Best HVAC company in Des Moines/Ames Area

[DSMCy]

I live in an old home with boiler heat and ACs. I think Bell installed the boilers and the AC units some years ago before I bought the house, and I used them for a number of years for small stuff. This summer they came out when an AC unit went on the fritz, quoted about $1,000 to fix and also pitched a complete overhaul of the system.

Had another guy out, he said all you need is a new capacitor, it's a $20 part, I have one on my truck, and the AC was back up in 5 min for about $100.

Just one recent experience with Bell Brothers.

I had almost the exact same experience with Bell Brothers about 8 years go.
I had a regular forced air system, not boiler. During a regular tune up the tech told me the system "wouldn't turn on and had to be replaced".
Called another company and I don't remember what the issue was but it was extremely minor.

Told Bell Brothers I wasn't paying and disputed the charge on my credit card haha

 

[RollClones14]

I had a great experience with True Comfort replacing HVAC system. But like everyone else says, get multiple bids. True comfort was a smaller family run company, but had a great price and a good warranty. Owner is in the field doing the quotes and reachable for questions at anytime, which I appreciated.

 

[JM4CY]

If you can find a guy who works for one of the bigger dogs but will moonlight for you, that is the ticket, my friend. Ask around, these people can be easier to find than you think. You will save thousands but might have to pay cash.

 

[jsb]

I had a great experience with True Comfort replacing HVAC system. But like everyone else says, get multiple bids. True comfort was a smaller family run company, but had a great price and a good warranty. Owner is in the field doing the quotes and reachable for questions at anytime, which I appreciated.

Thanks for this. Last week when it was hot out my 5 year old air conditioner wouldn't turn on. I had Golden Rule come out and they looked at it and said the mother board on my furnace needed replacing and my fan motor on my furnace was going bad. The mother board would cost a couple thousand to replace and then the fan motor was go out at some point. He basically left me with no option but to replace the furnace. Which made some sense because it is old.

Since it wasn't an emergency, I figured I'd get a few quotes. True Comfort came out and said it was my thermostat. Replaced my thermostat and everything seems to be working. My furnace is still going to need replacing at some point relatively soon (or at the very least the fan motor will need replaced).

But maybe I can get another year out of it. And at the very least, Golden Rule never mentioned the thermostat as an issue so it makes me think they were definitely angling for the replacement.

 

[ClonerJams]

Thanks for this. Last week when it was hot out my 5 year old air conditioner wouldn't turn on. I had Golden Rule come out and they looked at it and said the mother board on my furnace needed replacing and my fan motor on my furnace was going bad. The mother board would cost a couple thousand to replace and then the fan motor was go out at some point. He basically left me with no option but to replace the furnace. Which made some sense because it is old.

Since it wasn't an emergency, I figured I'd get a few quotes. True Comfort came out and said it was my thermostat. Replaced my thermostat and everything seems to be working. My furnace is still going to need replacing at some point relatively soon (or at the very least the fan motor will need replaced).

But maybe I can get another year out of it. And at the very least, Golden Rule never mentioned the thermostat as an issue so it makes me think they were definitely angling for the replacement.

I have not heard good things about Golden Rule

 

[NWICY]

Thanks for this. Last week when it was hot out my 5 year old air conditioner wouldn't turn on. I had Golden Rule come out and they looked at it and said the mother board on my furnace needed replacing and my fan motor on my furnace was going bad. The mother board would cost a couple thousand to replace and then the fan motor was go out at some point. He basically left me with no option but to replace the furnace. Which made some sense because it is old.

Since it wasn't an emergency, I figured I'd get a few quotes. True Comfort came out and said it was my thermostat. Replaced my thermostat and everything seems to be working. My furnace is still going to need replacing at some point relatively soon (or at the very least the fan motor will need replaced).

But maybe I can get another year out of it. And at the very least, Golden Rule never mentioned the thermostat as an issue so it makes me think they were definitely angling for the replacement.

My 2 cents that you're not asking for, I'd move True Comfort to the top of my list. Sure on a full replacement get quotes but up front honesty is a good start.

 

[jsb]

I have not heard good things about Golden Rule

I haven't had terrible experiences with them, but not great ones either.

My 2 cents that you're not asking for, I'd move True Comfort to the top of my list. Sure on a full replacement get quotes but up front honesty is a good start.

Agreed, they'll be the first that I call. I have never been able to find an HVAC/Plumbing/etc place that I feel real good about. So I've kind of picked random ones over the years. And it would be nice to have a place that I can use consistently. From what I gather, they are fairly new.

 

[cyfan92]

Greens has gone downhill since they sold out to shall.. Nice techs but average service now

 

[RollClones14]

Thanks for this. Last week when it was hot out my 5 year old air conditioner wouldn't turn on. I had Golden Rule come out and they looked at it and said the mother board on my furnace needed replacing and my fan motor on my furnace was going bad. The mother board would cost a couple thousand to replace and then the fan motor was go out at some point. He basically left me with no option but to replace the furnace. Which made some sense because it is old.

Since it wasn't an emergency, I figured I'd get a few quotes. True Comfort came out and said it was my thermostat. Replaced my thermostat and everything seems to be working. My furnace is still going to need replacing at some point relatively soon (or at the very least the fan motor will need replaced).

But maybe I can get another year out of it. And at the very least, Golden Rule never mentioned the thermostat as an issue so it makes me think they were definitely angling for the replacement.

Glad you got good service too - I just appreciate a company that wants to actually help solve the problem rather than walk in looking for the biggest sale they can make.

