What to do? Bad experience with air conditioning service.

[Cindy83]

Coz the moderator sounds like im here to advertise or wat.. Actualy im not familiar with the rules... Care to explain more?

[Angelina88]

Dear all

I called the Sky Blue aircon to service one of the unit during January. First they went outside and dun know what they did with the condenser. Then, they just took out the 2 pieces of filter & washed it then wipe the surface of the aircon with the cloth. (They did not dismantle the fan coil and clean it) After that they told me the aircon not cold and need gas top up. I did not agreed as the aircon coolness is fine. They even use my bathroom to drain their vaccum cleaner (work from others, they never use it in my unit) without my permission!

After 1 week, the aircon is blowing "warm air". So I contacted another aircon service, they told me Sky Blue is very famous for asking clients to top up gas as they earn commissions from that.

I called Gain City. They checked & show me that the gas volume was zero and the meter even showed negative! They said more likely is a gas leak but i still asked them to top up to full. That cost me $100.

Within a month the aircon is not so cool again so I called Gain City to do a check. Now they said will send a experienced senior technician. The technician checked with a meter and found the gas had already fallen to only 20cc. He concluded there is a gas leak in piping. He suggested replacing the whole system 3 unit. He only charged $10 for transport.

It is a 10 year old system 3 unit. The gas leaking unit is quite heavily use like 16 to 18 hours a day during weekdays and non stop from Friday afternoon to Monday morning for the pass 1 year as it is occupied by a student. The other 2 units is like brand new as seldom use. I cannot replaced just 1 unit as there is no more space for another single unit condensor.

The technician said new system 3 unit will cost $3000 to $4000.

Please feel free to comment! I am really lost


Thank you so much for your help!

[ecureilx]

Thank you so much for your help!

My 2 cents, with some experience having worked as apprentice for Aircon systems

Split aircons can have leaks, either by bad installation, bad repair, or a repair that went wrong, like a broken flange or nut and the technician decided to keep quite, or plain simply, insufficient training.

And, from the condenser to the evaporator and the return all are copper tubing, and there are joints at the condenser side and the evaporator end, meaning, flanges and such, and a wrongly threaded flange can leak

if the initial installer had left spare tubing for maintenance, the repair team can slice off a bit and re-flange it. If there is none left, then the only option is to replace the whole tubing.

And, once you have a leak, it is hard to trace, unless the contractor has the detector kit, and the tubing is accessible - which is not the case in apartments and condos.

The above doesn't happen, if you use a window type/casement type, as there is no external tubing / joints etc to go wrong

And if your aircon is 10 years old, my 2 cents says, replace it - than spend money on repair.

And a new unit, will save electricity, and with the new unit, you get cleaner air as well. And you may be saving upto 30% on electricity, compared to an old unit. Invertor units do that, and also add Ionisation for better air quality.

[Jus to share]

OMG, i was wondering whether anyone had the same experience with Sky Blue. we didn't sign a contract with them, but knew it was time for an aircon service and called Sky Blue. They told us the same exact issue, that they all needed chemical treatment and to be regassed it was going to cost $1500 for the 5 aircons. I agreed to 2 of them, the ones with the most usage being done and with their servicing of all the others I paid $900 all up.

A few weeks later, I was told by others in our condo thet were told the same thing and people have been paying upwards of $1000 with them. Our condo is only about 2-3 years old, so why all the aircons need such serious treatment.

About 2 months after above treatment, one of the aircons chemically treated broke down and the other one also chemically treated started leaking a few weeks after. They came out to take a look again as they were still under service warranty and told me they needed another clean (and another payment). I refused. They then said the one which had broken down needed a new computer board at a cost of $1200. I kicked them out of the apartment, rang our landlord who put us onto another company to come and take a look as to why they were leaking and not working. Both were fixed quickly at a cost to our landllord who covered it given the prior problems at $80, no new board needed.

On top of that Sky Blue stuck their stickers all over our aircons both inside the apartment and on the outside units without asking. They also spam our condo with flyers weekly.

Avoid them at all cost (literally).

===============================================


Jus to inform Sky Blue change name to Genius Aircon Engineering. (hd check ACRA) I jus got CON. saw their flyer n too late after paid them a few hundred n got poor n cheating n scheming services fm them. Problem still not resolved. They use 2nd hand item to repair air con n charge new. Prentend to chk n say air con spoilt again and again to ask more repair cost or quote sky high price for new system. Tech is lousy, don kno how to change par n repair too.
The boss Ong act friendly and helpful and fast to send his man back to repair. The staff consist of Malaysian tech. but quote sky high price. no guaranteed of svc n parts even though they claim they value service first. The receptionist woman is also fake japanese Kay, also wife of Ong, who is actually sporean or malaysian with poor english. located at ang mo kio.
saw her use jap name to reply to another complaint in other website saying their service is good. they even hv facebook etc in their webpage now. (all staff fm sky blue to Genius aircon engineering, jus registered in mar 2012)

Mkt practise will refund if parts not working or contra out if buy new system fm them. but Genius don't. They charge double than mkt price for repair n use 2nd hand part etc.
Always get 2 or 3 repair man to find out if the techis telling the truth n i can get referral tech . don use flyer or newspaper ad.

I was also con by Focus (plumbing hv many branch, actually work fm home line), who place big ad n hd very rude(use vulgar words) n lousy repair job. I mange to get the newspaper mgr to ask them to repair it back properly.

Stress to deal with cunning people around.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Yeap, Thanks for that Jus to share. I've had a look-see and they seem to be one and the same and new company is residing at the same location in the AMK Industrial park as the former, which may have moved to another location.

