HL Bowman

Catharine P.

My latest experience with H.L. Bowman was disturbing. I called for an inspection of my whole-house A/C system at the end of March. Justin, the tech who came, told me I might have a coolant leak, but to be sure, he'd like to return when the weather was warmer to repeat a certain test.

We left it that Bowman would call me to schedule this, but if they didn't, I should call them. Well, Bowman didn't, so in late April I scheduled the repeat test myself; I got a slot six days later, within a two-hour window starting at 8 a.m.

I got no text confirmation or reminders for this second visit, so on the morning of the visit, I phoned in to confirm. The clerk said, yes, indeed, they'd be there. I waited.

Around 9:00 I got a phone call from someone named Wayne, who said the work I needed would take all day and wouldn't fit inside today's two-hour window. I explained this was just for that second reading to confirm Justin's diagnosis; Wayne said his boss would call and explain further.

Next a person named Kyle called and said they already had a diagnosis and he'd just emailed me an invoice for the work, which would have to be rescheduled for a full 8-hour day. I hung up and, sure enough, an invoice for $2600 had just popped into my in-basket.

Bottom line: I reorganized my calendar to accommodate a second testing procedure and at the last moment, on the day of the repeat test, all I got was an invoice for $2600. If Justin had in fact made a diagnosis after the first visit, why hadn't Bowman sent me this invoice way back then?

Bowman inherited me from Climate Partners, where I had 2 years left to run on a 4-year service contract. Bowman sent me a letter stating they'd honor those remaining two years. Because of this, my initial service call was free, and Justin said the follow-up call would also be free because it would count as a completion of the first call.

Right now it looks like I got what I paid for--nothing.

The best slant I can put on all this is, it's due to the chaos that accompanies any new player's startup in the area. The worst interpretation says Bowman was trying to jump straight to an expensive diagnosis without taking the time to complete their free due diligence.

You might want to Google some of the 5-star, family-owned, longstanding HVAC companies in the greater New Haven area before settling for H.L. Bowman. They're certainly not the equal of Climate Partners, whom they replaced.

PS: I suspect Bowman's reaction to all this will be to punish Justin, the service tech who visited my house. They shouldn't. In my mind, he was the only straight shooter in this mess.