Auchinachie Plumbing Heating & Air

Lawrence W.

This review is primarily for Brad. He installed Water heater, cleaned outflow, and most of all, restored water to my dear friend's apartment. Somebody stole the copper pipes and she had gone without water for eight days. I can only limit my comment for the gratefulness of this one employees' real fine, highly professional performance. So far, so good.

Never A.

Simple job turned into wasted time! Two additional professional opinions later... problem solved! Those two other opinions matched exactly and completely contradicted Auchinachie's costly unnecessary and ridiculous solution. Should be named AuCONachie. Auchinachie tech didn't even know what to do or how to do it and just resorted to worst case scenario as an out. NEVER AGAIN will they be called to do anything for our family, friends, or neighbors as word is spreading. Hearing similar stories as well.

Dan G.

WARNING: STAY AWAY FROM AUCHINACHIE SERVICES!!

There are good plumbers and then there's the really bad ones who spoil it for everybody. Auchinachie Services is the worst of the worst. Save yourself the frustration and aggravation and call somebody else for plumbing problems in the Binghamton area. I had a leaky drain under my basement flooring and water was coming up through the concrete. I called Auchinachie and described the problem. Obviously the drainpipe was cracked or broken and I asked how much it would cost to replace, roughly speaking. The guy on the other end of the phone at Auchinachie said he wouldn't even guess, and that he would have to have a technician come out to my house and stick a ""camera"" in the drain to see what was wrong with the pipe. He said that would cost $129. I said okay and scheduled the appt. for the next day.

The tech they sent out didn't look like he had graduated high school yet and, worse, he didn't seem to know what he was doing. He brought too different cable-type ""cameras"" that were filthy and looked ancient. Guess what? Neither one worked! He stuck each one in the drain and he couldn't see anything. What was troubling was he made comments to the effect that he knew they wouldn't work because they hadn't worked in the past! That's when the tech told me it would cost in excess of $4000 to dig up floor and replace pipe. I asked him how come I couldn't have been told that over the phone since it was obvious they didn't need to look in the pipe to come up with that estimate. He just shrugged. That's when he demanded payment of $139 (not $129!) on the spot just for coming over. He called it a ""trip fee."" When I protested about charging me anything after wasting my time with the charade, he became hostile and threatening and refused to leave until he was paid. I talked to a supervisor on the phone and he was worse! He threatened to call the police if I didn't pay immediately. What the police have to do with billing disputes is beyond me. I told him to go ahead. Then he said the technician would stay at my house all day and all night if he had to, until I paid him! I managed to negotiate a slightly lower price just to close the books on one of the most unpleasant experiences I've ever had with a trade services company. With all the threats and demands for money for doing nothing, the whole experience felt like I was dealing with a bunch of criminals.

I've since spoken to two neighbors who have had dealings with Auchinachie. Both said they were depressing, confrontational experiences. One of them said the Auchinachie tech demanded the ""trip fee"" payment on the spot before he would even look at the plumbing problem! This was after not even telling the homeowner that he would have to pay immediately beforehand. I too wasn't told beforehand that I had to pay the service tech who visited my house.

My takeaway is pretty straitforward: this is a dishonest business only concerned about getting their hands on your money, whether they earn it or not. Based on this experience, I would never call Auchinachie Services for anything! There are honest and competent plumbers out there but Auchinachie Services is not one of them.

Bill N.

Just had some plumbing work done by Auchinachie and am totally satisfied with the work, the two VERY professional technicians and the price was fair. THANK YOU! You will continue to have my business.

Mark R.

Purchased a $10,000.00 wall mount Navin boiler/water heater. Just what the salesman recommended. Said it would save us a lot of money on our heating bills. Temp set at 69 degrees woke up to 65 degrees this morning. Unit cannot keep up. How is that saving money when the unit doesn't even shut off?

Mark R.

Patrick G.

I had Auchinauchie services replace the water heater and furnace in my mother's home in Binghamton.

We had two bids on the furnace because my mom had hired a contractor to look at her furnace and they said it had a cracked heat exchanger. I told my mom to call Auchinauchie because of their ratings to get a second opinion. We ended up going with Auchinauchie because their people were so much more knowledgeable and helpful.

They were awesome to deal with and did fantastic work. My mom sent me pictures when they were done and it was a clean installation and done correctly.

