your home is not working properly, it can completely upend your life.
This goes to show that HVAC is one of the most important components in your home, along with electricity and running water. Keeping this in mind, you want to be sure you’re getting the very best service for your HVAC needs. Because these systems are so important to the home, they are expensive and require a high-level of technical expertise. That’s why you want to know how to look for excellence when it comes to heating and cooling services. Professionals will be able to get the job done affordably and precisely, so you don’t have to break the bank or end up calling yet another HVAC company.
What to Look for in a Professional HVAC Company
You want to go with the most professional company you can find when you have heating and cooling needs to take care of. A professional installation is going to give you the efficiency, effectiveness, and affordability you are looking for from the initial estimate until the work is done. Let’s take a look at what a consumer should look for in a heating and cooling company.
- Years of Experience
Read the HVAC company’s website. If they have the experience, they’ll likely let you know how long they’ve been working in the industry. This is obviously a key characteristic of any excellent HVAC installation company, as more years of experience likely means that this company has seen it all, and you can rest assured they’ll know how to handle your system effectively. You want to go with experience, and you don’t want someone who is just learning the ropes.
- Locally-Owned
Look to see if the company is locally-owned. This is important for a number of reasons. First, a significant amount of quality gets lost when a corporate entity is involved. The business owner doesn’t truly own the business, and so they have to make sure they are checking off the boxes for a parent company that doesn’t necessarily know what their local HVAC technicians are experiencing day to day. For example, if there are particular climate needs that affect how heating and cooling professionals modify the installation process for homeowners’ comfort, that isn’t something that an outside-the-area corporate HVAC company is going to understand very well. The corporation might also be pushing the local company to sell certain products or services, when these might not be what you were calling about.
- Experience with Residential and Commercial HVAC
Check to see if the company has experience with both residential and commercial HVAC. This is particularly important for residential customers to take note of. A heating and cooling business that has experience with commercial HVAC has been tested by companies that are not going to affect their bottom line by dealing with a company who can’t serve their needs effectively and affordably.
If a business can’t get good care for their heating and cooling system, this means that their customers are going to be affected, and that’s bad for business. Commercial HVAC experience also means that the technicians have gone through more training and have seen more complex systems and issues. This is always beneficial to a residential HVAC customer because you want a professional with as much experience as possible.
Other “Green Flags” to Look for When Dealing with a Professional HVAC Company
You often hear consumers talking about “red flags” when it comes to being able to identify an untrustworthy business, but there are also “green flags” to look for – these are the signs that tell you the job is going to get done right.
- Experience with Major Manufacturers
Take a look at the website of the HVAC company you’re interested in. Do they specialize in any brands you recognize? Do they carry brands – when you research them further – that seem to be used widely? If you don’t see any information about the manufacturers the company works with, you can always ask, but one way to know that you’re getting a professional install is by identifying some familiar HVAC brands on their website.
- A Variety of Services are Offered
When you’re researching an HVAC company, you want to take a look at what kinds of
services are offered. Does the company specialize in repairs, replacements, and installation? Do they list these services clearly? On their webpage, does the company go into detail about the specific kinds of services they perform? These are all ways to know how thorough – and how experienced – these technicians are. The more services they offer, the more experience they have. You certainly don’t want to go with a company who doesn’t recognize or have experience with the heating and cooling problems you’re having.
Why a True Professional Install Matters
What differentiates a true professional install from a less experienced company – or even a DIY install which we do not recommend – is listed in the characteristics above. A locally-owned company with years of experience servicing residential and commercial HVAC systems from major manufacturers is absolutely a professional HVAC company.
Otherwise, you run the risk of poor workmanship and overpriced services. Unfortunately, many consumers end up with both of these when they work with an HVAC company, and we want to help you avoid this. You don’t want to trust your system to just anyone, so be sure that the company you’re considering doing business with hits the majority of these points, and you’ll know you’re getting a professional install – and nothing less.