Kester Heating And Plumbing

J S.

I have been extremely happy with Kester, and have recommended them highly to all my friends. My furnace stopped working the day before Thanksgiving (yes it was cold), so I left a message at 7 in the morning. Dave returned my call right away, and suggested some troubleshooting steps first. When that didn't work, he said he could come in between jobs that same day. He did, and it turned out to be a faulty logic board. He got a replacement, installed it, and got it all working - for a very reasonable price. Amazing.
Super nice guy, very reasonable, and great service. Would recommend him highly!

Donald P.

I am correcting a review that was made by me earlier.

Kester is a dishonest person. Kester installed a Trane HVAC system in my house. I inspected his work this week. I inspected it because I found areas of the house were not being heated. The installation (including the ducts are in my attic.

I was amazed. Several rooms that Kester claimed were heated had registers that were not even hooked up. Kester used non-approved tape to wrap insulation. Duct valves were carelessly installed with flow control valve handles placed in random orientations (requiring dis-assembly of the ducts to determine valve position).

The job was nothing more than a hack and dishonest attempt to get paid $9000.

I understand Kester is retired now. Well, here is another example of dishonesty and mediocrity that hopefully will be replaced by some person that respects the profession they chose.

To the extent that my reviews are used by anyone, I apologize for my previous glowing review. I learned that no matter how technical, as a consumer you must get dirty and really inspect the work done, no matter how nice and pleasant the person you hire seems to be.

Alexis D.

We've had two great experiences with Kester Heating and Cooling over the last couple years. Both times, we called and left a message and received a call back the same day. He was able to come out the same day or the next day and diagnose the problem, and had the problem fixed within 24 hours of diagnosis. The prices were fair and he explained what was broken and what would be required to fix it. I can't ask for more than that! (Now, if our furnace would just stop breaking!)

Sharon R.

Called Kester Heating & Air Conditioning on a recommendation. Call was returned the same day; appointment for estimate set up for 2 days later and new heater was installed the next day. Price was great, job was done in less time than expected and we felt price was very good. Employees doing installation were very conscientious and put tarps and plastic everywhere they walked.

O T.

After two business days, they still haven't returned my call. I used another company who's professionalism was excellent.

Ed M.

I called Kester to see about having some minor new duct work and a good furnace cleaning (the prior owners ran the furnace without a filter for a few years). To be honest, I called a couple of higher-rated (on yelp) people, and none of them returned my calls.

Dave Kester called me back, showed up exactly when he said he would, gave me a reasonable quote, and was friendly and clear throughout. The two guys who showed up to do the work were friendly, professional, and efficient, doing a great job, cleaning up, and finishing within about 10 minutes of their estimate.

I get the sense they keep a small operation intentionally, and small jobs like mine might not fit their usual project scale, but I feel lucky to have found them.

Jody B.

I love nice people! Dave is one of those people.

I called at 9am on a Monday morning after discovering the problem over the weekend. Callback was relatively prompt, around 11:30. Couldn't get on his schedule 'til Thursday morning (boo), but I can't blame him for being busy and he was very nice to talk to on the phone. I've had it with flaky repair people who don't get the job right and overcharge, so I was willing to wait to see if he would be any better.

He arrived on the dot, if not 1 or 2 minutes early. He took his shoes off when he stepped inside the house - which shows a lot of courtesy and respect. Almost no repair/contractors do this!! He was clean and professional in attire and behavior. His manner was very soothing and friendly - I was completely at ease.

When I gave him the scenario about my heater, he explained a couple of things that might need to be replaced - - BUT, maybe it could be solved with a little cleaning and scraping. Hope, hope, hope! In the end, that was all it needed. He couldn't hardly believe it was that easy, and checked his work about 10 times to be sure it was truly fixed. He only charged me for a basic service call. I'm sure many contractors would have just gone ahead and quoted for the full repair & replacement, so I appreciated his honesty.

I requested a quote from him for new furnace and a/c unit, which he was obviously happy to provide, and did so quickly and courteously. I found out through the process that installing new units is his core business, and he only took service calls here and there when he had openings on his schedule, so I guess I was lucky he had time for my little job.

In summary, really nice guy. Honest and knowledgeable. Courteous and professional. You can't go wrong.

Dinesh K.

