Original review: June 23, 2020

The air condition in the upstairs of my house was put in in July of 2018, but we've constantly had an issue with it. The unit is in a closet right above my kitchen and it has a PVC line that goes from the pan that catches all the condensation from our AC and goes into the sewer system. We have a device that the AC people had put on those pipes. If the line would ever get clogged up, it automatically shuts off our air condition, so that it doesn't continue to overflow the pan and keep coming down to the kitchen. Each year or twice a year, whenever it's really hot or it's raining a whole lot, the air condition pan would leak into the ceiling of our kitchen.

I've already fixed the ceiling twice and every time we call, we have an air condition man come out, which was never L & W (the company that installed the air condition to begin with). Whenever they would come out, they'd mess with the PVC pipes. The last person that had been here was a very nice man from Lanier Air Condition and Heating. He said he didn't how they had the drain line hooked up there and that something was not right with it. He adjusted it and blew it out to make sure that it was clear. The Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, my air conditioner started leaking into my kitchen again. To me, it seemed that the plumbing must've been backed up but what was happening was that the device that was supposed to automatically shut off our air condition didn't stop it.

I went to the cleanout that's closest to my house, and when I opened that up, I saw that the water was clogged up all the way to the top. It wasn't draining, so we turned off the air condition manually and then I put in a call to American Home Shield saying that I had a stoppage. Strong River came out really quickly on Friday and the man that came, Mr. **, told me that he didn't know why my air condition was leaking. It was supposed to be Strong River Air Condition, AC and Heating, so I was under the impression that they were not only plumbers but they were AC people also. To me, it wasn't like my air condition was malfunctioning. I was thinking it was all part of this blocked sewer line.

When they started checking things out, they realized that the second cleanout was clogged up. It's near my property line that hooks the sewer line into the city sewage. We needed to get the city to come and use their Roto-Rooter thing or whatever they've got on a big truck to clean out the line that enters my sewer line into the city sewer line. With the pandemic and everything, the city was already closed. It was after 12 o'clock and nobody was going to be there on the weekend or on Monday. On Tuesday morning, after I had left several messages, I just went to our city hall and told them I was having this issue. They said that the machine that they use to clean that out was broken and they didn't know when the part was coming in to fix it.

There wasn't anything Strong River could do to help me until the city sewer line was unclogged. The city did come out though and just used what they call a rod. It wasn't going to cure the problem, but it was going to help alleviate some of the water in the sewer line. Finally, a week or so later, the city got the machine fixed, and they came out and cleared the line. Everything was cleared, but then the air condition kept leaking. The water was leaking down the wall and we had to put a bucket in the return air and keep throwing the water out to be able to use the unit upstairs because that's where all our bedrooms are. It was a frustrating thing.

Mr. ** told me to call him once the city had unclogged the line, so he could come and recheck the plumbing to make sure I didn't have any other stoppages and that granted all my toilets were flushing okay and the tubs were draining all right. I wasn't having any problems with that. It was just the air condition kept leaking. I called him on that Monday after the city had gotten the line free and he said he was going out of town the following day. He could be here on Wednesday instead. I said that it would be fine and that since we've been dealing with it all this time, we would just keep the bucket.

On Tuesday however, I decided to call American Home Shield and open up a ticket on the air condition. Because if this doesn't have anything to do with the stopped up plumbing issue, there has to be something wrong with the air condition. When I told American Home Shield about the situation I was in, the person who was taking my service call over the phone was very nice. He understood what I was telling him and got everything going. I told him that I wanted Strong River to be the service people to come back out on the air condition since they've been here, and they knew what was going on with my problem. The next thing I knew was I was getting a call from Chuck with the Lanier Air Condition place.

He told me he has been to my house before and he knew what I was talking about with the air condition line, so I said maybe AHS just decided to send him instead because he has been here the last time. To make a long story short, Strong River never came back because the plumbing was clear. The guy from Lanier came and he started checking everything out. As he looked further into what was going on with the air condition, he realized that the air condition and furnace had never been installed properly on the platform. It was leaning towards the right rear and the water was then running to that side of the pan and it was leaking down the wall, in the inside of the return air.

That was why it wasn't even getting water into the drain line, so I could shut the air condition down if it started leaking. It was ridiculous. This has been going on now since they put in the new air condition in 2018 and we kept blaming it on the plumbing. He told me he could fix it for me, but he had to call it in to American Home Shield and let them know what was going on. When he called them in, they said that this was not on under any kind of guarantee because this air condition was installed two years ago. The installation problem is not American Home Shield's fault or under their guarantee.

It was so unfair. How was a layperson supposed to know that their air condition unit wasn't installed properly by the company that got sent out by American Home Shield? They have also never been the company that was called back here whenever I complained that the air condition was dripping into my kitchen. After I got a phone call from somebody from American Home Shield, I explained this whole story to that person. She said she would see what she could do and she'll get back with me. I think she was trying to get in touch with the people that installed the new air condition unit, but nobody ever called me back.

