Mountain Service Company, Felton, California

Bruce Mechanical, Santa Cruz, California

After starting our furnace for the winter this year we noticed a faint smell of propane gas when the furnace was off. Investigation revealed that the shut-off valve was leaking slightly from time to time. There was a high pitched sound from the valve when it didn't completely close. It was an intermittent problem and although I thought it might fix itself once it had cycled on and off a few more times, leaking gas is not something to ignore.

I called Mountain Service Company and asked to have someone come out and adjust, repair or replace the valve as necessary. When the receptionist noticed that I was not buying my propane from MSC, she told me that they offer better prices and service discounts. Far from being annoyed by this attempt to sell-up a service call, I would have like to learn more about their plan, as we are not happy with our current propane supplier, who has left us short on several occasions. I was also pleased to see a business turning all staff into sales people, as that is a sign of good management. She told me that I would get more information after the repair about their propane plan.

When the repairman arrived (on time) he opened the door to the furnace room and glancing in the direction of our twenty year old model from a distance of about ten feet exclaimed, "You will need a new furnace!".

I thought this diagnosis a bit premature, as he had not looked inside the furnace yet and although it is 20 years old, it has probably had less than 10 years of use. We were away for a number of winters and when compared to furnaces in colder climates, this one has not had the hours of operation one would expect.

“I bet you have a cracked heat exchanger”, he said as he proceeded to open up the furnace and with a long mirror searched for corrosion on the heat exchanger. At first, he was surprised not to find any, but eventually he found something and gleefully pointed it out to me. I have to admit, I couldn't see anything in his mirror, but didn't really have any reason to doubt him. He explained that a hole in the heat exchanger can lead to carbon monoxide in the house. I explained that there was a CO detector right above the furnace beside the closest heating vent and that it had never gone off. He told me it probably wasn't sensitive enough.

We have not been happy with the way the furnace was heating the house. The heat has been poorly distributed in different rooms, and I am aware that furnace efficiency has greatly increased in the past 20 years. So, I was open to the idea of replacing the furnace. He was happy to provide me with a bid for the installation of a new one.

I was prepared for a price in the $2,000 range, so was quite floored by a price north of $5,000. If he had been able to offer me a furnace at a lower price, I probably would have told him to go ahead. But I just felt that this price seemed more than I wanted to spend right now.

I returned to my home office while he finished up.

Shortly after he left I went to check on the furnace and was very surprised to find the gas was still turned off and the panels were removed from the furnace. I took the time to put it all back together and restarted the furnace. I also realized that at no time had the serviceman looked at the faulty valve, which was the reason for the service call.

Over the next several days we entertained bids from 5 other furnace installation companies. The bids ranged from just over $2,000 to just over $5,000. Although some of the people who came to bid were more sales than technical folk, a couple were clearly capable of assessing the old furnace and so I asked them if it was repairable and to check on the heat exchanger. We watched the flames carefully as the blower started to see if the flames would dance due to air leakage from the unit. This seemed like a sensible way to test. When the blower runs there would be a pressure forcing air out of any holes. They interpreted this to mean that there was no danger in using the furnace for another season, but they still recommended moving to a newer, more efficient, model to solve our heating problems and be more fuel efficient.

Bruce Mechanical, Santa Cruz, CA Although I don't always choose to go with the lowest bid, Gary Bruce from Bruce Mechanical had impressed me with his knowledge and seemed sensitive to our pricing concerns while still promising to solve the heating problems in the house. He was the only one who agreed with me that our old thermostat was adequate and didn't try to sell us a new one. A few weeks later his workmen appeared at our house with our new furnace. For $2,300 they installed a new furnace, replaced and expanded ducting where necessary and generally brought the system back to proper working order. The work was done efficiently and professionally. The new furnace works perfectly. The changes in ducting have increased the air flow and the added adjustment baffles have made it possible to balance the heat in the house perfectly. We couldn't be happier with the job done by Bruce Mechanical of Santa Cruz.

A couple of months later, we received a call from Mountain Service Company. They had been attempting to send us a bill for the “repair call”, but as we don't receive mail at our street address the bills had been returned by the post office. I duly gave them our PO Box number, but explained that I was unhappy with the service call in that no attempt had been made to examine the faulty valve (which was what the service call was about), the serviceman had been exceptionally eager to sell me a new furnace at a high price, and that he had left without even putting the furnace back together. The operator was sympathetic and promised to speak with a manager.

We have now received our bill for $99.00 for the service call. We haven't heard from a manager. There is a scribbled note on the bill that the furnace was left apart because it was dangerous to run and that the customer had been so advised. Now, although a mention was made of carbon monoxide early in the discussion, he had certainly not told me it was too dangerous to run. If he had told me, I doubt very much that I would have just put it back together myself after he left.

No other company charged for their estimates.

I still have heard nothing about Mountain Service Company's propane delivery plan as promised.