Modern Mechanical

Shawn asked me to contact his plumbing manager to discuss my issue as they have a «Satisfaction Guarantee». I called his plumbing manager’s number on 1÷19÷16 and left him a detailed message about the situation. Today is 2÷2÷16, still no response from Modern Mechanical on the $ 300 that I spent for nothing. Based on my last experience, this is more of the same. Maybe their HVAC service is better, but I wouldn’t call them for plumbing work.

Called during the Blizzard of 16′ and got an appointment the very next day for clogged kitchen sink. The Tech showed up on time (in the window provided) with the right equipment and was courteous, knowledgeable, fast and friendly. I had a discrepancy in the total amount due and MGMT took care of it right away and with professionalism. Would use again.

We purchased our new furnace/​AC unit from the company last year and have always received excellent and timely service.

My garbage disposal decided it wanted to start leaking. So, I contacted my home warranty company and requested service. They connected me to Modern Mechanical, and the next day I had an appointment. Super nice people in the office, and scheduling was a breeze. The plumber, Leo, called to let me know he was on his way, arrived within their stated appointment window, and was a super nice guy. (Even befriended my not-​very-​social cat!) :)
I now have a new disposal, and Leo even took the time to show me how to manually turn the blades, as well as where the reset button was, etc. should I ever need to try and troubleshoot on my own. Couldn’t be happier with the service I received! I hope the warranty company selects Modern Mechanical should I ever need services again!
Thank You!

Charlie was courteous, friendly and explained how the system works. Luckily for us, there was nothing wrong with the unit and it was a matter of moving the levers around to solve our problem. He went over it a couple of times and drew a little diagram for us on the unit. He was patient with all my questions and went allowed me time to confirm and reconfirm that nothing was wrong with the system — without hurrying me up or being condescending. He explained the upgrade options and the service plans without being pushy. Great service!

I was very impressed by the service provided by Leo while replacing my garbage disposal, sink pipes, and faucet. He was very professional, worked very quickly, and coordinated very effectively with my home warrant company. Very pleased with the service.

After our Vivint thermostat died two years ago, our heat pump would run at non-​stop full-​blast heat unless we threw the circuit breaker. (By the way, I don’t recommend Vivint, and we’re replacing the system next month.) Unfortunately, our house has odd wiring (courtesy of the previous owner who fancied himself a DIYer but too cheap to be effective) which made installing our new WiFi-​controlled thermostat on our own tricky at best. Likewise, most HVAC companies in our area (or which service our area) seem to be consistently rated with one star. Modern Mechanical is based out of the area I work in, but luckily our city is just within their service range.
Since the technology is fairly new and Zen’s mobile website admittedly leaves a lot to be desired, (installation and setup requires going through their website) I can’t fault the tech for the struggle with installation. First it was only putting out cool air, then he switched the wires but Zen’s mobile website wouldn’t let him select the correct wire configuration. It was only when he used his tablet and accessed their regular site that it finally acknowledged the wire configuration and sent the correct code to program the unit. What I especially found favourable was that the tech explained everything to me so that I now know which wires are supposed to do what. (The one throwing us off turned out to be a redundant wire.)
Installation ended up at $ 150, which seems a little hefty for a regular installation. But considering it took 2 hours to get through the problems, it seems reasonable given the time an effort involved, not to mention explanations about what was going on. We’ll probably be giving them another call for the necessary tune-​up in the following months.

My home warranty assigned me this company to replace my 22yrs old water heater and Leo the guy who came to do the job wanted to rip me off by asking $ 160 for the county permit which actually takes only $ 60 !!!
Nope! No integrity, no business!
I ended up asking a cash out from my HW company and find a plumber myself. For only half of the price out of pocket, I now have a brand new AO smith water heater in my basement !

Excellent service and very responsive. They actually show up on time and provide follow to make we were satisfied with the work completed.

