Flame Furnace

James M.

i would like to think that a long time business like flame furnace would know how to treat their customers. well, they DON'T. we pay a monthly maintenance plan and yet we get charged OVER $200 for basic services. LAST time we will get ripped off by flame furnace.

Susan D.

I have been a Flame customer for several years and subscribe to their service plan, by which a tech comes to my home twice a year to check furnace and AC to head off any problems. For the most part I have been very pleased and have recommended Flame to others. I am a discriminate consumer and when friends, neighbors and associates heard good reviews from me, I believed they were confident that Flame was good. Untill now!!!!!!!!! Just as a friend's new furnace installation was concluded, the friend had life saving emergency surgery. He is still in recovery and unable to drive or conduct business. He contacted Flame to let them know that asap, the balance would be taken care of. Staff was very nice and understanding. The staff, except for the owner, Mr. Morawski, who called to insist that the balance be paid NOW. An explanation was given. His answer? Not my problem. How insensitive and callous!! He would make no allowances. Can this man be expected to be concerned about a lack of heat or AC, if he does not care about a life. I will not deal with someone so unconcerned with a customer. I have canelled an upcoming sppointment and am looking into another company for a service plan. Because of the owner's insensitivity, Flame does not deserve my loyalty or business.,

Keith M.

Yes, they cost more than other heating / air conditioning places. Yes, they'll try to sell you a year long ""Gold Service Plan"". But I trust these guys, and they stand behind their work. I've had nothing but issues with previous companies, to the point that one had to be taken to small claims court. Flame set me up with a hybrid furnace / heat pump system about seven years ago. There have been some minor issues, but 80% of the time they came out for free to fix it, and the other 20% was just minimal labor costs. The hybrid setup runs very well and has cut my winter heating bill by half. I'm not the biggest fan of their ""Gold Plan"" and feel it is somewhat unfair to customers who are not on it, but by being a member you have top priority on service calls. It also gives you two free tune-up visits a year, one for the furnace and one for the air conditioning. Considering all the issues I've had with other companies, I'm sticking with these guys.

Jay N.

Yuck. left me without heat. 'Tagged' my furnace on a friday when it was 10 out and I had to work all weekend. I had an independent person who used to work for Thornton and Grooms come look at it. He fixed it with a 50 dollar part and told me that Flame was just trying to put me over a barrel.

Mike B.

First off I've never seen such a through drubbing of a company in reviews on line. The heat at my mother's place was out today. After fumbling through her records turns out she had paid Flame Furnace a year ago to replace the ""igniter"" which cost her around 280. This furnace uses some type of automatic pilot or gas igniter controlled by a circuit board. Before she called them I had followed the instructions that are on the outside of the furnace panel to reset the automatic ignitor. I did this twice to no avail. I called them for her as she is hard of hearing and mentioned to them that she had the igniter replaced about a year ago and wondered if that was the issue. It was just out of warranty but they mentioned that if that was the issue there could be some consideration of it being just out of warrant (7 days past the warranty point). They came out very quickly. After diagnosis he said it was the the ""gas control valve"" which has it's own circuit inside and triggers the gas being fed. The estimate was around 710 but would be 620 if my mother bought into a maintenance plan which includes inspection of her furnace and AC once within the next year.
He had to go get the part. I asked him what the price of the labor and parts where separately and he said that he just went by the company guidelines and didn't know the breakdown. To get the part he had to call someone and on the phone he asked and received a price so this appears to have been deceptive.
He got the part and came back and did the job. He came back up and asked if I had done anything to break the igniter (which was the part replaced last year). I told him all I did was follow the instruction on the furnace panel for resetting the automatic system. He did replace this as well and said it would be covered under the warranty. My main question is, if he did a thorough diagnosis in the first place how did he not know the igniter wasn't working? My understanding is that it uses some type of system (I think a thermocoupler) to let the unit know it is hot and gas is flowing and if there isn't this heat it shuts off the flow of gas. So if the igniter wasn't working then how would he know if the valve was being triggered since the feedback is heat? I'm sure you can test the valve separately but considering the igniter had gone out before how would that not be part of the diagnostic? Doesn't make sense.
The speed of response is worth paying some extra for so I can see being a bit higher priced because of that. My mother was having Sears inspect the furnace yearly and they were replacing her filter during the inspection as long as she bought the filter. Flame says hey replace they filter for 35 including the filter price so this would be around what she was paying, and their claim is that their inspection, with this plan ends up being cheaper than Sears. If they do what he stated that would be true. But we will wait and see and I will update. Wonder if anyone understands the interplay between the automatic valve and the igniter. Could he properly evaluate the valve with the igniter not functional? I noticed he didn't leave the old part of the valve control mechanism.

