O’Donnell Plumbing, Heating & Air

DO NOT HIRE. We were in a bind, read the Unilocal reviews and went with them anyway. They were nice on the phone and agreed to come early in the morning the next day, which was off to a great start. But once on location, they could not work their equipment, then realized they brought inadequate equipment and didn’t have the tool they had promised us on the phone.
We wanted a camera to scope out some vents with low air flow. They said they could do that, but come to find out their large sewer camera didn’t fit in the in slab duct work. When they first tried to make it fit, they started saying things like, «Well this gives you a good look» «I don’t see any problems here» and «the air flow is good». Not sure if they were going to try to play it off as a job well done, but ultimately they admitted it didn’t work and didn’t charge us.
We were in a pinch because we wanted to inspect a house that we have under contract and they new that. They quoted us at $ 375 to inspect the ducts with a camera. (A company we called after quoted us at $ 75. That company has been a pleasure to work with.) What killed me was them saying the air flow was good in front of the sellers agent when my husband and our home inspector disagreed.
Shame on us for giving them the benefit of the doubt after reading other people’s experiences.

Whoa! I just found out the hard way what O’Donnell Plumbing & Heating is about — or more to the point — what they’re NOT about. They don’t care about you as a customer, a friend, or a partner. It appears to me that they only care about money, not building relationships.
I had them do an energy audit a few months ago for a house that we recently purchased (they had installed the furnace). After the audit I still had questions about the furnace itself. I wanted to talk to someone about the capacity, efficiency of the model, and about the duct work for the heat distribution. I called two or three times and became more frustrated each time I called. I could never get past Jill, an office worker. She always answered the phone and she wouldn’t let me speak to a technician and she wouldn’t let me speak to the owner. The only thing she was willing to do was send someone to our house. I tried to ask her my questions about the furnace but she would just say that she wasn’t technical. Duh.
Finally, after the frustrating calls to O’Donnell I called PECO and had them perform another audit. Their findings were very different and it still left me with questions about our furnace. One of the contractors associated with PECO called me and told me I could perform a simple test to help determine if the problem with our heat distribution is with the furnace or other aspects of the house. The «tissue» test would show whether or not there was «return side air restriction» in the furnace — or at least that’s how I understood it.
This afternoon I called O’Donnell once again and told Jill that PECO had done an audit and that this test had been recommended to me. I wanted to know if the test was feasible and if O’Donnell might possibly perform the test if it sounded at all logical. Once again Jill offered to send someone to our house. I told her I would like to talk to someone first because the test could very well be unnecessary. It was my feeling that an expert would know exactly what to expect from this test, or if not, then they would come and do the test for me. I asked once again to talk to Mr. O’Donnell or a manager. She said John, a technician, had just driven up, she would talk to him and call me back.
I received a callback within 15 minutes and boy was I surprised! Jill told me that she had talked to John, the technician, and they had decided that since I had no faith or trust in them, they felt it was time that I just move on and take my business elsewhere! I was floored. Evidently they were mad that I had called PECO, even though I probably never would have if someone would have just talked to me (I’m lazy)! Besides, would I be a good consumer if I *didn’t* get a second opinion?! The two audits came up with very different conclusions.
It’s kind of ironical, but my heating and plumbing contractor in MA was named O’Connell and they were the absolute best! I knew all the staff by name, whether they be in the billing department, the manager of the heating or cooling department, or the owner himself! They never refused to take a call from me. I was always open and honest with them and they were always open and honest with me. I never once felt like they didn’t care about me or that they were trying to take advantage of me. When I moved to PA I thought it was a good omen that our new heating and plumbing contractor was called O’Donnell — but that did not turn out to be the case.
My advice to anyone looking for a heating and plumbing contractor is to do your due diligence. Talk to people, get recommendations. Ask specific questions. Find a company that treats you like a friend, not a number, and find one that contributes to your community.
I will NEVER recommend O’Donnell or any company like them. This loyalty business goes both ways. I tried to be a friend and honest business partner with them and they treated me worse than a junkyard dog.
One last thing, and I don’t know if this is a PA thing, a Philadelphia thing, or what, but while I’m ranting I might as well throw this in the mix. I had never run into companies that want to charge by the job instead of by the hour until I moved to PA. O’Donnell charges that way. It seems shady to me. I tried using Lowry Electrical services once. They also use that method for charging and when a guy came and gave me an outrageous estimate for installing an overhead ceiling light, I asked him how they calculate that «per job rate» and he said they calculate it to get $ 500 an hour!
When settling on service providers find someone who treats you with respect and does a good job for you and stick with them. Hopefully I will eventually find a good heating and plumbing contractor. If anyone has any recommendations I’m all ears.