I had Kester Heating and Air Conditioning replace an old furnace and install a new air conditioner in my house. I spoke to David over phone and I was satisfied with his knowledge. He came over to give an estimate. His quote was reasonable and willingness to go extra mile, if needed, at no extra cost got him the job. He sent two people to do the job and it all finished on one Friday. I was very impressed with the job.

After couple of days I had to call David because furnace was making too much noise and air flow was very strong. He came over the next day with two people and adjusted the flow in the furnace. He also opened an additional hole (or vent?) at the bottom of the furnace and redirected some of the flow into the second half of my house. He did not charge me anything for this work. Everything has been working perfectly since then and I could not be happier.

I get lot of work done in my house but I never bothered to write reviews. I now feel it is only fair to spread the word of goodness if someone goes out of his way to make their customers happy. I hope David will be able to keep up with this and other people who hire him will have the same good experience as I had. God bless.

Grace H.

I called an air duct cleaning service and asked if they can give me some references, they told me that I can find their reference from ""Yelp"" (I didn't know there's Yelp review on the website)
To my surprise that I found Kester Heating & Air conditioning with lots of 5 stars reviews. I had a terrible experience with their service last year during summer when I changed my heater and cooler. Dave, the owner, was professionally present his services and his service overall was good. But the problem is he didn't install the units. His workers who installed the units did a terrible job.
1) First they forgot to turn on the hamper - I mentioned to the guy who installed that the upstairs not seems right because I hardly felt any air came from the vent. He checked and said it was OK. I normally don't turn on cooler so I thought maybe that's the way is. However during the winter when I turn on the heater I definitely could tell there's something wrong. So I phone Dave and he sent the guy back and fixed it (apparently he forgot to adj hamper even though I have mentioned before that the upstairs air flow not seems right)
2) Last year during Nov. I was remodeling downstairs and when contractor changed the mechanic door he mentioned to me that he smelled gas. So I called PG&E and they found out the connection between gas pipe and heater was not tighten. They fixed it.
3) The contractor also mentioned to me that my plenum (a box direct under the cooler/heater in crawl area) was in really bad condition. It touched the dirt and rust badly and should be changed during changed heater (I crawled to see it and agree with him). Now with heater set on top of it will be really hard to change (enormous $). I have mentioned to Dave before they started the job that please checked my air ducts because this is an old house and he did mark on his detail list. But apparently his workers either didn't do it or doesn't care. So the alternative right now was to seal the plenum and Kester suppose need to do it. I called again and the guy installed the unit came back (not Dave) and he check the crawl area and said that he seal inside the plenum from the top when he installed the heater. But when I saw this guy again I was totally loose the confidence on him. So I called another company and they screwed and opened the connection between plenum and air duct and took a picture (I also crawl to see when he opened the platen). No, there's no seal inside the plenum. I spent $900 to seal the inside plenum, seal the heater with seal paint (Kester only put duct tape around the heater and when heater was on the tape all loosing and air blew out from the heater) inspect all ducts and change 2 air ducts.
Looking back I regret that I forgot to ask city inspector to check their work

Roseanne S.

5 stars, impressive personal service!

We recently purchased a 1950s house that is a complete fixer upper. Our first months heating bill was through the roof, so we decided to shut it down and remove the old system so we can do upgrades in the house and later replace it with an efficient system. The house has a 30+ year old furnace and condenser. We searched yelp for a few recommend HVAC companies and called Kester Heating as one of our options. Dave, the owner, personally came over and reviewed the project with us and went through our options. He answered all of our questions and took quite a bit of time with us and provided a detailed quote on the spot for removing our system and later installing a new one. We received quotes from two other companies and was not impressed with their response times and communication, we went with Kester not only because of this but because he was extremely competitive in pricing.

The next week the removal was scheduled, two very courteous guys did a great job and was very conscientious of the surroundings (we have a puppy and have had issues with contractors leaving doors open). The only issue during the process is when the gas was turned back on, the hot water heater couldn't be lit. After 45 minutes of trying to re-light (a very old) hot water heater, I told the guys to go ahead and leave and I'd call PG&E to do it since I was sure it was the water heater's age. Dave called me an hour later and told me he would stop over and give it a try. He came over that evening and replaced an old part that had gone bunk. Kester went above and beyond what was expected here!

We still need to schedule the install of the new system, which will be after we finish some electrical upgrades, but are very confident in their abilities and couldn't recommend them more.

Thanks Dave, for making this part of our project very easy and seamless!