General Air Conditioning & Plumbing

Mike S.

my air conditioner broke on a friday. general ac showed up at 4 pm . diagnosed the problem but said that the warehouse didn't have the part and could not locate a prt until the morning. this tech was gonna be off all weekend so another tech would install on sat if able to locate the part. the ball was dropped. no one checked for the part on saturday, no one called me back after i attempted to contact them on sat morning. bear in mind its 106 degrees and that this company advertises that they are available 7am to 7pm daily, no xtra charge for weekend. i had to call another company at noon on sat when it became obvious that there was no follow up to the friday house call which i had to pay 99.00 diagnosis fee even though there was no follow through to fix the problem that i had originally called for, to fix my ac. the other company came at noon on sat and ac was back on by 2. i never heard from the general even the following monday. i called tues to get a refund of the 99.00 as i was dissatisfied and felt that even though they diagnosed the proble, no follow through or any attempt to fix the problem was very poor service and not what i had hired them for. they declined to give me my 99.00 back i feel totallly ripped off and highly recommend never usung this poorly run company.

Jerry W.

A few days ago, my air condition unit stop working, so I called General Air Condition & Heating Company. They sent out their AC Representative and they told me that I needed a new unit and that would cost me $7982 plus tax.

I was amazed that the AC unit would cost me so much. So the bottom line is that it went down to $6000. Still, that was too much from me, since I'm on a fixed income. Well I called my real estate broker and he said that was too much money. In the mean time, it was 105 degrees outside and 95 degrees inside the house. I got another bid from a firm (who works around here) and they said that the same AC condition unit would cost me only (installed) $2000 complete.

So, I had him install the same unit for only $2000. I saved about $5982. What a difference in price. I'm happy and my inside temperature is about 83 degrees in my home.

Joey R.

Oh My I should have read the reviews before calling the General. My $79.00 service call came to $805.00. They charged me $375.00 for a $40.00 capacitor and $219.00 for 2lbs of R22. The service man pushed that service contract. I can't beleive that a local company feels it's ok to rip off anyone they can. I will let everyone I know how much they took me for. DON'T USE THE GENERAL unless you have more money than you know what to do with!!

Adrian W.

They overcharge you if they can, a basic repair, replacement of a bad capacitor and a check up cost me $400.00. the guy had the problem fixed in 30 minutes, than he walked around my house and wasted time. he billed me for 2 hours, have no clue why the parts are so expensive, but i googled the part and found out that I can buy the capacitor for $25.00 online. they are a bad business.

stay away form them

Alan S.

Once again, General came to the rescue.

I had air conditioning problem, and called late on a Saturday afternoon. They offered to come out the same day or Sunday morning. It got late, so I opted for Sunday.

The technician who came out was extremely knowledgeable about air conditioning. He was clearly well educated on the subject and well trained. He diagnosed and fixed.

General is probably not the lowest cost provider, but they sure are good. They show up when needed, technicians are well trained and pleasant, and they fix the problem. You get what you pay for.

I previously had General out to fix a problem shortly after our semi-annual inspection, and it was as efficient as today.

Morris R.

We used General a few years ago. While on an extended trip, we were advised that an AC unit was not working, and needed either about $5k in repairs, or to be replaced. We waited until we returned from the trip, and got a second opinion from another company, which charged $500 (1/10th the low estimate from General) for the repairs. And the unit obviously did not need to be replaced. That was nearly 2 years ago, and we have the exact same unit, which works fine today.

I wrote the above paragraph review in 2010. Just a quick update: the units they insisted needed replacement? Still working in 2012.

Wise O.

Don't waste your time. Overpriced to the max. They'll gouge you and then try and sell you an overpriced system you don't need and sell you a service plan. They charged $280+ to install a $12 capacitor. Fan motor (cost $120) would be well over $600. Always trying to upsell and Overpriced!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

H G.

My compressor fan stopped spinning last night at 105 degrees outside at 10 pm. Hot air coming out. No a/c all night and today. I Called a few companies, the only one with a real person to answer the phone last night and call me back early this morning was THE GENERAL Air Conditioning and Heating.The tech came out, ADAM, great guy, explained everything, very professional, did not try to up sell me, except for the Service Paln wihich makes sence to have. He diagnosed all, repaired the part. I signed up for their yearly maintenance plan, for summer and winter, that plan, the service call, parts and labor, and he did a complete cleaning, checked all vent flow, the Thermostat, all a/c parts, the freon SR22, all in excellent condition. It is a 12 SEER , 4 ton unit 7 years old . The service plan for preventative care is a few times a year. I am so happy it was not something major.

He said my a/c unit is very clean, running very well and has many years left, thank God!!

