k2whitehouse

Reliable, helpful, professional, reasonable. That says it all. We have had this company replace our well pump twice since purchasing our home and repairing the wellhead when a friend backed into it with her van. They also assisted us in rectifying a problem that another water treatment company had left us with. I have always found this company to be very responsive. If you drop off a water sample there they can test it and make recommendations to you. They were very professional and able to diagnose a problem we were having right away. By bringing them my own sample, it sped up the process and a serviceman knew just what they could do for us before coming out to the house. I found the serviceman extremely knowledgeable. I am one to do a lot of internet research before tackling something around the house and he was able to answer every question I had and add to educate me. That impresses me. I can tell when someone is just giving me a bunch of BS so I was very pleased with their employee. Pump replacement was always very prompt and we never went without water in our house for very long. Price are very reasonable. (My approximate cost reflects the cost of ALL our calls over the years.) I would not hesitate to recommend this company and plan to call them when I have the money to replace the water conditioning system we purchased just a couple years ago. I like working with them.

I had read their ad for years in the South County Gazette. Lured by the big color photos of the This Old House guru with his Kinetico system, we felt that it must be the best and we wanted something really good after years of fighting to keep the rust out of our well water. We also liked that fact that the system was always "on" and not off when flushing likely about once a day. We should have been tipped off by the attitude of the salesman. When we first balked at adding the drinking water filtration system under the sink, he accused us of not caring about what our children ingested and got angry and took our "no" very personally. Obviously it was tactic that worked with me even though it upset me because I persuaded my husband to go with it anyway. The fellow that installed it was very skilled, we felt, and honest. We liked his attitude and was pleased. When we had problems, they sent out a second serviceman. This one was brand new and fumbled to figure out what to do. He left his kit at our house and had to retrieve it later. We asked about the first guy to find he had left the company after revealing to us that he had no intentions of leaving. When we continued to have problems, the salesman who sold it to us came to our house because they had fired the last guy by now. This time he was very nasty to us and it was clear we had made a terrible mistake. Immediately we had problems in that the system's force was so powerful that it was forcing sediment from the bottom of our well into our system cutting off water to our home. Mermad simply switched the installation of a filter on the system to the other side which made no sense and did nothing whatsover. We called in another company who installed a sand filter that we could flush (we have to do this now whenever we want a shower - what a pain) and said ultimately it would cost another $2K to have a depth filter installed to remedy it or more to replace the whole system and make the problem go away. They couldn't work on the system really themselves since it required special tools they didn't have access to. Also, despite the 10 year (?) warranty, Mermaid reminds us we need annual maintenance each year but we haven't bothered and don't intend to spend more on this. The system does need some tweaking as rust is beginning to show again inside our toilets. The water treatment system in our kitchen shuts off automatically after a certain # of gallons so we now have to pay $116 a year to use it to replace the 2 filters inside it, ONLY available from Mermaid. Figures. So all in all, we view this as one big, fat, expensive mistake and wish we had called another place first. Don't be "dazzled" by their promises like I was.

We had purchased a Jenn-Air oven and stove-top at our local Home Depot. It was deep discounted and we had been shopping around so we just couldn't pass it up. We had warranty problems just a few months later in that the front control panel would not work so we could not operate the oven. Whirlpool, who owned the Jenn-Air brand at the time said we had to go through ABC Appliance Sales & Service as they were the only ones in the area to do warranty work on Jenn-Air. I called and because we did not purchase it there they had us wait literally MONTHS for a repair. They came out in a few weeks after the call to assess the situation and determine what parts were needed. Then we had to wait weeks more for the part to come in and for them to have time to "squeeze us in." In the end we did without an oven for nearly 3 mos. while we waited for this work to be done. I guess I am also disappointed in Jenn-Air's service department but the haughty attitude displayed by ABC both in person and on the phone made me pray that the appliance would never break again and force us to use them. I would not recommend them unless you made a purchase at their store. Had they been kinder and more accomodating I would have considered purchasing at their store next time but our experience only served to turn me off from them completely.

On my father's recommendation we hired this company to do our furnace replacement. We needed a wood/oil/coal burning furnace replaced with a oil burning one when the firebox cracked on our old one. Bob Baker's had no trouble coming up with an estimate for the work even though they didn't do too many oil furnaces in the area which was surprising. They mostly deal with gas furnaces. At any rate they were very familiar with the equipment and the industry and have their servicemen go through lots of training so that they are up-to-the minute on the newest technologies and environmental laws. That impressed me. Five servicemen came to the house and spent one day removing the old furnace and the next replacing it. They worked hard and cleaned up well after themselves. We have been very happy with the results. However there was an oil leak into our furnace room due to a fitting that was not tightened properly and we are still trying to clean up the oil mess. They came out promptly to fix the leak and I did not pursue with them replacement of the spilled oil or continued clean up by them so it is not fair to say they would not take care of it. My husband and I felt that we would be able to take care of the cleanup adequately ourselves and decided not to take any further action with Bob Baker's concerning it. We would definitely recommend them to someone else.

The first time I called this company several years ago, it had been recommended to me by someone I called by accident for AC repair. I was very happy with their work. The owner at the time was delightful to work with, very fair and did a great job of replacing our thermostat and getting our air conditioner going again. And he kept the cost low. The second time we used their services this past year, we called for an estimate on a furnace replacement. While their cost was right in line with others, we picked a different company who had a lot more experience in unusual furnace installations (ours was a wood/oil/coal furnace being replaced by an oil only one) and that my father had recommended. But the second time as well, they were prompt, hard-working and professional. I would definitely call them again for a repair and would recommend them to others.