I had been using MM for some time to keep our 13 year old Trane system working. The most recent issue before this last event were bad breakers in the air handler that shorted out the system, which MM did, I think, go the extra mile in working to fix. It was with this positive experience in mind that I called MM to investigate why the heat pump in our house suddenly stopped working… the breaker for the heat pump kept tripping off.
MM scheduled the call for the following day, which was understandable… summer was starting and everyone is busy. When the tech arrived, he was friendly as expected. He seemed a little lost in diagnosing the problem though. He fiddled with some wires, did a few things, then reset the breakers. I’m not sure what he did, but when he did it an arc of electricity went from the compressor and ruptured the cooling line. If you felt a little hot about a month ago, that was probably us and the expulsion of our coolant into the local atmosphere. Anyway, the tech stood there and stared at the compressor for a good 10 – 15 minutes. He then told me «well, the compressor is shot.» OK, thanks. «It will need to be replaced, and we’ll also have to repair the line and recharge the system.» OK, got that. Now some background… we had replaced the compressor two or so years ago. I asked how much it would be and he said «probably about as much as it cost last time.» Well, I guess that’s helpful, sort of.
He went to his truck to call home base and suss out an estimate, which ended up being such that a new system suddenly became economically reasonable. The tech then left, and I was left with this thought — my system was actually worse off than before the tech did anything with it. So that was the frame of mind I was in when I started calling around for estimates for a new system.
I did call MM for an estimate and a salesman came out. Now, again, keep in mind that I know the HVAC life — my dad lived it, after all. The salesman, and he was a salesman, came to the house in his BMW M and dressed with the stylish clothes and italian shoes. I’m left thinking «oh, boy, what’s this going to cost?» He took some notes on the air handler, did not ask to look at the outside unit (guess he didn’t want to get his shoes dirty) and instead asked me questions about tonnage and such. I will put this next part in caps: «HE DID NOT PERFORM A HEAT LOSS/​HEAT GAIN SURVEY.» In other words, his assumption was that the existing unit was sized correctly, which is frankly one hell of an assumption.
He then started in with options. I will congratulate him on knowing the product, I will criticize him for his bearing. For instance, I told him I’m very happy with our Nest, we like it and it does exactly what we want. He said the Nest is obsolete and akin to a Blackberry phone. Well, where I come from, insulting a customer’s preferences is probably not a good way to engender goodwill. He also heaped scorn on other makers, comparing his Lennox to a BMW with Trane and other makers being less-​desirable marques. He did spec out a system, and I will be fair to MM that it was a competitive quote.
When we compiled all of the quotes we had received we found that we had two front runners. I am not joking when I say we figured the quotes were such: MM’s quote was for very good equipment but a slimy and aggressive salesman, whereas the other quote was for less-​known equipment but the owner came out personally and, yes, did a heat loss/​heat gain survey to be sure the proposal was speced out properly. The issue facing us was if we wanted to deal with MM for the next ten years or not. Based on the salesman’s attitude toward us, this was no small decision… I don’t like to reward shabby treatment.
The other firm called back to offer a price incentive for us, and when we looked at specs we were actually leaning toward MM if they could work a little on price. I emailed the salesman and he wanted to know the details of the other quote. I sent it to him and he emailed back starting to badmouth the equipment. Again, bad juju. I had to say that I was satisfied with the equipment speced and could anything be done about the price? They did come down on the price, but then it dawned on us that though the prices were about the same, the competitor’s system had a better heat pump (two stage instead of one). The MM guy recognized this in a voice mail to me where, in a fit of piqué, he said the other gear was cheaper, and there’s a reason for that… it’s buying a Ford instead of a BMW. Well, my Ford Cobra ran much more dependably than my finicky BMW 330i, so I guess I’ll take the Ford. Thanks, pal.
The takeaway here is that for bread and butter maintenance, MM is… OK. For service, they are hit or miss. For sales, well, unless you like being insulted by an arrogant and aggressive salesman, go somewhere else.