SKY BLUE AIRCON ENGINEERING may or May not be GENIUS AIRCON ENGINEERING

Their new site also had a Daiken service "Certificate of Attendance" on display for a Mr. Lai Mang Loon (under the name of Sky Blue Aircon Engineering) Interesting it's only a certificate of attendance. Mr. Lai was a former employer at Sky Blue. As the whole setup looks suspect I can only say......

BUYER BE CAREFUL

Edited on 23 November 2013 to reflect the complaint by Ombudsman7 "claim"

[davidcf]

I've been cheated a few times. How do I report these dishonest people?

[Smilla1978]

I have used Anson three times and have been happy with his work. He is very friendly and pleasant. He did charge us $180 for a chemical clean, which sounds like it was a rip off? Plus he is always really late. Sometimes it doesn't matter but sometimes it's caused us problems.

Are late air-con guys just par for the course?

[singatemple]

I used a company called Vtech that was exactly the same. Every time they came over they said that another unit was going to break if we didn't spend X hundreds of dollars to replace or clean or something. Still hasn't broken 9 months later. They also said that a PC board for one unit was faulty and needed replacing. $500. So we stopped using the unit. My son didn't know about it and a few months later turns the unit on and guess what? It worked. Hasn't had any problems.

I wonder if it is because living in a condo as expats, they think they can try to get away with making more money on us. I hate to think that way but it seems to be the pattern.

I also used VTech before, same issue, they always say my aircon need chem cleaning. Did chem cleaning, but then the next visit they say my aircon is dirty and need another chem cleaning on the same unit. Didnt renew their contract after that.

[sdkks]

Classic service :mad:s . They tighten a nut, they ask 100, they replace a belt, they ask 200, they replace some fuses and say mainboard is toast, give 400. Same scam all over the world, for any house appliance. Rather go and buy a new thing...

[x9200]

Here is more because more people have no idea how to fix basic things and how the every day appliances work.

[Aragorn2000]

My A/C leaked several times into the bed rooms too. After calling the a/c service for 2 times for a total of $160 (!), I decided to buy a wet/dry vaccum cleaner (like Karcher) and drained the pipe myself.

It worked wonderfully. We have never had to call a/c service again since.

[ComingSoon]

Hi All,

I used a company from Groupon and thought I'd share my (mostly good) experience (with a warning).

At the suggestion of a neighbor we booked a company on Groupon to service 3 units for only $49. A pretty good deal, assuming that's what you actually end up paying.

Things started out rather rough. They had over 450 bookings and everyone wanted their servicing at the same time. Eventually they said they would come on July 15th. There was a whole lot of mix up and somehow they ended up coming today. Not an auspicious start, but we were happy since one of the units was leaking.

When they arrived they did a great job (as near as I could tell). They spent over 30 minutes on each unit and I felt like they really knew what they were doing.

Then it was time to work on the outside compressor (?). Suddenly things got bad. They said we were out of gas "at 0" and would have to pay $180 for a gas top up.

I remembered this thread and realized that while the gas probably is at zero, it also might be a scam. I have no way of knowing what the cost of gas should be so I told them to leave it. I'm sure if we comparison shop we can get it filled by someone for less than $180. Also, he told me that the landlord would reimburse me for the $180 to get me to agree. My landlord is really nice, but I don't see her shelling out $180 if it falls under my responsibility.

Anyway the short version of this story is that we got 3 units services for $49 on Groupon. The booking was a mess, but the actual cleaning seemed quite good. But watch out for scams. You can always pay someone else more money later when you've had a chance to comparison shop.

[Strong Eagle]

^^^^^^^

Gas at "0" is a scam unless your units are not cooling. If cold air is coming out, then freon levels are OK. And if they've disconnected the evaporator coil for chemical cleaning, then it's their responsibility to top up any freon loss.

[ComingSoon]

^^^^^^^

Gas at "0" is a scam unless your units are not cooling. If cold air is coming out, then freon levels are OK. And if they've disconnected the evaporator coil for chemical cleaning, then it's their responsibility to top up any freon loss.

Cheers for the heads up! I figured I'd be better off waiting than handing them over $180. The aircons work wonderfully now that they are so clean. He showed me the gas meter reading at zero and told me the compressor was super hot. If the gas reading said "5" I'd have been inclined to believe him but a "0" reading could mean he just didn't hook up the gas reader properly.

[justineh]

Hi All,

I used a company from Groupon and thought I'd share my (mostly good) experience (with a warning).

At the suggestion of a neighbor we booked a company on Groupon to service 3 units for only $49. A pretty good deal, assuming that's what you actually end up paying.

Things started out rather rough. They had over 450 bookings and everyone wanted their servicing at the same time. Eventually they said they would come on July 15th. There was a whole lot of mix up and somehow they ended up coming today. Not an auspicious start, but we were happy since one of the units was leaking.

When they arrived they did a great job (as near as I could tell). They spent over 30 minutes on each unit and I felt like they really knew what they were doing.

Then it was time to work on the outside compressor (?). Suddenly things got bad. They said we were out of gas "at 0" and would have to pay $180 for a gas top up.

I remembered this thread and realized that while the gas probably is at zero, it also might be a scam. I have no way of knowing what the cost of gas should be so I told them to leave it. I'm sure if we comparison shop we can get it filled by someone for less than $180. Also, he told me that the landlord would reimburse me for the $180 to get me to agree. My landlord is really nice, but I don't see her shelling out $180 if it falls under my responsibility.

Anyway the short version of this story is that we got 3 units services for $49 on Groupon. The booking was a mess, but the actual cleaning seemed quite good. But watch out for scams. You can always pay someone else more money later when you've had a chance to comparison shop.

Hi ComingSoon,

Is the company you used from the Groupon "Soon Heng Aircon Engineering"? I bought deal vouchers of their aircon servicing, but cannot reach them by phone call, sms, or email. Anyone else got such frustration?