JR Putman Plumbing, Heating and Air

Gina O.

Fast, courteous and professional. Our 12 year old air conditioner gave out in the last heat wave. We were given honest quotes on repair or replacement. Ultimately we did replace the unit, and we are very, very happy. Twice this year JR Putman came to our house in a heat wave and saved us. An added bonus, we were able to replace our system the very next day in 106 degree heat. Happy customer!

Andrew D.

Wonderfully happy!
Quick service, pleasant people, VERY competent technician: not only did he fix the problem fast, he provided very useful information about our system, maintenance etc.

Reasonably priced, with ZERO pressure to upgrade our system.

Based on my experience today, I would recommend them without reservation!

Dara E.

I am giving a one star rating because there are some good technicians who work honestly for their living. I'm rating on two factors: the conduct of their employee, and the philosophy of the company.

All three technicians came to my house within the last two and a half years seem to have something in common. They are pushing for this membership that I have no interest in participating. I came to a conclusion that this is the direction that the company is asking their employees to act. I can tell that each employees acted differently on this matter. The last one went a little overboard. That's why I believe that this is what they are pushing their employee to act more than the actual work. The third technician displayed it very well.

When the city of Rancho Cordova put out their welcome, I chose this company to do my annual check up on my AC unit. I was very impress by the first technician who came to do just that. That was why I did it again this year before summer came. That too was pretty good except a couple things that I was a little suspicious about. But he was ok over all. I just asked them to come out again just a few months later. This third technician was outrageous that I have to rate the company with.

He arrived promptly except that he didn't call before he came as I was told that he would do. He asked me to initial on his paper that it cost $89.00 for him to come in and check the unit. I agreed. I opened the door and invited him to come in. He walked straight to the dinner table on his own and opened his clipboard like he is the authority in my own home. He then summoned me to the table. He started yapping about joining the club thing that has nothing to do with what I asked him to do. I just played along with him. He then proceeded to the unit itself.

First, he removed the thermostat and looked at the wires connection. He then opened the burner to see the wires hookup inside. He did nothing with those wires. Then he asked me to hand him the thermostat and put it back in. He played with the setup a little. All of the sudden, the heater came on. That was exactly what I wanted to do was to get the heater to come back on. I suspected that the wire connection or the software setup. I decided to spend $89.00 to make sure that the connection is correct. I knew full well that nothing is wrong with the AC unit.

He summoned me again to talk to him at the AC unit showing me the dust and dirt. He said it should be clean and maintain so it last longer. Two of his co workers said that same thing, and I agreed with them. He continued to push again about this club thing. Again, I went along without agreeing with him on anything. Finally, I asked him to stop the work because he already did what I wanted. He sat there at the unit for another fifteen minutes to write one short paragraph explaining about what he did for his report. He was smart enough to put anything that he didn't do. The paragraph can summ it up to this. He change a software setup on the thermostat.

He and I came back to the dinner table and continued to talk about this club thing. I listened without agreeing. Then I gave the NO answer at the end. He wasn't happy and snowed me what he wrote on the report. He threaten me that he was going to charge $199.00 for the work that he did. I told him to go ahead and do it if he felt that that was the right thing to do. He backed of telling me that he was not going to do it to save my money. He walked out of my house with his madness without saying thank you for using his service etc..... He just acted like he did me a favor. I really didn't need his favor that way.

This is the third company that I've used to maintain my AC unit in the last twelve years. First the OneHour company who spent 30 minutes cleaning my filter and charged $99.00 for it. Then the BellBrothers who tried to tell me that I need to replace a component that is half empty. I'm sorry. I spent most of my life in high tech industries. I have never heard of a component half empty until then. Now JR Puttman is on the same trend. They really don't understand that their work brings them money. Alienating people will steer customers away from them. It looks like it's time to look further for my AC maintenance. I don't recommend JR Puttman to anyone due to the fact that they pay more attention to this club thing than the actual work itself.

Addition: Well I asked the guy where the company is located. He paused and answered:"" Rancho Cordova"". I knew their address but asked to see his reaction. What kind of employee is he who can't even say where the company he's working for is located? He never communicated with me once for what he was doing. Actually he did nothing except looking at the wires and change a setup in the thermostat menu. That took him more than one hour. An arrogant person with no customer service skill really didn't know what he was doing. If he has looked around, he would have realized that he has been recorded.

Jen S.

My husband and I received a quote from these guys to install a new hot water heater. They quoted us $8000. I asked to see a breakdown of the cost but they refused to show us. The interesting thing is we went with another company and we told them how much we were quoted which was twice what this new company was charging and the plumber said, ""I bet I know where that quote came from: JR Putman"". He went on to say that they are notorious for ripping people off.

Heads up!!

Alyssa S.

I'm a little disgusted by the series of events that went down between me and JR Putman.

I called at the beginning of May because our A/C was running warm (not going below about 80) and I wanted to see if their tune up special would help. They scheduled my appointment for the middle of June. I wasn't too excited to spend 6 more weeks with a hot house, but I know it's the season and they are busy. The day of the appointment, our technician called in sick so they had to push us out another week. The day before the second appointment, they called again, asking if we would reschedule so they could attend to other more important appointments.

At this point my house was running 90 degrees, even when it was in the 70s outside at night. I called back and said no, I want to keep my appointment and explained the situation. She was nice about it but informed me it would no longer be a tune up and instead a diagnostic. Again it was fine, but the tune up is $69 and includes 2 lbs. of freon. More on that later...

