Leggett Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc

660 King St
Jacksonville, FL, 32204
904-384-2612

BUYER BEWARE!!

Think twice before calling this company for Air Conditioning service in or around the Jacksonville, FL area! DELIBERATE SABOTAGE?

Leggett charged $189 for their first visit, but did not fix the problem. They returned to our home and charged another $100, and still did not resolve the issue. They were able to charge the second visit by providing deceptive information to the homeowner and obtaining the credit card information. Leggett wanted to blame the entire issue on a defective thermostat. The thermostat was newly purchased at Home Depot, then returned for another one because Leggett suspected it was defective. Leggett was happy to offer a replacement at a whopping $185.00. Looking for someone who will actually help resolve your problem? Try Comfort Air Tech at 904-699-7139. They repaired a similar issue with our neighbor - total charge: $79.00, and they were happy to leverage the Home Depot thermostat, instead of trying to get an additional $185 out of their customer.

Total Charge from Leggett Heating and Air: $289.00, and we still don't have heat. Though we didn't have heat, the fan actually came on before the second visit. It no longer operates after Leggett's second visit and apparent sabotage.

After the first visit from Lee with Leggett. Notice the excess bare exposed wires and the lables that we placed on the wire BEFORE Lee's first visit. The install manual (which he read) explicitly states "Easy terminals do not require stripping the wire".	Before Lee's second visit. I trimmed the wires the way they should be.
After Lee's second visit. Notice how he removed all of the labels I had taken great care to use to ensure we (and other technicians) would know where to connect the wires. INEXCUSABLE. And again, he stripped them exposing far more bare wire than necessary.

Legget appears to approve of using deceptive techniques to coerce payment for incomplete work, and appears not willing to accept responsibility for thier own mistakes. Our experience is posted in reverse chronological order. If Leggett feels that any information on this website is inacccurate, we will be happy to work with them to validate and correct any inaccurate information, however we feel we have been both accurate and fair in sharing our experience.

2/16/2010 - Leggett did not return the phone call. We contacted another company to come out and troubleshoot the issue. They isolated a short in the wiring, and made the necessary repairs. Our agreement with Leggett was that we would pay for 50% of the second service call if they came out and replaced the thermostat and this fixed the problem. Since the tech that came out blew another 5 fuses after replacing the thermostat with their own, they did not fulfill their end of the agreement, nor did they isolate and repair the source of the short on their first visit as we originally thought they had. Since the office person contacted the homeowner and lied about the fuses being blown and about the roommate verifying that hot air was flowing from the vent, we disputed the charge with credit card company. Also, since ultimately Leggett provided no service and never verified that we had heat, we cancelled the check for the original service call. Since we have only incurred a $36 charge to cancel the check, we do not plan to pursue action with the BBB or State Attorney General's office, unless Leggett decides they want to attempt to collect funds for their "service call" in which they provided no service at all. Since replacing the thermostat resulted in additional fuses being blown during the 2nd service call by Leggett, it appears that after the 1st service call the system was not working properly, otherwise it would have blown a fuse at that time. We are now using the same thermostat purchased from Home Depot, and are having no problems with that thermostat at all.

2/15/2010 - At 6:14pm, I contacted Leggett once again and left a message on their voicemail. I let them know that their tech had removed all of the labels from our wires without authorization, and that I was livid, however I was willing to amicably discuss a resolution if they would return my call.

2/15/2010 - At 6:00pm, I returned home to find that Lee from Leggett sabotaged our ability to rewire a new thermostat before he left. See the before and after pictures above - we took pictures after his first arrival, prior to his second arrival, and after he left the second time. He went to the trouble to remove all of the labels from the wiring - I had done this prior to his first arrival so we would know how and where to connect the wiring to the thermostat. He even went to extra trouble to remove the "short" label that I had taped on one of the wires that was determined to be shorted. This is inexcusable. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS COMPANY! At this point, we are considering a civil lawsuit seeking not only a refund, but damages due to willful and deliberate neglect.

2/15/2010 - At 8:50, Lee showed up for the second time in 3 days to replace the thermostat. We were not home, so our roommate let him in. We left the Heat/AC circuit breakers in the OFF position. Lee looked at thermostat, realized the breakers were off and turned breakers on then tested the existing thermostat. He replaced the thermostat with one that he had brought WITHOUT turning off the breakers! He set it so the heat would come on. The inside fan came on, but after about 2 minutes (about the time the heat pump should have kicked in) the fuse blew. Per our roommate, Lee went through about 5 fuses during the duration of his visit. He left several times, went to the outside unit to check something, and returned. At NO time during this visit did our roommate verify that warm air was blowing from the vent.

I was on the phone simultaneously with Tracy at Leggett - the partner or manager of the company, I assume. I was trying to work out a resolution with her, and was not satisfied with her response, so I asked to speak with her boss. She said she did not have one. I tried reasoning with her, and explaining that if the problem was solely due to the thermostat we used, that replacing this one should resolve any issues. It did not - when the thermostat was replaced it blew a fuse. What she never seemed to grasp was that if the thermostat were the problem, a simple replacement should have fixed it. Obviously, their thermostat blew a fuse, so the initial problem was NOT resolved before the technician left on Friday, though we paid for the service call in full.

