Cal-West Air Conditioning

AC went out during San Diego heat wave. He Not only didn’t fix anything, but left quickly saying he wouldn’t charge me. After he left, we discovered he had broken the ceiling entrance to the attic. It literally fell apart into two pieces. No wonder he didn’t want to charge me. We had to pay a handyman to recut a piece of lumber and paint the ceiling board but also fixed the problem.

Just had a guy cancel an appointment because of our san diego drizzle when all they needed to do was an INSIDE inspection. Of course they cancelled a half hour before they were to come. I took the day off for this appointment. Very unprofessional and inconsiderate.

Refused to even come give us a quote unless we provided installation plans or a newly signed lease for our commercial building, despite our landlords approval to move forward with HVAC. So much for «free estimates».

They will surely rip you off! They charge in addition to the $ 99.00 service fee to see if the unit works. They charged me an additional $ 73.00 to see if the unit worked or not, which they had advised me would be a part of the $ 99.00 service charge. Gary, the tech had my elderly father sign off on it and my father has macular degeneration and was not advised of the additional charge. They suck!!!

Call them if you don’t mind bad customer service. My repair call was ok, it worked for a day. First I waited an hour past the 9 – 12 appt time without a call. When i called the office checked in with the repair man. He says he is still «on the roof and does not know how long it will take, probably won’t be able to make it» that day. I made the mistake of setting up an appointment later in the week for first thing in the am that I wanted as I had priority, «he will call on the way». When I got no call by 9 I called. He was in Escondido. I live in central SD. He did not leave until 11. There went my am and crunched my day’s work terribly. I never did get a call from him, he just showed up. My furnace only worked one day and here I go again. Paying someone else will be cheaper on my time than their delays. So back to the space heater and cold hands.

this past summer they scheduled to have someone come out to fix my air conditioner and the girl that answered the phone said he would be out there in between 10 – 12 so i wait till 12:00 and call to see where he was at, and she tells me that the technician is not going to be able to make it because of some bs reason, so she says he can make it tomorrow around the same time so i have to take another day off of work and lose 2 days of income, mind you its almost 100 degrees outside so i agree and the same thing happens the next day! she blew me off for the second day in a row and sounded totally frustrated with this company herself, probably has to do with management sound like? DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! TOTAL WASTE OF YOUR TIME AND DOLLARS! this company is unprofesional as they come and rude take your money else where.

My AC went down so I had someone from Craigslist come out to check it out. They quoted me $ 7G’s. Yeah, I said No. I’ll need to wait on that. So a friend of mine recommended CalWest AC. I called in and had them come out to check out the AC unit. The Technician told me that it was really a defective part and the total repair cost would be $ 175. Yeah, I said no problem. Save me a ton of money. You guys get 5 stars in my book. I don’t know what the other folks are smoking, but I’m enjoying my AC and $ 6G’s in savings.

Guess I should have read the Unilocal reviews before I even called them… it would have saved me some time.
I can’t review their service, other than that of the gal I spoke to on the phone, because I never got to use them.
I was calling around to different companies in order to set up appointments to get estimates on a brand new A/​C unit. According to their website, they serve «the Greater San Diego area», however when I told her I lived in Normal Heights she had to put me on Hold to check. When she comes back on the phone, she says «I’m sorry, we don’t serve that area». Really? That’s not what your website says.
They even have a place on their website to enter in your zip code and see if they service your area. Guess what the results were?
«Yes, we serve: San Diego 92 116″
Ok, so I thought maybe she misunderstood where I said I lived. So I asked again…“you don’t serve the San Diego area?».
Her response? «I’m just telling you what my service manager said», in a very snotty voice.
Ok, buh-​bye! Guess you won’t even be a consideration for getting my business!

