HVAC Service in 20874 – Batting 2 out of 9

So we have a residential Traine HVAC system with a frozen/locked-up heatpump motor that is causing “high-pressure lockout” failure. I started looking and calling for help at 4pm on Tuesday 20 May. 40 minutes later someone called back and I booked a service call. I thought I’d share the experience.

I used google. I called 10 places in about 40 minutes —

• Harris 301-473-8126 — left message, no response yet
• Frederick HVAC 240-674-0814 — sent SMS text msg; responded 54 minutes later via sms: has no time available until week of 1 June.
• Time Kyle 410-876-9404 — a nice woman answered but said they do not service Montgomery County despite their website. I had sent a SMS text message just as the woman answered; a reply SMS came back after we hung up; figuring the initial “no meant no” I did not respond.
• Heil 410-352-9189 — a google ‘virtual assistant’ answered; I asked for real person / operator, got transferred into nowhere.
• Parker Pierce 301-485-2383 — a google ‘virtual assistant’ answered; I requested real person /operator, got transferred to someone who couldn’t hear me so I hung up.
• Valencia 301-900-1893 — a google ‘virtual assistant’ answered, so I hung up, left no message.
• JC 301-900-1086 — a google ‘virtual assistant’ answered, so I hung up, left no message.
• Markool 301-485-2783 — got a musical performance so I hung up.
• McIntire 240-527-5956 — Alice (answering service), left info for callback in am.

At this time, Karla from JC called me (I had not left a message nor phone etc) and I scheduled a service call for tomorrow am. (Note that Heil, Parker, Valencia, JC and Markool all seem to be using the same google virtual assistant; however, it failed all except JC whose person Karla called me back in-person.)

So two humans answered the phone. One human called back. One or possibly two humans responded via SMS. It was the human call-back (Karla/JC) that won my business. She asked pertinent questions, could hear me fine, and seemed on-the-ball. Hopefully they will bring a Traine heatpump motor on their truck.

Note — before I began calling I posted a message on nextdoor.com at around 3:45p — “Residential Traine HVAC heatpump motoro not spinning; high-pressure lockout. Who can help?” I checked for responses before I began googling/calling. Unfortunately I did not check again until after I had booked JC tomorrow. These 3 persons had responded on nextdoor.com within 60 minutes.

• FC 301-825-4360
• Bryan Aguilar / S&L 240-755-6349
• Chris Peterson 240-741-9211 w/ license number — he posted this nice video https://nextdoor.com/profile/01KjR9FSfdh8WtC_L