John Owens Services

Dave G.

My forced air heater failed to heat the house. John Owens Services sent Dave Caron out to repair the system. Mr. Caron determined it was the gas valve. I bought another gas valve and had another tech from John Owens Services come back and install it. He did install it but told me the new valve was broken. So he took it apart and left all the parts on the floor. I took the valve back to supplier and he tested it. It worked fine.
I called John Owens Service to reinstall the valve but they refused to come and repair my system. Now I have parts all over the floor of the utility closet and a broken heater. I paid them around $500 for nothing.

Jon P.

Service was good. Not so good was charge of $376.00 for installed part, approximately 20 times retail cost of $17.35.

Ramo N.

John and I had a good conversation today. We worked through some misunderstandings. Both of us are small business owners and I appreciate him stepping up to ensure quality work. Although the job is not done, I have changed my rating and look forward to solving this problem.

Helaine M.

We recently contracted John Owens Services to install a heater/AC unit in our home. From start to finish their work was exemplary. They were timely, knowledgeable and responsive plus super friendly and covid conscious.
They were available for all of our questions and offered us a very personal step by step understanding of the system. Would definitely call on them for any work in the future.

Don F.

I got terrible service from John Owens. I got an estimate for complete duct replacement from an employee who was friendly, competent and took measurements. It was a price similar to other estimates. I agreed to the estimate and was given a work date 3 weeks out because it was the busy fall season. Fine, it was still nice warm October weather.

On the work date, one worker arrived. This was odd because their estimator told me that alumaflex ducts required two workers to install. Also the worker had zero information about the scope of the job. He went into the crawl space and said this job was too big for one guy and he didn't have enough alumaflex duct in the truck. WHAT? Didn't they have a description of the job from the estimator? How disorganized. The worker says his supervisor will call me to reschedule and drives away. It's now cold November weather and we need heat.

Hours later, NO CALL. I call their office and I'm told someone will call back soon. NO CALL. The next morning I call their office and get the same story and NO CALL. Third day, same story. By then I realize that they don't want the job and will never return my calls. They just blew it off after I waited 3 weeks for the work to happen. I guess they were busy and don't care about customers. Or just disorganized and incompetent?

Also they never mentioned that a permit and Title 24 energy efficiency test is required by law for complete duct replacement. The test also proves that they did a good job sealing the ductwork. So John Owens cuts corners and doesn't want someone checking their work. Shady and dishonest!

I got Moore Home Services to do the job efficiently (using 3 workers) and correctly (including permit and Title 24 test) for about $100 more that John Owens quoted. What a difference a well run company makes. Avoid John Owens if you have a large job or value competence and honesty.

William B.

John Owens Services utterly failed to do the job. The technician came out to fix a failed wall heater, ran error codes and then dismantled and took parts of the unit back to their shop. But he never returned. More than eight months went by and despite my repeated requests for John Owens Services to finish the job, they just kept finding excuses not to. We were left without heat. Don't make the mistake of calling John Owens Services.

The have an extensive fleet of Mercedes vans and are pushing to grow the company and so, it seems to me, they grossly overcharge. They wanted $2706 flat rate fee for labor to replace the old heater with an identical new one! A job that might take an hour or two. It should cost a couple hundred bucks. NOT $2706. What a rip-off!

I was exceedingly patient. I waited for eight months. But the arrogance and unreasonableness of the owner of the company is shocking. My belief is, if you don't want to make your customers happy, if you don't care about how your negative habits effect your customers, if you have scant compassion, then why be in business? Money alone should not be the reason.

Here are quotes taken from Yelp reviews written by other local residents:

""I had a VERY BAD experience with this company today. BEWARE!""
...
""I called John Owens to register a complaint. The man on the phone was aggressively defensive and told me that their costs of maintaining an office, trucks, phones, paying workman's comp and salaries led them to charge the kind of prices they did. Price gouging is what I call it.""
...
""Slow, over-priced, try to con me into things I don't need, didn't come back to finish the job. They never called and never came back. Overpriced, unreliable, unresponsive. I would never pay these people to come to my house again.""
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""No show on the appointment day. I get they are busy but if they are that lazy with first appointment why would i trust them to do my work? Ryan clearly did not want the business. And by the looks of the reviews it seems this is not uncommon.""
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""Technicians are great - owner does bait-and-switch billing.""
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""I have an emergency and was told they would be here and they cancelled. Thanks for wasting our time and not doing anything. You suck""
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""I am going to contact Rinnai to have John Owens removed from their list of authorized repair contractors as he refused to service my water heater without a valid reason""

Laura S.

Our water heater broke yesterday (a Thursday) and we originally called our warranty company and were told that someone couldn't come out until Monday. We have a 6 day old baby and when we called John Owens (at 4pm) and told them our situation they told us they would get someone out to our home within 45 mins (thank you so much, Clarissa, for your urgency and kindness). Tim, one of John Owen's technicians, was so empathetic to our situation and diagnosed the issue quickly and lined up someone to come replace the heater the following day. By EOD Friday we had hot water. Thank you so much to the John Owens Staff- we can't express our gratitude enough!

Erik K.

Slow, over-priced, try to con me into things I don't need, didn't come back to finish the job.

**note I'm a real customer in a real house, this isn't a fake review like i suspect many of the others are**

I've been having a simple water heater issue that should have been easily fixed by any competent maintenance service. I I called John Owens and they sent someone to my house within 3 days. When that person arrived he proceeded to nit -pick at my heating and cooling system which is less than 6yrs old (not a great first impression). Then he told me it would cost about $1000 to replace a sensor and do a cleaning ( afterwards I researched the sensor part which cost $40 on several websites). Being that I'm not a plumbing specialist I agreed, he charged me for a diagnostic fee and said he would come back in a couple days to finish the job. No one called, no one came back. A few days later I followed up with the company to see if they'd return to finish the job. They said they needed to order the parts and would call me back shortly to schedule the work. They never called and never came back. Overpriced, unreliable, unresponsive. I would never pay these people to come to my house again.

Nina W.

I had a VERY BAD experience with this company today. BEWARE!
My thermostat needs replacing. I was told the service call would cost $67, which seemed reasonable. But the woman at the front desk couldn't tell me the cost of the thermostat replacement or give me an hourly rate. The workman, after determining that the thermostat did, in fact, need replacing, said the cost of installing a simple (not smart) thermostat would be . . . drum roll . . .$348 plus the $67 service call! I checked the cost of the thermostat online---about $80--- and installing it would take about 15 minutes at most. The serviceman, apologetically said he couldn't come down in the price. So I sent him off after writing him a check for $67. He was very kind and clearly embarrassed but at the mercy of his company's policy.
Upon doing some research, I discovered I could buy a smart Nest thermostat for $129 that one can install oneself AND get a sizable rebate from PG&E.
I called John Owens to register a complaint. The man on the phone was aggressively defensive and told me that their costs of maintaining an office, trucks, phones, paying workman's comp and salaries led them to charge the kind of prices they did.
Price gouging is what I call it.

Rinna S.

Revised: happy to report that we've received a visit from John Owens staff who identified the issues with our heater. Thank you for great customer service. Now just waiting for an estimate to get this heater finally operational