I thought I could put O’Donnel and Son, Plumbing and Heating out of my mind. But here I sit on my lunch hour and across the street is an O’”how screwed up are we“Donnell sign. To wit, Winter 2014, my very aged mother called O’Donnel to have her heater inspected. Of course they found something wrong but could or would not fix it because of its age and/​or they could not get the part. They left leaving a paper with several replacement options, including an entire new system for a 1700 square foot house for almost $ 9000, which included A/​C and Heat. My mother chose to have it all replaced.
Fast forward to the summer of 2014. The brand new A/​C can not keep the house at 72 degrees when the temperature rises above 90.
Oh, fine! I call O’Donnells. They come out with two guys, screw around, lie to me or they are just way incompetent and dont understand what they are saying. Pick one.
Very, VERY long story short, O’Donnell’s came back no less than five times, we have each receipt ticket, and ended up changing out the comptessor unit then the interior heating unit, AT DIFFERENT TIMES! Brand new stuff TWICE!
I called Goodman and asked for a Company Field Service Rep to please come out and fix this thing. Who appears? O’ Donnells with their wholesaler from whom they bought the equipment, No Goodman person. So these 4 or was it 5 HVAC types put their heads together, do some pretend measuring and at that point agreed the heater unit did not match the a/​c unit and thats when the heater unit got changed out. STILL SUMMER!
READ THIS: Before O’Donnells came everything worked fine, my 92 year old mother just wanted the heater checked! NOW, $ 8800 LATER, THE HEATER IS LOUD AND THE A/​C still does not keep up.
My mother, remember 92, begged me to never call O’Donnelks again but please get someone here to decrease the heater noise. I did as she asked and the company we paid pulled a large piece of sheet metal out of the plenum that was testricting flow causing most of the noise. They critisized the use of a two speed motor rather than a variabke speed motor and confirmed for me the tonnage of the compressor was too little for the house’s design, I.e., that unit will never keep up with hot/​humid PA summers. I won’t conclude suggesting whether to use these guys or not but like others here said, if you need accuaracy in when they arrive or what they tell you, look elsewhere. Philip R.

I really wanted to like John O’Donnell & Sons Inc. I called into them because our AC wasn’t working in our house we recently moved to. The AC Worked for a day or two and just stopped. They came out right away which was excellent and their Office Manager Jill was fantastic to deal with. They sent out a gentleman first who stated he was too big to fit into the area that they needed to work to fix our system so we had to wait two days to get the repair done by another one of their techs who is a little smaller. This was ok to me too. However after they came back the second time they stated that the only solution to my problem was to replace the whole entire Unit at the easy cost of $ 10 000.00 Minimum. I got a second opinion and another company Moyer Indoor Outdoor came out and cleaned my whole unit. Has been working perfectly ever since. I dont know where the breakdown was since O’Donnell has been in business for many years. At some point though they need to take the sales out and just do whats right. I just don’t want someone falling into a trap if they don’t need to.

I called to get an estimate for replacing a sewer pipe. They gave me a 3 hour window for someone to show up, and the person showed up at the beginning of the window. He was polite and looked at everything, measured a few things, and then told me he was going to call the office and he’d have an estimate in a few minutes. He comes back and tells me they won’t do this job because it’s too involved, that I need to call another plumber.
And then he tells me, it’s going to be $ 49. Well, I was shocked because I was never told there would be a fee for just an estimate. I told him as much and eventually he agreed that I shouldn’t be charged a fee if I wasn’t told about it. But this felt very shady, and I won’t be using them anytime in the future.
If it’s there policy to charge a fee just to come look at something fine, but tell people beforehand. So if you are even considering getting an estimate, check to see if there is a fee from this company.

After calling O’Donnell’s for emergency service I thought they were a pretty good company. The weekend emergency service was kind of expensive but we had no choice at the time. A week after we notice the toilet was acting up again and O’Donnell’s gave us a warranty so I gave them a call to check it out again. To my shock they told me the repair was going to be more then a brand new high end toilet. After feeling I was being taking for I ride I politely thanked them for coming told them I would get a second opinion. Strangely after a half hour someone called me from O’Donnell’s to offer to fix the problem for free? Did I catch them in a scam and now did they feel guilty? The whole experience left me feeling like I was going to be ripped off so I decided to pass on their «FREE» offer and take my business elsewhere. Once another plumber looked at the issue they where appalled by O’Donnell’s pricing. Save yourself some money and a headache and do not use John O’Donell & Sons, I wish I never did.
UPDATE! 08÷01÷12
John O’Donnell & Sons have issued me a full refund as of 08÷01÷12. I am very pleased with the dedication they have to make sure the customer is satisfield. I have upgraded the original grading of one star to three stars since they were nice enough to fix the problem after the fact. While we are still confused why the above situation happened… we are very pleased with John O’Donnell & Sons customer service and that they fixed a bad situation. Thank you John O’Donnell & Sons.

Thank you, John O’Donnell & Sons (or rather, Bill & Steve, the two guys that saved the day), for turning a hot, cranky Community Manager into a cool, more relaxed human being who wasn’t sweating to death while working at home.
At some point recently our AC just stopped working. It was a slow, gradual failure, and it took us a while to figure out that, damn, it was getting hot in here (and no, I didn’t want to take off all my clothes). Of course, this came this week, when temps were well into the 90’s. So we went old school and opened the windows. And you know how that went — it just got hotter inside. And it made me crankier. And sweatier.
So finally we decided to bite the bullet and call someone. Not knowing what we were getting or rather, who, these guys arrived within one hour of the desperate plea, were super nice and professional, and solved the problem of the messed up AC in about 20 minutes. They even wore those little booties over their shoes when they came in even though my house is already covered in kid stuff and dog hair. Like I said — total professionals.
Their service charge was really reasonable ($ 89) and they were great to work with. Hopefully the AC will behave itself, but if I need any plumbing or heating TLC, these are now my go-​to guys.