The Andersons

Review of Schaal Heating and Cooling

Stay away from Schaal and any other larger HVAC c...

Stay away from Schaal and any other larger HVAC company.
Here are my few experiences with them.

1st 12/27/16 - I had a routine servicing at which they found a small leak with the pvc exhaust pipe which was causing condensation to form and leak into the system they called this acid rain and said its very dangerous for me and my family. It is an issue, however I feel this avenue is a this fear tactic and a rush to sell you on something this is a huge red flag. After I agreed to the fix not fully knowing what it entailed due to the danger it posed they were going to charge me over $400 to repair/replace/pvc intake . This entailed $20 worth of PVC and 20 minutes of effort. After the fact when I realized this I gave quite a bit of pushback on cost and the tech called his manager and they lowered it to $235 saying the reason for the billing was due to the operation of the business which I understand to a degree but not at a 400% increase the 235 was still a ridiculous price but just goes to show the insane markup / sales they have and that either their overhead is way to high and they are passing that cost on to the consumer or their techs get commission. Either way I don t know how you can say you have been a trusted HVAC company in the area for 70 years when you are outright overcharging people who don t know better.

2nd 7/1/19 - New estimate given on a replacing TXV valve / dryer (doesn t include refrigerant) which was causing issues with my AC unit cooling properly. The tech came back with a price tag of $1800 saying it would take approximately 4 hours to do the work. I was incredibly surprised at an estimate that would be nearly the cost of a brand new unit. This $1800 also was stated that it wasn t a guarantee on fixing the overall issue which they were only 60% confident that it would, they stated it would fix this part and if other issues arose costs could get higher, and as soon as they install the part I own it. Much like the first scenario this appears to be a fear tactic to upsell to a new unit all together making me think this fix is futile and a waste of money. The tech went out of their way to say if it s a long term solution he would consider buying a new system. My current system is 7 years old and because of my 1st experience I did a bit more research this go around to get comparable cost and what I could see online was 200 in parts and another 200 at most for labor. That puts Schaal at charging $400 / hr for their techs (which is what they were trying to charge on my last experience). I called a smaller ma and pop shop (one of those that don t need to market/advertise and they operate on word of mouth for being honest and trustworthy and asked them if they were to replace a txv valve and dryer, they gave me a quote $325 - $375. They had looked at my system and determined is was just slightly low on Freon which they said was a $40 fix and if the TXV needed replace we can explore that more expensive $300 cost later. Needless to say the low Freon was causing issues and my AC is working well with no issues and cost a fraction of Schaal s quote.

My advice if you have to deal with them Ask a lot of questions to understand what service you re getting. Ask them to break out labor and parts. As a consumer this limits your ability to compare prices and research yourself. I will commend them on their techs, they are friendly that said don t fall into that trap of having your best interest because they don t they are in a business to make money. I first hand have seen a fear tactics, timing, and now something that is so expensive and its possible it won t work you should just buy a new one. Additionally, they have wiggle room to get the price lower as mentioned with my first experience. I have seen some comments on here from the owner indicating it s not a sales environment and they pride themselves on competitive pricing in the Des Moines area. This is misleading as yes it is may be competitive when rating yourself to similar HIGH overhead / highly advertised / sales HVAC companies.