I gave them four days to get back with me and when I didn't hear from anybody, over a weekend again, I asked Chuck how much he was going to charge to fix this thing. He told me he was only charging $162 and he said he had to get it lifted up and fix the platform level. I've paid $100 every time an air condition man has come out here only to not ever fix what was really wrong with it, so I told him we would just pay for it. I wrote Chuck a check which was 173.34 and he fixed the platform, plus a big gap on the right hand side next to the wall where the platform wasn't closed up all the way. All this time, for the last two years, it has been sucking air from our attic, which causes more condensation when it's really hot, so we kept getting this leaking coming down our ceiling in the kitchen.

When Chuck was leaving, he said American Home Shield was not letting him complete the job. I said, maybe they still got the ticket open because they're trying to get L & W to pay for it. The guy that comes isn't always the person or the subcompany that's going clear the problem. Strong River had a separate plumber that was going to come here and do the plumbing. Lanier Heat and Air Condition does what they say they do and Chuck comes out and works on air conditioners. Now, L & W was another one of those things. The man that owns it had a cousin or a nephew who came to install the air condition. That guy never came and looked to see if everything was okay.

The sad part about it was when the air condition was installed, we also paid $1,000 to put a new furnace at the same time. The air condition was going out and the furnace was just as old and we figured to just pay that ourselves. When they were finished installing it, they turned it on and had it running. It was noisy, but everything seemed to be fine. However, the guy wasn't out here 20 minutes when it started leaking into our kitchen. I had his cell phone number, so I hurried up and called him back. He turned around, came back, messed with the drain line and put the safety thing back on it. We figured it was fixed, so every other time that the air conditioner leaked down into the kitchen, we've always blamed it on the plumbing.

We never thought the air condition was not installed properly, but that was evidently the problem. It has been a little nightmare, but I'm happy that they found what the right problem has been all along. This was after three different air condition companies have been here and never figuring out the problem until this last time, when Chuck looked at it again. I can't blame him for coming this time and finally realizing what was wrong, but the claim was all the way back for two years ago and money has just been flying out the window. I've paid the $100 service charge for the plumbing being backed up when it wasn't even my fault as well. It was the city's fault with their cleanout.

Also, I kept thinking that the safety feature device that was supposed to turn my air condition off if my plumbing was ever backed up again never worked, but it never was going to work because my line wasn't clogged up. That device was put in when our air conditioning was leaking down into my kitchen really bad one time. I knew it was going to take a few days before we got anybody from American Home Shield who would come and work on the air condition, so I paid a local company not contracted with AHS. The man that came flushed out my unit because at the same time my plumbing was backed up. He flushed that drain line then he started me out with that safety feature on it.

Every house that we've ever had, we've had American Home Shield as our warranty. I'm used to all the phone calls, the holding and all that sort of thing, but I don't think we should have had to pay for this. I've been a customer of American Home Shield for over 30 years and most of the time, it's satisfactory. It takes a little battling sometimes though. I've had a bad situation with the stove in my kitchen and that went on forever. That was when Sears used to do the claims and I've had issues with them when they came here. A man had come out for our stove, because the oven wasn't coming on.

He diagnosed it as being a bad thermostat and when checking on the part, he said that it was no longer available. He then charged American Home Shield $190 something for doing absolutely nothing. I knew a lot about kitchen appliances because I worked for 15 years for my dad's service company and after looking online to see if I could find a replacement part, I found that there was a replacement for the thermostat. I went and bought it myself, but then the guy from Sears refused to install it because it wasn't their part. I have a $5,000 JennAir 48-inch range with the six burners and double ovens. With the part not being available, American Home Shield was only going to give me 600 to buy a new gas range.

The new gas range to put in the place of the one that I have now costs about $8,000. I ended up getting a whole other company, Stringer, to come and diagnose the unit. The issue ended up being the igniter was gone and not the thermostat. Also, the igniter that had been replaced on my stove by a prior Sears serviceman was not the right voltage to begin with. That was why my oven took forever to pre-heat and it finally went out. Stringer replaced it with the correct part, so my $5,000 stove is just working fine. However, I paid $400 for a thermostat which my stove didn't need. It also took so long trying to get somebody to install it for me that when I wanted to return it, I had to do a restocking fee.

The claim went on for at least a month. Did I have problems? Yup, I had problems with that, but I have my stove and I didn't have to spend $7,000 to replace what I had already. I was just out a few hundred dollars because American Home Shield ended up paying for the bill, which wasn't bad at all. With another claim, I think that the igniter was out on my dryer and I don't think it was the motor, but that same man from Sears condemned my dryer, which caused us to have to go buy a new one and you only get a certain amount of money to replace the dryer. We then had to chip in the balance of it as well. All in all, American Home Shield tries to rectify and keep customers happy, but with some of the things that have happened, I'm not completely satisfied.

I stay with American Home Shield because I live in an antebellum home. We have renovated it and put all new appliances in 11 years ago, but it's still an old house and things go out. My husband and I are into our late 60s now and I don't work anymore. He still works, but we don't have available funds to be able to have to replace a dishwasher, a stove or other different appliances like that, especially the air condition. We have a large air condition unit for the downstairs in our house (the upstairs unit was the one that we have had the issues with the leaking), and they have replaced it twice. If we would have had to pay for that air condition unit out of pocket, I'd much rather pay $600 as an insurance policy. We're also not that handy. There are a lot of things that might go wrong here and we need somebody to come and help us repair it.