Tracy and I basically agreed to disagree, and I told her that if the technician would fix the problem, then remove their thermostat, that we would pay 1/2 of the labor for the service call. This was under the presumtion that when the technician left, the heat would be working before the thermostat was removed. My roommate never had the chance to check for warm air coming from the vent while the thermostat was on, so the issue was not resolved. However, the tech removed his thermostat, AGAIN WITHOUT REMOVING POWER AT THE BREAKER SWITCH, and went back to his truck.

I sent an email to the homeowner telling her that we had not yet verified that there was heat coming from the vent, and not to pay anything until we could verify that the job was complete and warm air was blowing through the vents. (CORRECTION, we originally stated that Tracy from Legget had contacted the homeowner. Jan is actually the individual who contacted the homeowner, not Tracy, per message from Jan on 2/15/2010 at about 1:30pm. We corrected the information, as promised.) Jan had already contacted the homeowner (instead of me, after I told her I would authorize my credit card once the job was completed) and told the homeowner that everything was working properly, and that I agreed to pay half of the labor, which was two hours. When the homeowner asked about the problem with the fuses being blown again, Jan explained that she was mistaken, and there was not a problem with the fuses, and convinced her that everything was working properly. She even stated that the roommate can verify that he felt warm air coming from the vent. This was a a bald-faced lie, the roommate never confirmed that warm air was being distributed from any vent, however Jan was able to convince the homeowner to authorize payment by credit card by decieving her.

In the meantime, the homeowner read my email and realized that she should not have authorized payment. Jan with Leggett deliberately went directly to the homeowner to obtain payment, lied about the job being completed, and lied again stating that she was mistaken about fuses being blown. The heat did not work. The roommate did not confirm that warm air was blowing. We are in the process of filing complaints with the Better Business Bureau, the State Attorney's Office, and the appropriate contractor licensing board in Florida. We feel that Leggett Heating and Air has not only been negligent (forgetting to insert the disconnect bridge and leaving the electrical box exposed to the rain), but we feel that they deceptively obtained credit card information to process a payment for work that had never been verified as completed and signed off as acceptable by the customer. We attempted to resolve this issue, however we were accused by Tracy of "trying to pull something" to get free service. All we wanted was to have our heating unit repaired. We understand that there are people out there who want something for nothing, however we are simply looking for the repair to be completed as expected. We are tired of companies who make mistakes, then want to charge the consumer to fix them. Leggett has done just that to this customer, and likely to countless others.

2/14/2010 - It was colder on this day, and I noticed that the "heat" came on, but there was cold air blowing on my leg from the vent. I contacted Leggett and left a message, the technician returned my call. We had a brief discussion, he assured me that everything was working when he left on Friday, and I agreed to try replacing the thermostat with another one and connect it up identically to see if that resolved the problem. It did not. POINT: Everything was NOT working properly when he left on Friday, because the disconnect bridge was not installed! We contacted Leggett again, and they said they would send someone out tomorrow (Monday). Since Leggett was blaming the thermostat for the problem, my discussion with Jan at Leggett was that they needed to return to the site and immediately replace the thermostat. If replacing the thermostat fixed the issue, then the problem was indeed the thermostat, and we would be responsible for the return service call and cost of the thermostat. We thought this was MORE than fair, since any issues SHOULD have already been discovered on Friday, had the disconnect been replaced, and the system been tested properly FOR WARM AIR before the technician left. It appears as though the only thing that was tested was whether or not the INSIDE fan came on. We never saw the outside fan operational.

2/13/2010 - Went outside in the daytime to check the unit again, about 4:30pm. It was warm that day, and the heat had not come on. No reason to suspect anything was wrong, but I wanted to check outside when it was light (and not raining). I saw the power bridge for the disconnect laying on top of the power box, exposed to the rain for the last 36 hours or so. I took it upstairs, wiped it down, blow dryed it to make sure there was not residual moisture, and reinstalled it. I turned on the heat then went outside to see if the external fan came on. It did not. I tried the A/C, checked the outside fan, and it did not come on. At this point, the fan (inside) still came on, so I assumed everything was working properly, even though the outside fan did not come on. I decided to wait and see if everything continuted to work before making another call to Leggett.

2/12/2010 - At approximately 6:15, Lee called back, and said we needed to check the disconnect. He explained that he may have left something not connected, and if we needed to connect it back, it would be obvious how to do it. This call was made more than 7 hours after he left the site. It had been raining all day. I made a brief check around the unit when I got home (after dark, in the rain), but I didn't know what I was looking for, so I checked the actual fan unit to see if anything looked out of place. It didn't. It was warm that evening, and the heat did not need to come on, so we never noticed an issue.

2/12/2010 - Lee from Leggett Heating & Air arrived, performed some rewiring due to a short, and left the site at approximately 10:45am. We were under the impression that everything was working at that time. The Ms. took him on his word that everything was working. She did not confirm that warm air was blowing before he left. If she had, a problem should have been noticed then, and the tech could have replaced the power bridge at the disconnect and rechecked the system. Warm air would not have been blowing without power at the disconnect box! Bottom line, the system could not have possibly been working when the tech left the site, because the power bridge was not reinstalled!

2/11/2010 - Heating unit went out, replaced with Home Depot unit, but Heat/AC still would not come on. Contacted Leggett for service call, they scheduled the service call for 2/12/2010.