 

[jsb]

Glad you got good service too - I just appreciate a company that wants to actually help solve the problem rather than walk in looking for the biggest sale they can make.

And to be perfectly honest, I was practically begging for a new furnace. When I called I said I was looking for an estimate for a replacement. When the tech came I said I was pretty sure I was looking at replacing. When he told me it was the thermostat, I said “you probably think I should replace, right?”

They earned a ton of good will from me today and like I said in another post they’ll be the first ones I call the next time.

 

[NoCreativity]

Golden Rule is a total ripoff, charged me $2500 for 45 minutes of labor. If you have an older furnace they'll have zero interest in fixing anything, just selling you a new one which you'll be paying off for the next 15 years which is about the life span of them now. With interest you'll probably end up paying them and the bank about 25 grand for a 3-4 thousand dollar piece of equipment.

I suspect they fake their reviews also, on Yelp they have a 1.8/5 but on Google I think it's 4.8/5.

 

[Tailg8er]

Golden Rule is a total ripoff, charged me $2500 for 45 minutes of labor. If you have an older furnace they'll have zero interest in fixing anything, just selling you a new one which you'll be paying off for the next 15 years which is about the life span of them now. With interest you'll probably end up paying them and the bank about 25 grand for a 3-4 thousand dollar piece of equipment.

I suspect they fake their reviews also, on Yelp they have a 1.8/5 but on Google I think it's 4.8/5.

I stopped using Golden Rule when they said we should replace the furnace in our 5 year old house. Nothing wrong with it, just said we should get a new one that was a couple % more efficient.

 

[CYdTracked]

Avoid Golden Rule unless you like paying 50% to twice as much more than the average company you could use instead. They are snake oil salesmen, they use "upfront flat cost pricing" or whatever they call it now to make you feel like if they get into the project and its a bigger mess than they originally thought then the additional expense will be on them. But in reality is what they are quoting you is far more than it should be to do that job and on top of that have a reputation of overpricing a repair in order to suck you into going all in on replacement. I won't even bother letting them in my house, got scammed on a drain repair once but I was in a pinch at the time and needed it fixed that day. Had them out to look at an issue with my tankless hot water heater and at least that tech was kind enough to tell me to go buy the online that was less than $50 and replace it myself because if they did it I'd be out several hundred dollars.

I use Service Legends for my HVAC and I assume they are probably a little on the higher end too but I've had nothing but great experience with their service and not trying to oversell me on stuff. I will probably bid out the next time I have to do a full replacement which hopefully is not anytime soon as the furnace is 11 years old and AC 6 years so as long as they are covered under the service plan I have with them going to keep that until it's time to do a complete replacement.

Used Bell Brothers for the first time ever earlier this year which wound up with them replacing my tankless hot water heater which I was pretty certain before calling them was going to be the case. I usually use a friend that owns his own plumbing company but he was booked out at least a month with some new builds that he was contracted for. Ran their price by him and he thought they were in line for what he probably would have charged for the same job. They did try to upsell me on a whole house water filter system which I already have one but the tech said mine was not good enough. Called his BS on that, it's the same filtering system my plumber uses in his own home and it's not the cheap one you would buy at a big box store. Was also having an issue with my water softener at the time too and he didn't really troubleshoot it much and told me it was probably shot and needed replaced. After searching Google/YouTube for the issue I had (too much water in the tank that was not draining) bought a $5 seal and took apart and cleaned out some parts that commonly could cause the issue and it discharged the water when I ran a regeneration cycle on it so it didn't need to be replaced. Pretty sure the tech just didn't want to bother with it after spending multiple hours replacing the tankless water heater so it gave me a mostly positive experience with them but also those 2 other things annoyed me a bit too so will see if I try them again down the road.

 

[cyphoon]

I just had a Mitsubishi mini split installed in our new sunroom by Dayton HVAC. Pretty happy with them.

Have had some maintenance done by Baker Heating and Cooling and he also seemed good. Good option if you are west of the metro.

Not a fan of Schaal. They did good work, but

1- Their techs double as high pressure salesman while they are working. They will push everything from duct cleaning to surge suppressors

2- I got a quote from Schaal to do the mini split, and they spec'ed a 24,000 BTU unit for our 350 sq ft sunroom. 24,000 BTU = 2 tons. That is normally enough for a small ranch house. I questioned their calc and they insisted that the heating demand required it. It didn't matter to them that I am also installing a 40,000 BTU wood burning stove for ambiance and to backup the mini split on super cold days.

I did my own calc using a website that allowed me to input the windows, doors, flooring insulation, attic insulation, and which sides of the room were exposed to the outside. It calculated a 9000 BTU cooling load and 13000 heating load.

That is when I reached out to Dayton. They told me 24,000 BTU was way too big for that room. They took the specs from the Schaal unit and found that its min cooling capacity is 5000 BTU, which means it would be shortcycling on humid day in the low 80s. They recommended a 12,000 BTU Mitsubishi unit that can drop all the way down to a min of 2,000 BTU. It can heat up to 15,000 BTU with an outside temp as low as -13 degrees.

Neither of my preferred companies have ever tried to sell sell me something I didn't need.

H

 

[cycloneworld]

Anyone have reasonably priced and reliable companies to swap out a water heater. Mine still works but can tell it’s starting to go and don’t want to wait for an emergency to replace it. Thought about just going through Lowe’s or Home Depot but thought I’d ask for recommendations first.

We used Holt for a burst pipe during the cold snap in Feb and they quoted like $4k or something stupid for a basic gas replacement.