Bell Brothers Plumbing, Heating & Air

Kurt M.

They seem to have difficulty keeping morning appointments. I was hung out to dry for 30 minutes, called to find that they operate on their schedule, not mine. Why make a 8 am apmt then? No call by 8:30? I guess they have more work than employees. Moving on. Service went south a few years ago. See no reason to stay with them despite paying BIG CASH to them last year. Their good customers say ""bye"" and we see why that is happening. Was great until 2017-18 or so. Oh well.

Shasta J.

I would like to warn the public about this company . The company was at my disabled sister's house for a regular service contact .My sisters who are disabled were taken advantage of by an unscrupulous salesperson .He sold her a $8000 system which she didn't need to replace all the ductwork in the house.He told her he was offering discounts and the only way he can offer them is to sign that day.He put pressure on her sign ( shades of a used car salesman) .He set up a 15 year payment plan with interest of 8 per cent. He added a $1400 air filter which he said should be added since one sister was in dialysis and the other had allergies.When she called to cancel with my advise he offered another $1000 discount. She had another service provider come and it reported that her that the ductwork was fine,and if her air conditioning worked leave it .He also said that bell brothers could not have seen the whole house ductwork unless they took out walls of the attic ,which they didn't .Also her house is only 1600 square feet. It was curious since they come out regularly to service they never told her her ductwork was Disintegrating.I am surprised that this company advertises on KFBK radio .Luckily they agreed to cancel my sisters contract ,so we won't have to take legal action .

Eddie E.

We had a major HVAC failure and called Bell Bros. We had a new Lenox installed and working in 5 days.

Nikki H.

I only liked that they called to see if I was available earlier than scheduled. However most everything after that was frustrating. The tech went on my roof to inspect my HVAC and came down and said ""first off your condensate if broken"" when I ask him to show me it, turned out it was only the PVC pipe the lets the condensation drip from the unit into the drain gutters. When I told him I could fix that myself he went on and on about how bad it could be, ""it will leak through your roof, into your insulation, and your drywall into your house"" I told him my roof was brand new and would not leak through new shingles when the rain doesn't get through. He responded like it was a HUGE issue when it was not, ""okay, whatever it's your call"". After that he inspected further and said the blower motor was leaking oil and that I had a refrigerant leak however did not hook up any pressure readers to verify this. He said the capacitors were good and the fuses were good but the rust on the fins showed major refrigerant leaking signs, (again no pressure readers to verify a leak). At this point we cancelled the call so I could reach out to my home warranty. They sent out South Placer Heating and Air, their tech checked pressures that were all reading good, and he replaced a capacitor and my AC works beautifully now. This is not the first time I had Bell Bros had tried to upsell me or not be honest. I will never use them again.

Zee O.

Do Not Use!

Here' the scam Bell seems to be running: Charge $99 for a quote that should be free, give quotes that are outrageous (a 90% markup), mess things up, then come back out and provide somewhat descent service to get you to change your honest (poor) yelp review. Seriously, go back and look at all the reviews, there's a pattern here.

My particular experience:
- What we needed addressed: We've slowly been getting less and less hot water, and we had two leaking yard spouts that needed bibs replaced.
- They start out seeming courteous, give lots of notices of when they're arriving, etc. Wear booties in the house, and started out wearing masks
- They were here 3 hours, 2 plumbers, one working on ""diagnosing"" the hot water issue, while the other one was ""taking care of replacing the outdoor spout bibs""
- About 1.5 hours in, they start trying to explain what they think the problem is. It was so vague and nonsensical, and every time I tried to ask them to get specific about the issue, they either made up some nonsense about how we have three mixing valves and it must be related to an old solar heating system (that hasn't been connected to our water for at least 10 years), and how they'd have to retrofit our chimney venting, etc. When I asked what was actually going on, they agreed that the water heater WAS putting out how water, but they weren't willing to look at what was happening after that because it was too old (it isn't) and no one was going to work on it without replacing the heater. (What were they doing for that 1.5 hours then??). I asked how replacing a heater with a new one that does the exact same thing would solve anything, when our current one puts out hot water, they said by the time they get in there and look at things they'd just be replacing the heater anyways. I asked for a quote for running clean new pipes to the existing heater to see if that bypasses whatever valve issue they thought of. They agreed that might work since the current heater does work and creates very hot water.
- Throughout this whole conversation they tried to sell me - no less than 3 times - on some monthly membership at $19 that would give me a discount on future work.
- One guy spends the next 1.5 hours writing up quotes, and the other guy tells me he's going to replace the outdoor spout bibs.