The reason I know the work is good is I own a plumbing and heating business in Kansas. They weren't inexpensive but they were excellent. Would definitely recommend.

Susan N.

I have always used this company and found the service to be good even they they are one of the priciest in town..but that was my choice. My hot water heater went during the night and I called them immediately...Jill the dispatcher was terrific cannot say enough good about her!!! She had someone over there by 9AM. The following week I had them come clean my furnace...the technician without even turning the furnace on determined it was carbon monoxide risk. He called his manager and while the manager was selling me on a new furnace and asking for my soc number, the technician was slapping a danger sign on the unit and cutting the wiring in the unit. I can understand that they need to protect themselves that they have advised the homeowner owner but to butcher a system without even giving the homeowner the chance to get a second opinion. I did get a second opinion and they actually turned the furnace on (after repairing the cut wires) and tested it ...ZERO CARBON MONOXIDE!!! The city plumbing inspector was called in and also saw that the carbon monoxide was zero. He also looked at the hot water installation and saw several items that were not done properly and were even a safety hazard. He called Auchinachie and told then they had to come back to ""fix"" what they had not done properly...they did.
This is not a company I will ever use again nor will I recommend them to anyone and have recommended several friends that use them to find someone else.
Unfortunate!

Vinny G.

Biggest rip-off artists in the area hands down! Sold my 76 year old mother a boiler twice as big as she needed for twice as much as competitors quoted after the fact. She used them not knowing their horrible reputation because it was below zero outside, her house temp was dropping rapidly and she panicked. She signed a contract to pay $200/weekly with no interest for the first year and she is being charged interest and being billed close to $400 a month. It also took the ""technicians"" 5 or 6 trips to the house to get it working properly over the course of two weeks! DISHONEST AND incompetent!!! Stay away!!!

William S.

On April 14, 2015 I needed a water test for a mortgage loan. I wish I'd never contacted Auchinachie Plumbing. Wish I had started at the ""B's"" like someone else recommended. The 1st problem occurred when they waited too long to submit the sample. The 2nd problem occurred when they submitted the sample but checked that I collected the sample. I did not collect it, Jeff W, an employee of Auchinachie, collected it. The mortgage company requires the results include who took the sample. On my copy it says I collected it. The mortgage company rejected those results because it was checked that I collected it.

I have been in contact with Auchinachie since the 23rd of April to resolve this matter. They assured me this would be resolved and the corrected paperwork would be fax to the mortgage company on the 8th of May. As of today, May 11, I am still getting the runaround.

Please be warned that if you need customer service from Auchinachie plumbing you will be waiting a long time for them to resolve their mistake.

Dave S.

On 2/26/15 I woke up to no water in the house. I checked the electrical system and indeed voltage was present for the well pump. Without looking further my conclusion was the well pump was dead. I called around for some estimates and had Auchinachie provide me with a quote. They quoted $3850 for new pump, fittings and labor. I agreed to the estimate even though I had lower estimates. On 2/28/15 Auchinachie arrived to begin the new pump install. They pulled the well head connector up and discovered it was frozen. This has never happened since I bought the house in 1993. They thawed that out and discovered the soft black plastic pipe which feeds into my house was frozen as well. From inside the house, instead of using hot water or hot air to thaw the plastic pipe, they used a short piece of 1/2"" rigid copper pipe and a 2lb. sledge hammer and began wailing on the ice inside the plastic pipe after disconnecting it from my tank. I had a feeling that what they were doing was not right, as I stated they could have used hot water or hot air. When they pulled the copper pipe out and exclaimed ""That's not good"", my suspicions were now realized. They found dirt inside their copper pipe & I knew they drove the copper pipe right through the wall of my well head feed pipe. They then had to dig down to the pipe outside to replace what they damaged & spent most of the day doing this. When they finally pulled the pipe out, they showed me the pipe and lying to my face told me this is where the pipe split. Clearly it was not split but hollowed out by their hammering a copper pipe right through the side wall. It is my opinion that this was done on purpose as they saw the loss of revenue for the day because my pump was not bad, and what took them all day should have only been a couple of hours. They want to charge me $2800 for correcting what they damaged. I would agree to pay them $1000, even though I think that is still too much. They don't want to even listen to me and they continue to tell me my pipe had burst which is totally wrong. I truly believed I was scammed.