Dawson-Dodd Heating & Cooling

TERRIBLE!!! Don’t do business with this company. It has incompetent service people and shoddy business practices.
Recently, I used this outfit as it is a certified Unico dealer. The repairman did not know what he was doing. Called someone for advise 3 times. Finally, he told me the heater unit was bad and needed to be replaced. He quoted me a price of $ 1625.00 to replace. I was charged $ 128.00 for the service call.
Since the unit wasn’t very old and had very little use, I got a second opinion from Premier. Within 5 minutes he told me that an internal fuse was blown. A simple and inexpensive fix. He also recommended a simple improvement to the system that I accepted.
I advised DD about this. Today, I received $ 49.00 check. The company’s incompressible letter said: Since you called DD you are responsible for the $ 79.00 service charge.” No explanation, no apology, no nothing.
BEWARE

We had such a HORRIBLE experience with our last heating & cooling company that I’ve become totally jaded about selecting companies, so I put out a call on Facebook for local friends to give the names of HVAC companies they would recommend. Dawson Dodd won, hands-​down, with the most endorsements from people we trust. We already had an appointment scheduled with another company that charged a $ 95 service fee, so we quickly cancelled it and went with Dawson Dodd. (This was several weeks ago, at the most miserable height of the St. Louis heat.)
I came home from work to find the A/​C running again, and the total bill was only $ 79. Yep — only $ 79, which is the charge of their service call. The repair was an easy fix so it was covered under the service fee. Dawson Dodd also offers an annual service plan, and I was so impressed by the ease with which they fixed our A/​C (they could have told us anything at that point — all we wanted was to be cool) that we will probably sign up to have them come out yearly for maintenance. I want to believe that most businesses are honest and competent, but I’ve been burned enough times that I have learned to be realistic. I think this company is a winner though… they came highly recommended, and so far, they have lived up to their reputation.

We’ve used Dawson & Dodd a handful of times for both our a/​c and boiler. In general, I feel really confident they know their stuff, but it totally depends on who they send out. Most recently they were out to fix my a/​c that went out and the serviceman told me it was an electrical issue and not the a/​c. He recommended an electrician who was able to come out and fix the wiring problem (there was indeed a problem), but the a/​c still wasn’t working. So I called back and they sent someone else out. Turns out the capacitor was bad and had to be replaced. Why the first guy didn’t tell me this is beyond me. Either way it was fixed relatively quickly.
I do find it really annoying that they charge $ 79 just for coming out. Even if they don’t do a single thing you still get billed. Maybe this is standard, I don’t really know, but it seems like a major rip off. For a new capacitor, refrigerant, and service time the total bill was a little over $ 300. I probably could have found someone to do it cheaper, but it didn’t seem completely outrageous to me. Every time I’ve called they are able to come out fairly quickly, so that’s a plus.