I scheduled Cal-​West for a service call to check my air conditioner that was blowing air but not cold air. I suspected all it needed was a recharge. I decided on Cal-​West after shopping other companies and deciding to keep the business «local». After some scheduling miscues that were exacerbated by the hottest week in years, the owner of the operation actually made a very late visit to accommodate my day off from work. Lisa, the receptionist/​scheduler/​dispatcher? was cordial, courteous, understanding and accommodating to my circumstance and the owner went out of his way to accommodate me. I did not at all experience the rudeness mentioned in an earlier review. They restored my faith in local business doing «the right thing».

I had Cal-​West «repair» a central air conditioning unit in an apartment building that I own. The unit ran OK for a while but then the air flow dropped and the coolant line outside the house iced over. Minimum charge for showing up is $ 99. The technician arrived on time and diagnosed the problem as a crimped wire. The wire was replaced and a pound of refrigerant added. The technician was «on the job» for about two hours but most of the time was spent smoking and talking to his spouse or girlfriend on his cell phone. Total cost was $ 289. Two days later my tenant called and reported the same problems so the unit was not repaired. So I went to the apartment and checked the air filter and found it quite dirty. Now when the air flow is low one would think the first thing to check is the filter. So I paid $ 289 and did not even get the most basic item (air filter) checked and replaced. I am not sure yet that the unit is fully operational but I will know soon. One thing is for sure, my $ 289 did not fix the unit.

The gal that answers the phone is rude beyond anything I’ve every experienced before from a company that is supposed to provide «service» They certainly don’t have good customer service what so ever. My landlord called to have our air conditioner repaired by this company. The gentleman was running late which I completely understand and was okay with he was supposed to be to my house by noon. I got the call around 11 – 12 to let me know and was asked politely at this point if it was okay and I said no problem. The gal asks me if an adult will be home around 1−2pm and I said yes my mother and my husband would be home just for this service and I would have to leave for a few minutes to pick up my children from school. I get a call while I’m on my way to pick up my kids and bc I did not answer (no talking and driving– I don’t wear a head set) I received a message stating bc they could not verify an adult would be home, I would have to wait another WEEK… mind you, I already waited a week for the first appointment. So I call back as soon as I get to the school, a maximum of 5 minutes from the time I received the call/​message and the lady changed her tune and was EXTREMELY RUDE! I told her I can not wait another week and think it’s completely unprofessional to confirm with me at 11 – 12 and then use me not answering my phone for 5 minutes as an EXCUSE to push the service out an additional WEEK. Her tone and was nasty at this point and let me know that’s the way it was going to be and too bad bc I didn’t confirm at that very moment in time. I told her I would recommend my landlord find another air conditioning service provider and she said «Fine, go ahead» so we did, we went with another service provider who was fast and friendly and actually came out the very next day.
Places like this are a dime a dozen; do yourself a favor and go with someone that offers fast and FRIENDLY customer service.

A week in advance, I had scheduled an appointment (with Kristy) to have Gary show up at my home at 8AM to provide me with a quote for a new A/​C system. At 8:20, my fiancé called Kristy to inquire why Gary was late. In what seemed to us to be a rather «snarky» tone, we were told that the appoint time was for «between 8 and 9AM». I would never agree to an hour window for an A/​C person just to show up, so this was the first issue I have with Cal-​West. If you make an appointment, stick to it. Your «potential» clients are.
Next, Gary did call, at 8:50AM, and said that he would be at my home in 20 minutes. I informed him that I expected him 50 minutes ago (and that I needed to get this done so that I could go to work), and he proceeded to tell me that we should «just cancel» the appointment. I then said that I had already waited this long, and asked him to hurry up since I had already been waiting, and wanted to get the quote anyway. He then told me that the process would take 2 hours, so we should «just cancel». So in a 2 minute conversation, Gary has now told me twice that we should «just cancel» the appointment.
I’ve had 3 other quotes on putting A/​C into my home, and none of them lasted more than an hour (and that is with one company actually crawling into my attic to inspect my duct work).
I’ve never heard of a business turning clients away, especially in times/​economies like these, but it sure didn’t seem like Gary or Kristy wanted my business.
I would not recommend Cal-​West.