Jay K.

Beware.................We called and they charged us $150 just to come down...we agreed. The serviceperson then informed us that the motor needed to be replaced and quoted us a price of $800 to replace the motor. The cost of the motor online is between $75 to $100......We checked other prices as well....To replace the HSI which costs around $40 he was quoting $390........The salesperson also proceeded to try to sell us a goldservice plan which would give a ONE month guarantee of coming down to check the furnace and waive the check up only...not the actual part....presumbly to be able to mark up the price of the part another 10 times......Would not recommend their services.....Plan on filing a report with consumer affairs and Better business bureau.

Linda D.

Now I know why they didn't get very many stars. I'm very disappointed in Flame Furnace. They're very expensive and definitely not worth it. Satisfaction is NOT guaranteed! 3 1/2 years ago we bought a water heater for $1,100. (overpriced by about 50%) with a 10 yr guarantee on the unit, 6 yr guarantee on parts & 2 yrs on labor. 1 month ago we had a problem with it & had to pay $215 just for labor. Last night the unit completely broke down & had to be replaced. They wanted to charge us $650 just for labor to replace it. That's more than half the cost of the original unit, which could have been purchased at Lowes or Home Depot for half as much. I balked, so the ""supervisor"" Matt took the original $215 off, begrudgingly. Now the new unit isn't even guaranteed for the original 10 years, but they took the 3 1/2 years off, & it's only guaranteed for 6 1/2 years. Save your money & your sanity and shop somewhere else!

Johnnn G.

A complete waste of time and money, I found this company on Angie's list and though because of all the good reviews they would be reputable company. They first off stated it would be a $85 fee for a estimate for a Eletric job I needed done, I gladly paid it without a problem, it took me over 2 weeks to hunt them down by phone and when I finally was able to speak with who claimed they took my estimate he stated the amount of work would be $48,000. I double checked them triple checked to make sure the guy I was speaking to had the right adress. I had 3 other bids from contractors I found online and all three of them were bellow 4k in work, either they did not want to do my job or they were just trying to take me for a ride. I later found out that my contractor changed the lock box weeks prior, so the code I gave them wouldn't have works there fore they never really inspected the property and gave a estimate out of thin air. Stay about for the company they will waste your time and money

Kym D.

I called in the middle of the day in the middle of winter, the tech came out within an hour and definitely let me explain what was going on before just jumping into things. Did a great job of making me feel like a part of the process.
He made sure to check everything and tell me what he was seeing and why he was making changes.
I will definitely recommend to friends and family.

Cece C.

If you are a commercial customer, I do not recommend Flame unless you like freezing while your at work.

A call to Flame was made on 2/17 due to the fact the office had no heat. A technician did come out and explain that the blower motor to our very old furnace was bad. He took the blower motor back to Flame so he could get information on how to replace the part. He also recommended that we replace our furnace. This was the only competence I have seen in the last 17 day ordeal with no heat.

Myself and the maintenance supervisor had to make several phone calls to Flame to find out the status of the blower motor and to when the technician was going to return to our facility with the motor. We were told that it was sent out so it can be rebuilt. It has been at least 5 days with no heat in the offices and the temperatures were at single digits. I think it's a shame that the customer has to make several calls to get a progress report .

It was a good 10 days or better when we finally got information regarding the blower motor and was told that the electric company that it was contracted to could not locate a rebuild kit, and it was also suggested that perhaps an appointment should be made about a replacement furnace. We were also told that the technician from Flame will be returning the blower motor that he took from the inoperable unit. The Flame sales department was suppose to contact our maintenance supervisor to set up a date and time to quote a new furnace. No phone call from the sales department to set up an appointment. Space heaters were brought in on 2/26 to get some sort of heat in our offices, our next worry were pipes bursting in the bathrooms.

After more than two weeks of working in an office with no heat and a couple of space heaters trying to warm up 2500 sq feet., I decided that enough was enough. I took advantage of the free market and contacted another company on 3/5 for a quote. They were out the same day to take a look at our existing furnace and try to get it running while they quote us a new one. It was difficult task for the technician due to the blower motor being removed by Flame and we had no idea to when it was going to be returned to us. Meanwhile, still no telephone call from Flame on when they could set up an appointment to quote us on a new furnace.

Finally, on March 06th, a new furnace is being installed at the office. Still no contact from Flame in regards to when they were going to send a salesman out to quote us a new furnace or even return the blower motor that they took.

I told the general manager along with the maintenance supervisor that Flame has been extinguished from the vendor list.