I think they have a great staff, on time, professional, did a super job, Adam explained as he went on. I was out there in the heat today it was 106. I was with him at my compressor in the heat, as he worked with meters and many other tools. I like to learn and see whats going on.

It will take a few hours to cool, but I am very pleased. I called their office and told them how pleased and releived I was, and now, I am letting you know.So, you want a good local company to work on your cooling and heating? Like their commerical on TV says,
""Call The General,"" I did, and it was the best call I made. Shame on all the others who never called me back, or emailed me back. Your loss.

Abe S.

If you are looking for a robber with a big smile and claiming excellent customer service and money back guaranteed!!!!!!!, look no more, I have the perfect candidate....General Air Conditioning of Thousand Palm located at 37117 Reserve Dr., Thousand Palm, CA 760-343-7488. Mr. Eric, from the above company, came to serve my 78- year old father-in- law's AC. Initial charge for the visit was $ 99.00. From the minute he arrived, he was pushing him to sign a service plan for $ 159.00/year which would give him twice a year service and priority to be stripped of his social security money. Mr. Eric found out that the fuse needed to be replaced for $ 157.00. The actual cost of the fuse at Home Depot is $ 6.44 with the labor time of, no more than, two minutes. The second problem Mr. Eric found was the AC Capacitor, reading 51.8 instead of 60, which was a huge difference in reading and might cause the whole unit to collapse, stop working or many other things. To prevent all that from happening, he must pay him $ 465.00 to replace it: a cost of $ 18.97 with the labor time of five minutes. I spoke to Mr. Eric about the ripping-off his company is practicing; he claimed that he had nothing to do with the prices. I called the office and the lady said ""Oh, the price is very fair. You will need to speak to the General Manager."" Mr. General Manager was not available and he never returned my phone call. The average individual's social security income in the US is
$ 1,200.00 a month. One visit by one of the General Air Conditioning technicians to your house for a fuse and Capacitor will cost you $ 880.00 , 75% of the average income of the people in that community. General Air Conditioning is trained on how to strip you out of your cash, check or credit card with a smile.

Greg J.

I first met a representative at the Palm Desert Costco. They were running a special. Our A/C unit was about 20 years old, and it did have to run all the time in the summer to just keep up, so I wanted ti looked at.

We ended up scheduling a maintenance review, which found out that we were 6lbs low on freon, which is about $275/pound. So instead of sinking that much money in to an older unit, we decided to have it replaced. I should have gotten a couple more bids, but we were in a hurry.

The sales guy came out and did a review, quoted us a price and said he'd send me a proposal via email and I should respond to that, and he would schedule the work.

A couple days go by, no proposal. I call the sales rep and he claims he sent it. Look at my email and spam, nope, didn't get. OK, we re-verify the email address, it's right, and he said he'll resend. Another couple days, no proposal. Call the office and get the sales manager, who is SHOCKED that I haven't received the proposal. Next day, finally get the proposal.

Respond back, via email, that the proposal is fine and requesting that the sales rep confirm the installation date we had discussed, it's a vacation house, so we're not there all the time. Two days before I'm leaving for Palm Springs, still no confirmation of installation date, so call the office, again. Sales rep is out of town, talk to scheduling, they've never heard of me and definitely don't have me on the schedule...

Scheduler says she'll call me back in an hour, unless the sales rep calls me. No phone call. Call back two hours later, get scheduler the second phone call, she says sales rep told her the he had called me and left a message. Nope, no missed calls, no voice-mail. It gets on the schedule on the correct day and ask to talk to the General Manager.

GM is also SHOCKED at how badly the process is gone, I mean if the sales process is so poor, I should take it as a warning that the service and install are going to be a disaster. He says he'll send out their top guy to do a final system check before the install crew leaves.

Installers arrive, they set to work and seem pretty competent.

Later the installation crew says I should call the office, the ""top guy"" is busy and is not coming out. In the meantime the installation crew is packing up.

I call the office and tell them to have the GM call me to explain why the guy he promised is not coming out, shortly thereafter the installation crew stops packing up and we are waiting for the expert to arrive.

System test seems to go alright, although they connected the electrical connections for the furnace backward so it didn't work initially. Oh, and then I received a call a couple days later to ask if they could go on my property to replace the breaker that they didn't do that day.

In the end, the AC unit seems to be working alright, although the way they installed the filter, it's going to be really difficult to open the unit and replace it.

I really should have done more due diligence in the process and gotten a second bid. I really can't recommend them, based upon the service I received I am not optimistic that we made the right choice or that we will be happy with the product or follow on service.

Also, they do kinda push the maintenance contract stuff pretty hard, had to say NO numerous times.