Quotes:
- A total of three hours later we sit down to go over the quotes. They were all for things I specifically said I didn't want (a new tankless heater, a complete piping overhaul and retrofit...) and ranged from $7,000 - $11,000.
- THEN they tell me they didn't even replace the outdoor spouts, and that alone would be another $660!
- They're going over these quotes at my dining table 3 feet away with me, wearing his mask under his chin and COUGHING in my house. Never did he ask if I was comfortable with him removing his mask.
- Tried to sell me on their membership 2 more times.
- Told me when they replace the heater, they'd have to leave the old one there because they weren't willing to figure out how to remove it from the basement.

Later that night - Big problem:
- We notice we're not even getting tepid water from the faucets. It's actually frigid now. We look around, and find out they had turned our heater down to the Cold setting, and the mixing valve down to the coldest setting.
- They left the pipe insulation on the ground in front of the heater
- Clearly they tried to make the situation worse to force us into replacing our heater asap.

The solutions:
- The next day we had a small local plumber come out. Within 5 minutes he figured out that we have 1 blocked mixing valve, so hot water comes out of the heater, gets stuck at the valve, and sends cold water to the faucets.
- He said our heater works great and he definitely wouldn't recommend replacing it yet.
- And also that the old solar water heater wasn't even tied into our pipes so it wouldn't be possible that it was the source of any problem.
- Within 15 minutes they're getting to work. Within 1.5 hours they removed the faulty valve, replaced with new pipes, insulated it, And completly replaced the full spouts with new copper/brass fitting for the two outside spouts.
- All of this for $850 (!), in and out in less than 2 hours, and we have hot water everywhere now.

Karen K.

We had Bell Bros come out and replace a three quarter inch water valve. The valve plus some new fittings itself costs no more than $50 at the most and for less than 1 hour of labor the charge was $676. We had to have it done but it was shocking how expensive it was. I would not call them again- they are ripping people off!

I'm updating my review. Received a phone call from Bell. They asked about my reasons for a one star review. I explained my concerns about such a high bill for less than an hour of work. We agreed that he would refund us $250. I was pleased with that. Good customer service.

Nate A.

Way over charge for the work involved. Main 3/4"" water valve to house was leaking. They charged $670,00 to replace 3/4 valve and a couple 90's to connect to the house, done under an hour. Im in construction and know what material cost, know wonder they say no overtime or weekend rates, everything is jacked to high to start with. This was today

Masood B.

They are pricy just because business cost a lot to run I understand. They shouldn't lie about the price of an item. They could just say for parts and labor it's $320, even though the cost of part is only $20. If you can do it yourself then why did you call a service man. So, I love your service. If I gave you a 5 star yelp would remove my rating. But u r 5 star

Olivia F.

Our A/C has been on its last leg ever since we moved into our house, but it was only this year that we were able to afford to get it replaced. After having a few other companies give quotes, Bell Brothers was the last one scheduled before my husband and I were to make our decision. If I'm being completely honest we kept the appointment as more of a formality, but were thoroughly impressed with the in depth knowledge the salesperson showed of our system and in presenting solutions to the problem. There were also no other companies out there that offered warranties and guarantees like Bell Brothers, and as a mother of 4 young children that set my mind at ease because if something were to go wrong I knew I could depend on them to get it fixed. Less than a week after speaking with a salesperson we are sitting in a comfortably heated house with a new furnace and A/C and looking forward to a much cooler house in the summer. The installation crew was also extremely professional, making sure to clean up after themselves and even were able to finish up the work in one day which was an unexpected surprise. Thank you Bell Brothers for your exceptional service!

Sierra C.

Our heater stopped working so we called around to have someone come and take a look. The 2 stars is because Bell Bros was able to come out the next day to look at it. The service tech came out on time and I was impressed with the safety protocols taken (mask, booties on feet etc). He cleaned our filter and was pleasant, but thats where the great experience ended.
I was told our control panel was bad and it would cost upwards of $950 to replace. When I asked about a warranty, he said it was 30 days. A 30 day warranty on an almost $1,000 job/part seemed crazy. That's when the maintenance program sales pitch started. If we purchased their maintenance program for $20 a month, they could warranty the work for as long as we had the maintenance program. That sounded sketch to me so we chose to just pay the $99 service call and get a second opinion.
The second opinion came out, cleaned out the flue and little metal rings that cause the propane to spark, and the heater now works perfectly again- no $950 control board needed. No monthly maintenance plan needed.
I'm annoyed I paid a $99 service call charge to have the tech misdiagnos the problem and try to sell us on a monthly maintenance plan.
Highly recommend getting a second opinion before moving forward with work from Bell Bros.