Rubino Service Co

Replaced a part of my furnace, didn’t finish screwing it back together. A year later the part has vibrated open and they «No longer cover it». Had another company come out to do the 5min fix. Wish I’d known!

After an absolutely horrible customer service experience, I would not recommend Rubino as an HVAC company to anyone. Customer service is what makes or breaks a company, and in Rubino’s case you should run far, far away.
We were loyal customers for two years, we even referred three of our neighbors to do their oil to gas conversions with Rubino, and then we were subject to the worst customer service I’ve ever encountered.
For the backstory, we asked Rubino to service two furnaces, which cost $ 200. The tech found that there was something wrong with the first furnace, but said that it would cost an additional $ 200 – 400 to find out what was wrong. On the second furnace, he found that a battery tested low and refused to finish servicing the furnace unless I paid $ 65 for a replacement. I then had another company come out who were able to investigate and find the fault in the first furnace and service the second furnace, all for only $ 100. We were unhappy with having to spend extra to do what we felt Rubino should have, but we chalked it up to a fluke.
Then we asked Rubino about a condensate pump which suddenly became loud to the point where we could hear it throughout the entire house. Scheduling the service call, we were told it would be covered under warranty. A tech came out, glanced at it for a second, said «It’s supposed to be this loud», and left charging us $ 90 for the service call.
We were shopping for two new HVAC systems at the time, so we mentioned these recent incidents to our sales rep, who said he would credit us these service calls.
We decided to go with a different HVAC option, which Rubino didn’t offer.
I then received a call from a Rubino representative who was incredibly rude, chewing me out for not paying for the service calls. He badgered me from start to finish, accused me of being a lair and a thief, talked over me while not letting me get a word in edge wise, and was screaming at me over the phone despite me never raising my voice. No one, no matter what they did, deserved that kind of verbal abuse, let alone a loyal customer of a service company.
We called to politely complain, explaining the situation, and the woman we spoke with instantly knew who the rep was that had called us to chew us out. She said she would pass along our complaint to Angela Rubino Hines, the owner.
Angela called us back the next day and basically berated us some more. She was confrontational from the start, never apologized for her employees behavior, and made it out to be all our fault. This is not how you should deal with any customers, let alone loyal customers who’ve been with you for years.

Our heater suddenly stopped working and after checking everything out, we thought it might be a defective thermostat. I called Rubino at 8 am and was surprised when the answering service told me that I would get a call back in 20 minutes or less — company policy. Sure enough, in about 10 minutes, I received my call back and set up the appointment. Very impressive. The service call was set for between 2pm and 5 pm which was fine and was informed there would be an after-​hours charge since it was on Saturday — which was also ok. I received no further calls and at 5:05 pm, I called them back as no one had shown up or called. I reached the answering service and was assured that a tech would call me immediately. I did get a call from the assigned tech in 5 minutes letting me know that he was running late. He finally showed up at 7pm and got to work — like another reviewer mentioned, he wore shoe covers and was very professional. He figured out the issues (not the thermostat) and set about replacing 3 key items within the heater and had it back running smoothly. We purchased the service plan and were absolutely happy with the knowledgeable technician and the service performed. 100% great! I did rate Rubino a 4 star instead of a 5 star based on the tardiness of the tech and on not being informed that the tech would be late. On a Saturday, my time is valuable and to sit waiting for 3 hours and then have to call for a status is not good service. Ultimately, I was stuck waiting in the house from 2 pm to almost 10 pm by the time it was all resolved. If I am paying extra for an off-​hours service call to the tune of $ 110, then they should be on time or forfeit the fee when they don’t call to inform you — especially when they are 2 hours late. I understand that things happen and techs can absolutely run late — I should get a status call. In any case, the service on-​site is outstanding and we will definitely ask for the tech that did the work — he was outstanding and deserves 5 stars.

Best HVAC company in the area! Technicians show up on time and are very knowledgable and professional. Everyone at Rubino was friendly and I would highly recommend this company to anyone with AC, Heating or Plumbing needs.

Very professional service.
My furnace was leaking water when the AC was running. Customer service was very friendly. Technician showed up well within the given time frame. Fixed the problem, even showed me how to help reduce chance of future drain build up in the future. He also did something I’ve never seen, he wore shoe covers while walking in my home. I have hard wood floors, and normally even if a tech wipes their feet on the front mat, they always drag something in messing up my floor. Not this time!
Will be using this company again for any future HVAC needs.

Last year I researched multiple vendors to replace my heating and air conditioning systems and after interviews and pricing selected Rubino. The trouble started within a week of turning on my air conditioning for the first time when the condensation drain backed up and flooded my basement. When I called them out to fix it they told me the problem was it «should never have been installed that way» since the newer systems create more moisture and the right way to install it was to run the drain out the back of the house or install a $ 500 – 800 sump pump. When I told them they DID install it that way they assured me that was because they thought that is what I wanted– not sure why they thought that because I really did NOT want my basement flooded and I am not an AC expert. After much wrangling with Angela Hines (the owner) she finally agreed to run the drain properly at no charge and cut me a check for $ 200 towards the water damage in my basement. The drain was installed but they never sent a check– I let it go since I really did not want to have another conversation with them since they are so rude and unpleasant. The rest of the season ran smoothly and there were no problems during the winter. Imagine my surprise when I turned on my AC this summer and it slowly stopped working and… water started pooling under the unit. I placed an emergency call (memorial day weekend of course) and spoke to an operator who sent out a repair man. Anthony showed up with a lousy attitude and began questioning me on how the system was installed– again not sure why the company I paid to install the system would ask me technical questions– if I knew how to install HVAC I wouldn’t need them. After about 20 minutes of his rudeness I asked him to leave and called the operator again. She had the dispatcher call me back who told me that the only thing they could do was have someone call me on Tuesday when the office opened again. I said that was not acceptable and asked for a manager– and she assured me that she had no way to contact a manager– all she did was take calls from the operator and send the call to the technician– basically take it or leave it. I agreed to let Anthony come back and 2 hours later he determined it was too dark to do anything so he would have to come back the next day. At 2pm on Saturday he showed up and after another hour of cutting holes in pipes and tromping in and out of the basement he told me that the charge was low and that caused the system to freeze up and that is why there was water– he also informed me if I had scheduled my seasonal maintenance on time this wouldn’t have happened (my fault again). He was able to remedy the problem in 15 minutes. The last straw was today however when Rubino showed up to do the seasonal maintenance– and I told them that I did not think the upstairs was getting as cool as it should. The answer to that was mind boggling– it seems that the ducts running to the upstairs are 5″ which he claims is small and that I had 2 options– tear out walls and replace duct work or implement a multi zone system. He explained the multi zone system and imagine how surprised I was to learn it would cost another $ 3500 – 5000! When I asked him why this wasn’t done initially– since I would expect the labor cost would have been less since they were already onsite doing the install. His response was «well did you ask for it?». Once again its MY fault for not being an HVAC engineer. Based on my experience I cannot tell if Rubino Service is just incompetent or deliberately choose to deliver service in this way in hopes of making more money by creating multiple installations. After talking to their competition about maintenance contracts for next year I did learn just by describing the symptoms of the failure I had on Memorial Day they would have checked the charge first– so I definitely think there is some level of incompetence. Add to that the rudeness from every person I have spoken with from dispatcher, tech, to the owner and I guess it really doesn’t matter– these are not people I will choose to do business with in the future. Once my service contract is up I will be going to the competition for the next year as well as exploring the option of putting in zones. Take my advice– don’t buy from Rubino– you will save a few dollars upfront and pay for it in the end.