ComplaintsforAirtron Heating Air Conditioning

• Initial Complaint

  03/08/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  We purchased a new house in April 2018. Airtron installed the two Trane air conditioning systems in this house. One year ago, one of these two systems (the downstairs unit) stopped working. We had a couple of HVAC dealers come out to inspect it and they found a leak in the evaporator coil in the air handler. Checking the air handler warranty indicated the warranty we were given by Trane on it was just 3 years. I called Trane to ask more about this. They responded that if I had registered it within 60 days of the purchase date (April 2018), it would have been automatically extended to 10 years, and that it was Airtron's responsibility to either register the unit under the customer's name as a courtesy or advise us to do it ourselves. Airtron failed to do either of these things.At the time we were looking at $1,450 in labor and $2,090 in parts costs to pay for this repair out-of-warranty. Eventually Airtron agreed to help us and replaced the part for labor cost only after confirming the evaporator coil leak diagnosis.Unfortunately we are now experiencing the same problem (evaporator coil leak) with the other system we have here, for the upstairs, which is also out of warranty now for the same reason. We have reached out to the Airtron manager (Richard F******) who helped us with our previous case last year several times, but received no response. Trane has also attempted to contact Airtron twice on our behalf, but they were told each time that Airtron would not be able to help unless I purchased a subscription plan of some kind, which is obviously not the appropriate response in this situation.We are requesting that Airtron assist us with this situation in the same way it did last year.

  Business response

  04/20/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/03/22) */ **** and I have been in email conversation over the issue. He has mentioned that 2 contractors have come to inspect his upstairs system and they have given different diagnostics results. The first contractor felt as though it was the evaporator coil, the second contractor diagnosed it as leaking schrader cores. Neither contractor resolved the issue of a system low on refrigerant charge. **** has asked if we would be willing to simply add refrigerant to the system to keep it cooling. I informed him that we will only recharge the system with a repair guaranteeing there are no leaks after our services are complete. At this point he is not ready to allow us to diagnose the system and give him solutions on repairs. Consumer Response /* (3000, 7, 2022/03/23) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) There seems to be some misunderstanding of the facts of the case here. As discussed with Airtron in the emails mentioned, we did get a second contractor to doublecheck the first one. That second contractor found an ADDITIONAL leak in the system in the schrader cores outside, which was an easy fix and has now been fixed. They did not contradict the first contractor's findings of an evaporator coil leak, however. Clear signs of such a leak were in fact observed visually on their visit, particularly an oil stain in one corner below the coil. I have attached their findings to this response to make this clear. As can also be seen in their findings report, their recommendation was in fact to replace the entire air handler containing that evaporator coil, since the coil is now out of warranty, and they sent us the attached proposal for this. As you can see in that proposal, this would mean an expense of over $6,000. Replacing just the coil, to quote Airtron, would still cost $2,100, and that repair would only come with a 1 year warranty vs 10 years on the air handler. AC units have an expected lifetime of around 15 years. It is obviously not acceptable to us that after less than 4 years we have been faced with two of these expensive evaporator coil leaks. It is also not acceptable to us that we were not properly informed at the time of installation that simply registering the units with the manufacturer, a procedure that takes minutes on their website, would have extended the warranties on them from 3 years to 10 years. All the problems we have been facing in this case would have been much more manageable if the units were still under warranty, but both failures occurred when the 3 year warranties had just expired. Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2022/03/25) */ **** and I are working to resolve this issue and we should have a resolution that works for both parties very soon.

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