Oehl Heating & Cooling

Marla K.

I have used this company more than once and I will continue to use them for all my heating, cooling and plumbing needs. They are prompt, neat, organized and knowledgeable. I called the office and spoke to the owner, Mike. I told him about a ""noise"" that has been coming out of my closet where the water heater is located, that I assumed was the tank refilling but it had been going on for a couple of days. He asked me to take a few pictures of the water heater and send them to him. So, I took a short video of the closet/water heater and sent it to him. He immediately called me back and noted a pin hole in the braided metal hose and the noise I was hearing was a small, steady stream of water spraying in the back of the closet. It was not 20 minutes later and he was at my door and ready to fix my hose. He was not only prompt, but very friendly, neat in appearance and very knowledgeable. He even offered to wear a mask while in my home!
Before leaving he noticed that my air conditioning unit was loader than usual. He asked me a few questions and then headed outside to take a look at the unit. Mind you, this is after hours so it is dark outside. He got out a trouble light, hooked up some kind of testing meter and noted that it was low on freon. He added some freon and it was amazing the difference in the sound of the unit running. Not only was my unit quiter, but my home was much cooler and the air conditioner did not run as often. Thank you Oehl Plumbing & Heating for your continued service and quality workmanship. And thank you Mike for a job well done. You definitely went above and beyond and it was much appreciated.
~M
Tiffin, Iowa

Matthew U.

NEVER again will I call these useless money-grubbing sacs! Not only did they show up 1.5 HOURS LATE with no call but charged full price for 10 mins of work!!!!

Robert L.

we had two dripping faucets. One was an outside hose connection and one was a shower head that dripped occasionally. We were billed for 3 1/2 hours, billed for his driving for parts, billed 50 dollars an hour for his apprentice to stand there and watch--total bill was over six hundred dollars. When you are told what the job is, when you arrive with a big truck (and you really don't have delta washers etc in there?) I would look elsewhere people.

Ali H.

My wife an I were not happy when our AC went out 3 weeks after buying our home in North LIberty. We do not know anyone here so just looked up a few places online and made some phone calls. Contacted OEHL to come repair broken A/C. Repairman showed up, fixed broken capacitor in 3 minutes. Then, because he was being paid by the hour, spent 45 minutes wasting time lecturing us about dirty filter, staring at a temperature gauge for 10 minutes as it oscillated by 0.1 degree, filling up the freon ""just a tich"", spraying the exterior unit with a hose to ""clean it"", and then chatting on the phone on a personal call.

When he was ready to head out he gave us a bill for $353. I was blown away as the exact capacitor is $49 online and he spent a total of 10-15 minutes actually working. I asked him to break down the bill for me and he became very defensive (as if he knew he was completely ripping me off).
$39 for freon
$163.10 for capacitor
$127.50 for service time

I understand the obligatory role of HVAC repairmen charging to fill your freon. It is an easy way for them to make an extra few bucks. I am sure that if I had another serviceman come out tomorrow and look at the unit he would tell me that the freon level is low and gladly charge another $40 to replace it. Dishonest, probably. But I will live with that.

$163 for a capacitor. Really? The EXACT one online is $49. That is an excessive markup in my opinion. But again, I can live with product markups, people have to make a living.

Then came the $127.50 labor charge. We were told it was $85/hr labor. So how does 50 minutes of ""labor"" equate to $127? ""Easy"" he said, ""I was here for over an hour and my travel time is going to be a half hour"" very defensively. 1) We were not told on the phone that the hourly rate included ""travel time"". He said that it took 15 minutes from Iowa City to get here and would take 15 minutes to get to the next service call. So I said, ""so you are going to charge us for your drive to their place and then charge them for his drive to their place"". So we are both paying him for his time. Dishonest, yes. But I can live with that.
2) What I cant live with is the complete disrespect he had for me by coming here and wasting both of our time and my money. Personal calls on my time! Not acceptable. Spraying down the unit (which did nothing to clean it) for 10 minutes? I can spray it myself thanks and dont feel that it is necessary to pay you $20 to spray it down for me. Finally, if you find it necessary to take your sweet time doing things and wasting time while you are here, dont compound the situation by then charging more than 1.5X the length of time you were here. And then dont yell at me and get angry when I call you out on it.
He was gracious enough to lower the bill by $20 when he realized that he ""may have slightly overestimated his time here"".
OEHL you could have made a costumer for life. You had your chance to gain my trust after moving to a new state. Unfortunately you lost it, and hopefully people read this and you lose out on the chance to rip off other customers as well. Do not use OEHL. They obviously look for EVERY opportunity to rip you off. From price markups, to personal calls and time wasting, to exaggerating service time spent.

That being said, our AC is working, so therefore 2 stars instead of 1.