Advantage Heating & Air Conditioning Inc

I live in Topeka — and when I built my house, Latta-​Whitlow installed the heating and air. I had always had them service the units each season. Last year when I called L-​W for service, «Levi» in an Advantage truck came. After being here about 10 minutes, he told me that I needed a new AC — that I had a bad leak. At that time, my unit was 7 years old, and I had always had it serviced so I wasn’t keen on buying a new AC. When I didn’t fall for that, he said he would try to fix the leak. He was here for almost 4 hours — and said he couldn’t find or repair the leak and wondered what I wanted to do. Frustrated, I opted to have him put in the Freon and I’d decide what to do later. He put $ 174 of Freon in and my total bill was $ 302 NOT counting the portion of my service contract that was applied to the bill. WELL, the AC worked fine all summer and also when I turned it on again this summer. I decided to use a different company this summer for the AC check. (I had been concerned since last summer that I was going to have to put in a new AC this year, and that thought had plagued me over the winder.) When the service tech (with a different company) came yesterday, everything checked out perfectly. In fact, he said you «definitely» don’t have a leak because the Freon had been overfilled by a ½ pound. He said that wasn’t good, so he discharged the overage.
What about my bad leak??? What about needing a new Air Conditioner??? A year had passed and the Freon was still «overfilled.» Did I need any of the $ 174 of Freon???
I don’t know whether Levi was the scam artist — or whether he was following his employer’s instructions — — - but they didn’t scam me — and I don’t want them scamming anyone else!

I was having trouble with my furnace. Advantage sent technician Russell out within an hour. He quickly found the problem and a solution. He recommended that we replace the furnace, but that is not feasible for us right now.
Instead, he found a replacement part and had it fixed in a couple of hours. Not cheap. But much less than a whole new furnace.
The technician was friendly, personable, professional and nice to my dogs.
Recommend highly!

Summer’s over and we’ve just finished paying the utility bills for the air conditioning season. Our brand new heating and cooling system which was installed by Advantage of Lawrence, KS in the fall of 2012. TAKING TEMPERATURES, RISING COSTS OF ENERGY, AND OUR OWN PERSONAL USE AND CONDITION OF THE SYSTEM INTO ACCOUNT, we are paying more now to the utility companies than we were with our old system. They said everything we had was terrible and that it had to go, even though we just wanted something fixed. Our systems were not ancient. Forced air gas furnace was new in 2003 and the two zones of the a/​c system were new in 2002.
The men were OK when they came out. Although I’ve never been happy with the very lame, amateurish look of the gases exhaust «pipe» from the furnace. They just stapled one of those cheap silver-​colored plastic dryer vent deals to the side of our house. Check it out on the west side of our house at 909 W 6^th St. When I complained about the cheapness of it, they reassured me with «it has insulation.» That it does. But it looks really lame. Our house is on the National and State Register of Historic Places.
We had to take out a five year loan just to pay this new system that I still don’t think we needed. So there’s that monthly expense, too.
There aren’t any mechanics any more. Just parts-​changers or new system installers.
For some reason we had to spend several hours in their offices in North Lawrence. Definitely picked up a ruptured vibe which I couldn’t put into words. Sure enough, a few months later, the LJWorld said somebody who’d been there with us in the office had embezzled many thousands of dollars out of the coffers into their pocket. That didn’t help my confidence in the company. I also remember that they kept demanding money before it was done, even though we’d already told them we were going to take out a loan through Arvest, their co-​hort, and we couldn’t hand them a check until we knew the final amount and the work was done.
OK, Advantage. The ball’s in your court now. I told you all of this stuff and I got all of the smiling and nodding and all of the talk, but where’s the walk?

Excellent Service. I left a message on a Sunday that I was having issues with my furnace. They called me and arrived the following day, New Years Eve in the morning. Service was quick and friendly. Will definitely use them going forward for all my heating and AC needs.

Wonderful service! Our AC stopped working in the beginning of summer. Advantage came out as soon as possible. They were very friendly and helpful. They even brought in the broken part, showed me how to tell it was broken using a multimeter, and showed me the price for a new one in their price book. They were very honest and helpful. Also, they made sure to wear boot covers whenever coming in the house, which I felt was very respectful.
Would recommend them to anyone!