A-1 American Services

Heather R.

We called A-1 for our furnace. I do not recommend using this company...EVER. Total rip off. The tech named James was horrible at communicating the problem that was really going on. He way over charged for a job he did in literally 5 minutes using a part that cost $10. He told us he was fixing one thing and turned around and said he was fixing something else. He left the old part just lying on my washing machine when he left and he did not put the sides back on the furnace when he was done. Left it open while it was running and that is a big no! I had to put the sides back on myself. The furnace sounded lousy even after he fixed what said needed to be fixed and only a couple weeks later, our furnace has died again. When called to complain, he informed us that sure he'd come check to see if something wasn't done right but that he'd charge us an estimation fee just to do. I will never use this company again and I do not recommend you use them either. Terrible service...total rip off....terrible company.

William P.

AVOID AVOID AVOID A-1 AMERICAN!!!

Our one day job took two weeks due to multiple no shows by the plumber they sent out. He arrived to replace our main sewer line and had no tools to do the job. He needed to borrow my shovel. He would work 3 hours top a day, would say he was leaving and be right back and would not. We called him one day multiple times to ask if he was coming back and he told us yes, but never showed. Then he just stopped showing up all together. We called the main office and they had no idea he had not completed the job. They did send out two guys to finish the job. My property was left a mess and not once did they offer me anything for the poor service we received. I absolutely will not use them and strongly advise anyone who needs plumbing done, to AVOID A-1 AMERICAN!!!

Russel T.

I had A-1 come to my house last night to fix a bathtub. They worked around my hours and did great work fixing the bathtub. My two complaints, after seeing what was wrong and needed to be fixed I was quoted $375 for the repairs. This was far more than it should have been for the little amount of work that it took. Even though I wasn't thrilled about the price, I bit the bullet and decided to have them go ahead and do the work so I knew it would be done correctly. My biggest complaint: I told the plumber that I had a coupon from online that gave me 15% off all plumbing repairs. He looked at me and said, ""See, the thing is I already gave you a huge discount"" as he shrugged his shoulders. First, that is a lie!!!! It took 20-30 minutes and $10 dollars worth of materials to fix my bathtub. (The piece that was messed up was brand new as he pointed out to me when giving me the qoute.) Second, how can you not honor a coupon after a quote is given? If I said I had the coupon prior to receiving my quote, would my cost have been over $400???? Unfortunately for A-1, the fact that my shower is fixed does not out weight the fact their people lacked integrity during my interaction with them last night. I will not ever be doing business with them again. I will stick to small local private owned plumber businesses from now on.

Rowland S.

Well, I learned a lesson here. I knew my hot water tank was going and I should not have waited, but.....

Lemme say this right off of the top: My two technicians John S. and Larry were great guys that were extremely courteous, professional and did quality work. I am pleased with the service.

Now for the rest: I called them on a Sunday afternoon and the fellow said a technician would be out between 9-11am the next day. Cool. At 11am the next morning, no word. I called them back and the girl says that I am ""on the list"" and the tech would call before he came out. Hmmm. Uh, ok. Once the tech got there 4 hours later, things smoothed out nicely and the work was done in a couple of hours.

Price: OMG. Like I said, I knew the tank was close to going, and it is in my attic. I wasn't going to do the work myself so I paid. Even with the 10% military discount I threw up in my mouth a little when I saw the quote.

So I have mixed feelings about things, but I am happy with the service, the equipment, and the technicians were great.

Tom J.

Just wanted to say that A1 American Plumbings prices are ridiculous. I called them to come out to open a stopped up kitchen sink and they were going to run a sewer snake through the line to free up the clog. I asked how much this service would cost and
and was given a price of more than $580.00 to run the snake through the vent stack to open the line. I paid them the service call fee of $78.00 and sent them packing. I crawled under the house and cleaned out the whole line myself.
I will think twice before recommending this company

Shawn H.

Darryl was timely and helpful and worked diligently and quickly. Price was fair, too.

Claude M.

I called about a plumbing repair, was given a time window for the tech to arrive. Received a call hours later saying tech would be late. No one ever showed up. Received a call the next day promising an appt. two days later. No show again. My job must have been too small during a busy season for them. Just wish they would have said so.

Velma F.

Bad service. Do not honor warranty on their systems. Lack communication with technician on assigned jobs. Previous technician honored the warranty and new technician did not want to honor the same service. Plus he attempted to overcharge for the service. Be aware of false advertisement with the company. As a veteran I am very disappointed.

Wendell T.

The absolute worst HVAC repair experience in my 18 years of home ownership Hampton Roads!

I have a 6 month old problem with an indoor air handler that two A-1 American HVAC technicians have attended to. I am afraid A-1 American's errors and complacency could put my home, other customers and/or my neighbor's property in peril!