I finally had the appointment, and the technician identified that we had a leak. He added 3 lbs. of freon which now cost nearly $100 per lb. and a special dye that would help identify exactly where the leak was. So between the diagnostic, freon and dye, I spent over $600 that day. At least the house was cooling off. He left, saying the company would call me to schedule a follow-up appointment for 2-3 weeks out. They never called. Eventually I called them.

At the second appointment the new technician informed me that the leak could cost about $4,800 to fix! At that rate I might as well buy a whole new unit, and our unit is only a 2010 model. The second option was to try a sealant for $300, which, in his words, had about 50/50 chance of working. We went with the sealant as a preliminary shot.

About 2 weeks later I came home from work and the house was 88 degrees. We ended up calling another company for a second opinion. They came out immediately. There were no leaks, but the technician described it as a ""ghetto patch job"" and the valve was now clogged from the sealant. Besides the valve, there was nothing to be replaced. They came back the next day and fixed it for less than $300. They also mentioned that, had we kept running the unit, it would have likely gone into complete failure.

Overall:
Scammed into air conditioner breaking further to pay more upfront
Taken advantage of with repair costs
Further damaged the unit
Spent half the summer in an uncomfortably hot house

I will not be returning!

Update: the company has contacted me multiple times about this review. While they offered to send a technician to take a look, they also accused me and our family friend who did the last repair of lying. He said their technicians are trained to not talk poorly of other companies, but that is exactly what he was doing. While I have no technical knowledge of AC units I do not appreciate the overall service received. Yes they patched the leak and there are no more leaks, but my unit required more work that may have been caused by them. I don't care whose fault it is so long as I do not have to sit in a hot house, and JR Putman did not fulfill.

C D.

JR Putman doesn't want to fix your system, they want to sell you a new one for $10,000 to $15,000.

HERE IS HOW IT WILL WORK
I can tell you what they are going to say, before you even setup an appointment.

1 - When you make an appointment, they'll charge you an extra $20 bucks right off of the bat.
""I know you heard about the $69.99 service on the radio, but we suggest you choose the $89.99 service, as it included deeper diagnosis and troubleshooting.""

2 - The technician will want you to purchase a new a/c unit.
They'll come to your house and run tests for 10 minutes or so. Then the tech will tell you that you have a Freon leak. They'll draw a diagram explaining that there are hundreds of possible points where the Freon can leak. They'll say that you can spend thousands of dollars testing and troubleshooting this problem.
Then they'll tell you it's easier to just purchase a new a/c system. The tech will pressure you to schedule an appointment to meet with a sales rep the very next day.
Why? Because time kills all deals. The faster they get you to purchase it, the less time you have to think about it.
The new system will be between $10,000 and $15,000.

3 - Won't give you the Freon that you paid for.
They charge $200 for 1 lb of Freon. Your $89.99 service will ""come with"" two pounds of Freon. The tech will tell you not to do it for one of two reasons: (1) if you don't fill your system all of the way up, your system is die and horrible death OR (2) it's going to just leak out anyhow, so why fill it.
Nice try, I paid for it, give it to me!

HERE IS WHAT WAS WRONG WITH MY UNIT

I have a split system. Meaning half of it is outside and the other half is in my attic. If you look at the unit outside, you'll see that it has a lot of little fins...hundreds of them. Well the unit in my attic has the same thing. The fins in my attic had a layer of hair/dust/gunk on it. How is air supposed to get though the fins to cool it down? It can't. I used a brush and cleaned it off. Then I ran water over it and cleaned it up. Guess what... it's fixed. All I had to do was clean the fins. I spend $30 bucks on a brush, cleaning stuff and a spray bottle.

JR Putman doesn't want to fix your system, they want to sell you a new one.

Susanne B.

JR Putman replaced part, took 15 minutes willing to pay for the usual hour, technician said he will check the upstairs unit left him to do so, checked on him about five minutes later and he is just standing there first impression he was running more time, he said he inspected all fine. Two week later had major leaking problem, called fire department as it was leaking in downstairs ceiling. They said it was coming from hvac unit upstairs. Looked at paperwork and technician had not marked on invoice that he checked anything. Called Putman and they said would send someone to check and gave me cost. That was not going to happen again!

Austin U.

Just had my A/C evaluation. My son and I putted around with Richie while he investigated the issues I had with my system. I loved his diagnostic process and the way he thinks. He told me about how the system operates and showed me pictures he took on his phone of what he saw which could be problematic. He waited for me to understand things before moving on. Anyway. My system is working better and I'm happy knowing the potential problems and i'm even happier with the plan of correction he wrote out for me. I had to post my experience as soon as he left because I had such a good time with him while was here. Thank you Richie. I hope all your jobs go as smoothly as your visit with me today.

Lori S.

The technician Kyle did a fantastic job. He was right on time, put his booties on,he started right to work. He explained to me what he was going to do, he did it, and then explained to me what he found. He went over all my options, explained each thing that I needed to know and made it easy for me to understand. He was very professional and knowledgeable and answered all my questions. He's a great asset to your company.

Jim H.

Beware! Salesman, Brandon, was very pushy and tried to upsell me much more than I needed. Took three visits by the salesman to finally get a written quote. The system I finally purchased works just fine and cost over $10k less than Putman.