James Mechanical

My wife and I just bought a house, and during the inspection period we discovered that the furnace was not operating consistently. Sometimes it would come on, and sometimes it wouldn’t. So we negotiated with the sellers to have the furnace serviced by an HVAC certified technician. They hired James.
Before close of escrow, we were assured that the furnace was fully operational, and we were shown a receipt for the work that James had done.
On the day escrow closed, and we received the keys, we entered the house, which was freezing cold because the previous owners weren’t using the heat, and we turned on the furnace. Within minutes there were explosive sounds coming from somewhere in the house — it was hard to tell exactly from where. But the sound was terrifying. It sounded as if someone upstairs was slamming a heavy door shut. The sound happened every 20 – 30 minutes for the next few hours, until we were able to pinpoint the sound as coming from the furnace. We immediately turned the furnace off and spent the night in an increasingly colder and colder house.
I contacted James and he agreed to come look at the furnace. When he arrived, he was able to pinpoint the issue to a burner that wasn’t lighting smoothly like the rest, but was instead building up gas pressure until it would explode into ignition. James almost lost an eyebrow during one explosive outburst. He said that he would send me an estimate to replace the burner. I said that he had been hired by the prior owners to get the furnace running consistently, and it wasn’t. Approximately 6 days later, after having to leave numerous voice-​mails and sending him multiple emails prodding him to respond, James sent us an estimate. He wanted $ 1,200 to replace the one burner, or $ 2,500 to replace the entire furnace.
We were at the house the next weekend and, in light of a $ 1,200 bid to repair a furnace the previous owners were suppose to have hired James to bring into working order as of the day we took possession (but which instead was exploding as of the day we took possession), I took a stab at getting it up and running myself. After a few dozen you-​tube videos and about 45 minutes of effort I was able to clean all of the burners and the furnace began working perfectly — and has been working now for the last 3 weeks.
After I was able to repair the furnace by simply cleaning the burners, I emailed James to ask if he didn’t have the requisite knowledge to service older units, or if he was trying to up-​sell us on a new furnace, or a bit of both. I wanted him to explain why was a total novice (me) was able to get the furnace operating in 45 minutes, when a professional wanted to charge me $ 1200 to do the same job? I wanted him to explain why, according to multiple professional HVAC discussion groups, standard service on an older unit is to clean the burners, which he clearly hadn’t done, and that such service should cost between $ 150 – 300 at most. I wanted to know why he hadn’t just cleaned the burner on the day he came to diagnose the exploding issue — a job which would’ve probably taken a knowledgeable HVAC technician 15 – 30 minutes at most (it took me about 45 minutes, and I had no prior experience working on furnaces).
James claimed that the furnace had been working, and that the explosions were only a problem which arose after he had done his repair work. I was calm, and friendly in my demeanor, but I wanted James to know that, between the time that he had done his repair work and the time we took possession, only one week had elapsed and the furnace was not in use during that time. So, the only time that the furnace was operating properly after he did his work, was for the very short period of time that he ran the furnace after his repair work was done. Once we turned on the furnace on the day escrow closed, about one week later, after not having been used that entire time, the furnace started exploding. This means that, as far as we were concerned, James never got the furnace working properly. I don’t think anyone would argue that an exploding furnace is not a properly working furnace.
James never responded to that email, which I sent after I had been able to get the furnace working. He never offered any further explanation, no apology, nothing. Radio silence from James.
This was very disappointing work for an HVAC certified repair man specifically hired to make our furnace operational, and it was extremely disappointing customer service from someone who appears to have otherwise excellent Unilocal reviews.
I advise that you beware of the up-​sell with James, as, at least with us, that seems to be his main agenda.

Our old gravity heater was declared unusable by PG&E, just days before Thanksgiving, and we had guest coming in the next few days. We contacted a few repair shops, most of whom wanted to wait to review or just didn’t return my call. James answered right away and came over within a couple of hours. He quickly assessed the work, made his recommendation on placement, per our needs and made some calls to get the right people on the job. James’ quick assessment and level if professionalism got us up and running in 2 days. I would definitely recommend him. By the way, he also left my place cleaner that when he came, that is also a big plus.

We also hired James to replace our 1947 gravity furnace and him and his incredibly hard-​working crew came and got the job done in a few hard-​working days. I found them to be very clean, efficient and James was always there to answer all our million questions. In addition, he found that he had to move a gas line to make it all work and he did this as part of the job with minimal extra cost in addition to taking down some old electrical lines etc. We are very happy with the service we received as we have had other work done and we realise now that it is hard to find good people. Once installed, we found that some of the vents did not push out as much heat as the others so he come over, assessed and his guys came around the next day and fixed it immediately– we are really pleased with this type of customer service. We highly recommend James when considering a furnace replacement/​repair. Very professional, clean, honest, always willing to satisfy the customer, answer questions and he even said he will come back in a year and replace the filter for us. Thanks James and your guys for our warm house before our baby arrives!

We hired James to replace our 70 year-​old gravity furnace with a 95% efficiency forced-​air furnace. He worked with us to relocate it to the best spot in the house and was up-​front about all the new PVC piping, water discharge, and electrical that was required by the high-​efficiency type of furnace. Although it took longer to install the ducting, the furnace, and all the duct-​work insulation than I’d expected (three whole days to install once the old ducting was removed), it wasn’t like they were slacking off. Quite the opposite — they worked almost non-​stop from 8AM — 5PM each day. The new system, ducting included, looks great, works great, and we couldn’t be more pleased.
James is very professional, very knowledgeable, and does everything by the book for a very reasonable price. We would definitely hire him again and highly recommend him.

It was time to replace the original 1921 furnace in my home. I got multiple bids on a new high efficiency furnace, and James came in as the best price by far. His work is top notch, he is very professional and a great communicator when it comes to options or choices in the install. He went well out of his way to assure I was a happy customer (he even threw in some joist repairs a previous repair person botched).
In a word AWESOME!!! I highly recommend him.

James came out today and fixed a heater that wasn’t working. He was able to get it started. James looks very young but don’t let that fool you. His father taught him the business and he is very experienced, knowledgeable and professional. He has been licensed for approximately 8 years now. I find him to be very efficient and when he had to replace parts, he didn’t make a big production so I never feel overcharged. Also, he arrives on time.