Gregory P.

My experiences with "Murphy's Air Conditioning, Heating and Plumbing"are the worst that I have had with any contractor or vendor in my 73 years. They have lied, misled and made repeated promises that they have never lived up to. This is a dishonest company.

I went to them to replace an oil-based heating system with a gas heating system plus central air. They talked me into going with a heat exchanger instead of an air conditioning unit. I agreed even though it was more expensive. They presented their package as an integrated "system." Far from it: it has proven to be a haphazard collection of units from different manufacturers that don't work together properly. After numerous complaints from me, they announced that they could fix the problems by replacing one or more components, but only if I paid for the replacements to the tune of $5,000 or so over and above what the original system cost! SO, the company sold me a batch of units and then told me that if I bought replacements for part of them, I would end up with a system that would work properly! Incredible!

One day in November, I came home to find cold air blowing through the house with the thermostat at 62 degrees and dropping. After looking around but not seeing anything I could do, I called Murphy's and told them that I had a problem and everything was under warranty. I was told that I would have to wait until the following Monday for warranty work because since it was Friday afternoon, they were only serving "paying customers." SO, I had a bunch of equipment bought from and installed by Murphy's, but I wasn't a "paying customer!" I turned the thermostat down to 32 degrees and spent the weekend bundled up.

A technician came out on Monday. He told me that what was going on was that the thermostat, made by one company, was telling the heat pump, made by another company, to run and produce heat but the heat pump had a "bad board" so it would turn on and then off. Meanwhile, the thermostat told the air blower made by yet another company to blow air that the heat pump was supposed to be producing. The heat pump kept cycling on and off while the blower kept blowing what was now cold air. I asked the technician why the "system" didn't switch over to gas heating mode since the heat pump was obviously not working and he said that the in the "system" that Murphys had installed, the different pieces didn't communicate properly to be able to do that. I asked him how to switch over to gas heat manually. He told me that the thermostat had a setting for that, but when he looked at it he said that the thermostat didn't match the rest of the "system" and didn't have that option. He then showed me a switch on the blower in the basement that did that.

The technician called Murphy's and then told me that the company had spare boards "back in the shop" and that someone would be back in a day or so to install the new one. SIX MONTHS LATER, I have NOT heard ONE WORD from the company about fixing the heat pump! When I called, I was told that someone would get back to me. No one ever did!

I was promised from the day I signed the contract that by the time the "system" was installed, someone would come out to give me a "lesson" in how to use it. This promise was repeated multiple times during the year (yes, a year!) it took Murphy's to complete the installation. Things like how to do heat setbacks on the thermostat, what options there were, etc. When I look at the units in the basement, I see a container filled with some sort of chemical. Is that something that has to be changed periodically? Are there any air filters that need to be replaced? But MORE THAN A YEAR LATER, they have NEVER actually come to do the training! So I am still flying blind.

I was told that after everything was in place, I would be offered a maintenance contract that would include annual inspections/maintenance/etc. I was told this several times. But MORE THAN A YEAR LATER, this has NOT happened!

My old system had three zones, one in the living room which was an addition onto the house, a second for the rest of the first floor and the third for the upstairs. Murphy's "designed" a two-zone system, one for downstairs and one for upstairs. When I asked why the downstairs zones were merged, I was told it would work fine and that when the installation was complete, they would "balance the system." MORE THAN A YEAR LATER, they have NEVER done so. So throughout this winter, the living room has been a consistent 4-6 degrees colder than the rest of the house, running 64-66 degrees with the thermostat set to 70. I spend more time in the living room than I do in any other room in the house.

Murphy's was required to remove the old oil furnace and the oil tank from the basement once the new system was in place. They repeatedly promised to do so. It is now 15 MONTHS since the oil burner was shut down for good and they STILL have no removed them!

There were and are a number of other more "minor" issues (and promises) made by Murphy's as well as problems during the YEAR-LONG installation that I am not going to bother getting into. They have worn me down (and I resent it!)

My experience with Allivet was decent for the first two years I used them but has been going downhill since then. I have had orders held up for two or more weeks several times and have twice received orders with quantities different from what they claimed was shipped (too many in one case, too few in another, the latter being the expensive one, of course). They have claimed several times that my vet would not/did not respond to confirm prescriptions but my vet was able to show me fax receipts to prove they did and in another case said that Allivet never contacted them (Allivet in that case claimed that my vet told them that they would no longer provide fax confirmations. NOT TRUE!). The worst is lack of communication: Allivet has not been notifying me of holdups and waits until I contact them to then claim it's the vet's fault. The support people don't seem to give a damn: I get the "that's the way it is, you'll just have to wait until we're ready" attitude. Today, after not receiving my latest order after waiting 12 days, I found out that it was still waiting on a "response" from the vet. I ended up cancelling it as well as two standing orders and switched over to Chewy.com. Within 20 minutes, they had contacted my vet and the order is heading out tonight - with two emails letting me know what is going on.