I am a property manager and use old republic warranties for many of the residential homes I manage. When a furnace or central air needs a replacement, it’s not unusual for the process to take 3 weeks. First diagnosis, then parts need to be determined and handed off to the warranty company, then the warranty company buys and ships to the hvac contractor, and once they arrive then the hvac contractor has to schedule the install.
I am happy to report Modern Mechanical cut thru the red tape and got the job done! They have the know-​how to fix a system and they answer the phone when you call and give you an update. Yes, I had to escalate the situation to a higher level of management, but they did the job as expected in the final analysis and that is rare for a company to step up and do the right thing.
Good luck

Modern Mechanical replaced our 20+ year old HVAC system and hot water heater. The job was not an easy one given the complications of getting the condensate lines from the furnace to the outside compressor, but Modern Mechanical stayed late each day during the installation to make sure it was done right.
They were very honest about recommending the right system for the house and balancing upfront cost with energy savings, maintenance, reliability, etc. In the end we went with a Lennox XP25 with a dual fuel SLP98V furnace. We’ve had the system for 4 months now and it is running beautifully, with significant energy savings.
We were really impressed with Modern Mechanical from the initial visit and quoting process all the way through the end of the installation. We would definitely use them again and would highly recommend.

I recently had an issue with my toilet in my condo, leaking so much water that it leaked into the condo below, damaging their ceiling. Modern Mechanical sent a plumber immediately, which made me very happy (as I wasn’t a previous customer). The plumber, Leo was very professional, and honest. .. explaining to me exactly what he thought the cause could be and what he’d have to do to stop the leaking. Turns out that it was not very serious, and was a somewhat «easy and inexpensive» fix. I feel that Leo was very honest. and would gladly due business with Modern Mechanical again based on my interactions with Leo. You all have a great employee with Leo. I also appreciated that they could call me ahead to meet them there so I did not have to miss a «4 hour window» from work.

We had a faulty PRV Valve (plumbing issue) — We called our home warranty and Joey M. from Modern Mechanical at our doorstep within two hours. Joey identified the problem, ordered the part and was back out within a week to replace it. Joey also identified another unrelated issue that if left unresolved would have caused a major headache down the line — He walked me through the steps, reached out to my home warranty company and that issue is being fixed within days. I would absolutely recommend Joey and Modern Mechanical.

This is an update review. I changed my rating from 1 star to 4 — the co-​owner of the company provided a refund which we had mutually agreed upon… and although that does not eliminate the unfortunate incident which my family endured — it does show that the owners themselves do care about the service they provide and they stand behind their work. I believe what happened is that the Company management (one level below owners) were not empowered to make certain decisions, and when I spoke to the co-​owner about this he said he was going to implement a policy to allow them to act on the owners behalf on situations like I encountered. I believe this will go a long way to getting their company an outstanding reputation.
They’ll have another opportunity to show their professionalism in the spring when they perform the spring A/​C checkup. I’ll post another review then.

Leo fixed our leaky sink and recommended a replacement fixture. He worked with my home warranty company to get a better valuation on the fixture. Leo was prompt, friendly, and professional. I was so pleased with the experience I signed up Modern Mechanical to take care of routine servicing of my HVAC. Recommend!

Leo came out today to fix a pipe in the dining room ceiling (his second time being here).
He was fast, professional, conscientious and an overall pleasure to do business with.
Even though I have a home warranty, I called Modern Mechanicals directly because the work they’ve done for me previously has been so terrific.
Highly recommended to anyone needing a plumber in the NOVA area.

Great service at our business today from Modern Mechanical tech, Joey Urban!

To follow up, after Modern Mechanical could not get the job done in a timely manner, My home warranty company assigned me to another company. This company was able to complete the job in less than 24 hours. I was told by Modern Mechanical that the hold up was my home warranty company… apparently not.

My water heater died on the evening of Monday Dec 15. My warranty company called one place — they couldn’t even come out for a diagnosis until that Friday! Modern Mech was next on the list. Leo came out Tuesday afternoon — and called first so I could remain at work for most of the day — and diagnosed the problem. A computer sensor. He called a couple of places to order it, got it FedEx’d on Wednesday (I gladly paid the $ 100 shipping fee) and installed it on Thursday afternoon.
He was professional, friendly, and explained my odd system to me. I live in a condo so my gas heat & hot water are connected. No hot water equals no heat! And now I know why.
Taylor (office assistant) was also helpful in relaying all the delivery information and re-​scheduling, etc. … I would definitely use them again!