SIX MONTHS AGO in February 2013, the A-1 American Technician #1 came to my house in response to an emergency call to have my heat pump checked out. The unit was blowing cool air only and blowing constantly without pushing the mercury in the thermostat up at all. Because our temperatures were in the 30s or 40s in the evening some nights so it was quite alarming that overnight the heat and even the emergency heat failed.

I called A-1 American at about 7 A.M. on February morning for an emergency response to the problem. Messages were taken by someone who promised to send a technicain right away. I later found out that this message was not even passed to my tech before 8:00 business hours began and he was not allowed to respond until after his companies morning business meeting concluded.

I missed work waiting from 7:00 till about 10:00 am for an emergency response I have been assured was passed. At 10:30 I called back and find out what happened to my call. Tech #1 came to my home at about 11:00 and was in a hurry to squeeze my job in.

He initially looked (visually) at the outdoor heat pump and the thermostat. He diagnosed the problem as a need for several pounds of Freon, he told me how much it would be and that he could not get it till later in the week and that he had to leave. On his way out I pestered him to do more to help me in the meantime. He suggested running the emergency heat. When I told him that the emergency heat did not work he went out reluctantly to get some hand tools to look into my air handler. An hour later he told me that the problem was my heat strips. I needed new ones because they were not coming on.

I decided to heed his advice. I paid for the heat strips and the return service. About week later the heat strips came in, He installed and checked them but after he left my wife and I discovered the thermostat would turn on the heat, the heat would come on but the unit would not shut itself off automatically. The air handler started to heat up our circuit breaker box then after some time the electricity tripped my circuit breaker.

I placed another emergency call to get A-1 back to fix the problem and I requested a new technician or supervisor inspect the work that Tech #1 did. The same daily morning meeting and response delay happened again. I had to call back to A-1 mid-morning to see if anyone other than Tech #1 was on the way. . Low and behold, they had Tech #1 call me back.

Tech #1 came over at noon. He spent several hours pulling the heat strips out, rewiring them and putting them back into place. At the end of this visit the strips worked but the thermostat would not control the system.

A week later a new technician Tech #2 was assigned. He looked over all of the work Tech#1 did and concluded that some of the wires were too thin on the heat from the air handler to the strip connections. He also said the circuit board was bad too. So Tech #2 orders the circuit board and suggest getting a new thermometer for his return visit in April.

A week and half later Tech #2 removes and rewires the heat strips. Everything was tested and appeared to be controlled by thermometer so finally I thought A-1 got the job done right.

About 6 weeks later I noticed that the heat strips appeared to always be on even when the air handler was idle. I am still waiting in July for the parts to come in,

James R.

My house is possessed. And bipolar.

Vacation time, all the plans are being made, last minute stuff being picked up, clothes washed, bags packed, all the usual stuff that one does in the frantic day before heading away for an extended period of rest and relaxation. Which seems to require touching every one of your personal possessions before selecting various objects to throw in a bag and hand to the guy behind the Delta counter.

'Hey,' says my personality afflicted dwelling. 'I've got an idea. How about I just shut down this hot water heater...'

A quick search of Yelp and I find A-1 American Services. I vaguely remember seeing television commercials for them as well...were they good commercials or bad? No matter, I've got the number in front of me....

Setting up an appointment on a Sunday...right. I set my expectation way low and was ready to be surprised. And surprised I was! Sunday afternoon? No problem, what's the address?

The technician was on time...and polite! What? That NEVER happens!

He had a look at my hot water heater, spotted the problem (the flux capacitor needed to be replaced) and set about to fix it. No hassles, no drama, no long drawn out explanations. He said he would fix it, and that is what he did!

Now, above and beyond time! Not only did he fix the water heater, he shined it to within an inch of its life! It looks brand new, he must have vacuumed up 40 pounds of dust from this beast! When he was done, it looked better than new and the replacement flux capacitor was humming along producing heat to make my water hot when I twist to the right. Or maybe to the left, I forget exactly which way. But I did test it, and it works.

Concerned that the water was maybe too hot, my technician showed me how to lower the temperature to which the water is heated, suggesting that maybe 130 degrees was too high. Or maybe not, it was all up to me.

Now, for the final piece, the reason for the 5th star. In a position like this, the technician could have very easily said that I needed a brand new system, possibly a brand new house, in order to get hot water again. And I probably would have believed him and asked about a possible payment plan (can I put a house on layaway please?). That did not happen! In fact, after he replaced the flux capacitor and shined up the old beast, he said that it should probably last for another 5 or more years!!!

This was one of the best home repair experiences that I have ever had, and, as you can probably guess, I have quite a bit of experience in this area. Call A-1 American, you won't be sorry.